Teachers to vote on junior cycle co-operation

In spite of the Department of Education’s decision to extend the timeframe for adding subjects to the new junior cycle, teachers are to be balloted for non-co-operation as they say many of their concerns have still not been addressed.

Yesterday, at a working group with unions, school managers, and parents’ bodies, department officials confirmed they were slowing the completion of the roll-out from 2020 to 2022.

nThey confirmed that, in English, the first subject to be introduced in September, there will be minimal curriculum changes in 2014-15 and that formal school-based assessment will not be required until students reach the end of second year in the summer of 2016;

nIn Sept 2015, the revised science curriculum will be introduced for first years. In Sept 2016, it will be the turn of business studies and Irish;

-Spring 2017, will see the start of standardised testing in first language (English and Irish) and maths for second year students;

-In Sept 2017, there will be revised curriculums in two (rather than four) further subjects — art, craft, and design and modern languages;

-Standardised testing in science will be introduced in 2018 for second-year students and in 2018-19 there will be revised curriculums in home economics, music, maths, and geography;

-Finally, in 2019-20, there will be revised curriculums in history, technologies, Jewish studies, religious education, and classics.

Furthermore, the department said the number of days of training given to teachers on the new curriculum over the next three years will be increased from three to four and a half for English and four for other subjects.

In response to a request from school managers, the department also confirmed that it would give over one day per school year to “whole-school in-service” until the junior cycle is fully introduced in 2022.

While school managers welcomed the provision of a planning day for each year of the transition, and Education and Training Boards Ireland welcomed the additional continuous professional development for teachers, the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland and the Teachers’ Union of Ireland said the meeting “did not involve genuine engagement on the issues of most concern to second- level teachers”.

TUI general secretary John MacGabhann said: “With less than nine months left before implementation is scheduled to commence, today was set as a deadline for the Department of Education and Skills to provide concrete information that could be objectively considered by the unions. Regrettably, key questions on standards, capacity and equity which we have repeatedly posed were not satisfactorily answered and the level of detail required on a number of crucial matters was not provided.”

The TUI has already confirmed that it will be balloting for non-cooperation with the implementation of the proposed changes. The ASTI will meet in the coming days to decide if it will carry out a ballot.