Towards a Better Future

Towards a Better Future: A Review of the Irish School System
innovation, and on teachers and school leaders as the agents of any change process’. The framework
included curriculum and assessment change and proposed a balance between school-led change
and system-wide change ‘that will deliver a new Junior Cycle and a real difference in the learning
experience of young people at this stage of their education’. What students would learn was described
in 24 ‘statements of learning’ and eight key skills, including literacy and numeracy. The statements
of learning are broad generic statements – similar to the generic statements of the various levels of
the European Qualifications Framework. They provide a basis from which learning outcomes for
subject syllabi can be derived.
As well as providing the traditional Junior Cycle subjects, the framework allows for short courses,
some developed by the NCCA and some developed locally by schools. The NCCA would continue
to provide specifications (outline syllabi) for each subject but these specifications would be less
detailed than before and teachers would be expected ‘to ensure deeper learning, to focus on key skills
and to monitor student progress’. Assessment would be a combination of external assessment by the
State Examinations Commission (SEC) and internal assessment by the school (NCCA, 2011).
A year later, Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn launched the new framework for Junior Cycle.
Under the framework proposed in 2012, a proportion of the marks for each subject were to be
awarded for school-based components such as oral examinations, lab work, essays, or e-portfolios.
Schools would be encouraged to develop short courses according to local needs and interests. The
SEC would initially retain responsibility for setting and marking the final assessment for English,
Mathematics and Irish. For all other subjects the SEC would provide assessment papers to be
supervised and marked by teachers. The NCCA would provide support to schools in the form of
assessment and moderation toolkits, syllabus specifications and exemplars of the standards expected.
The new Junior Cycle curriculum would be phased in over a period of six years (DES, 2012).
This proposal was not acceptable to the teacher unions and, following discussion and negotiations,
in May 2015 Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan brokered a compromise agreement with the
leaders of the teacher unions (TUI, ASTI et al., 2015). Following this agreement, a revised/new
Framework for Junior Cycle (2015) was published by the Department of Education (DES, 2015). This
framework reiterates the vision of the 2012 framework but makes significant concessions on
assessment. Under this framework, the new Junior Cycle would be implemented in four phases –
in September 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 (the revised specification for English had been introduced
in 2014). Students can study between eight and ten subjects (from a list of twenty) as well as some
short courses.
As regards assessment, the framework presents ‘a dual approach to assessment that supports student
learning over the three years of Junior Cycle and also measures achievement at the end of those three
years’. Two structured Classroom-Based Assessments (CBAs) will be introduced – one in Second Year
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