Teachers consider new proposals on Junior Cert

Teacher unions held marathon meetings late into last night as they considered proposals for a revised Junior Certificate cycle.

The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) standing committee and Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) executive committee met jointly all day before splitting for separate discussions on proposals drawn up by Pauric Travers before teatime.

After two strikes by 27,000 members in December and January, the proposals from Dr Travers a fortnight ago offered further compromise, stating that the two pieces of coursework to be marked by students’ own teachers would not be State-certified.

Following further clarifications over the past week, a number of other concessions were added, including a light-touch version of the proposed system to keep a check on standards of the school-based assessments.

Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan said that she was willing to accept the plan if the unions did so.

“I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by having further strikes,” she said earlier yesterday.

“I think that the proposals do allows us to move forward and to modernise the junior cycle curriculum which for a very long time has been very much in need of modernising to be fair to all the students in that cycle.”

Under Dr Travers’ proposals, in return for unions suspending industrial action, Ms O’Sullivan was to postpone until September 2016 the introduction of science as the second subject to be marked under revised assessment methods.

There were also to be further detailed discussions on the resources needed by schools to properly implement the changes, and a Department of Education review of how standardised testing of second-level students is phased in.

The plan deliberated yesterday is significantly different from that under discussion when ASTI and TUI members voted for industrial action last year. At that stage, previous minister Ruairi Quinn’s plan that written exams would also be corrected in schools instead of by the SEC was still on the table, along with the idea that none of the assessment at any stage of junior cycle would be State-certified.

Ms O’Sullivan agreed to retain SEC marking of final exams last November, and proposed that the entire assessement keep State certification.

Dr Travers’ proposal sought to remove the main focus of teacher opposition, as union members had been balloted on the principle of marking their own students for any State-certified assessment.

Since last April, second-level teachers have been directed by the unions not to co-operate with training, in-school meetings or other work associated with the reform plans. However, a revised English curriculum has been taught since last September to current first-year students, who are set to be the first examined under the new assessment system from the next school year.

Significant changes to Travers reform plan

Niall Murray

Following further clarifications sought by unions nine days ago, the document discussed by their executives yesterday includes further concessions to teachers’ concerns about the assessment process and other reform proposals.

Pauric Travers’ six-page junior cycle reform plan issued a fortnight ago to both sides included a number of further compromises, going beyond Ms O’Sullivan’s offer in November to continue having final written exams marked externally by the State Examinations Commission.

He still proposed teachers mark their own students for two pieces of coursework, worth 40% of marks in each subject, in second and third years. But unlike Ms O’Sullivan’s compromise before Christmas, that work would not be State-certified.

Instead, the results would be reported directly by the school, along with achievement on a new system of optional short courses and any extra-curricular activities by a student. The combination of those SEC-assessed exam results and achievements reported through schools would be compiled in a proposed Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement.

Key among the revisions made over the past week is the dropping of a proposed independent process of externally verifying 15% of school-based assessment of students’ work by their teachers, in each subject.

The establishment of an independent assessment support service is still contained in the final proposals, its work being to sample work assessed by teachers in each school, and to advise if the work is in line with national standards.

While its role would be to reassure schools, teachers, parents and students that national standards are being applied equitably across all schools and students, its role is significantly lighter-touch than previously proposed.

A facility for school-level appeals of assessment outcomes has also been dropped.

Furthermore, a stipulation has been added clarifying that review meetings among teachers of each subject, which were already planned, would take place within their time-tabled hours. In the case of a lone teacher of a subject, such meetings can be attended at a nearby school.

Other elements of the revised Travers proposal include:

• final written exams of up to two hours, previously to have been 1.5-hour norm
• school-based assessments firmly fixed at maximum two per subject,
• home economics added to art and technology subjects, as those in which State-certified assessment can include short written or practical exam, submission of a project or artefact, or both
• time for new a Wellbeing curriculum area — incorporating PE, social & personal education, and civic & political education — increased from 300 to 400 hours over three years of junior cycle
• a Department of Education review of phasing in of standardised testing of second-years in English, maths and science 
• possible provisional reporting of school assessment results to students and parents, after that assessment work is completed, has been dropped.