Senior Cycle Redevelopment Partners’ Forum discuss updates to Senior Cycle Redevelopment

Today (4 October 2023) the Senior Cycle Redevelopment Partners’ Forum held its fourth meeting to discuss the implementation of Senior Cycle Redevelopment. The Minister for Education Norma Foley established the Senior Cycle Redevelopment Partners’ Forum in April 2023.

The purpose of the Partners’ Forum is to facilitate information exchange and to provide informed insights on the implementation of Senior Cycle Redevelopment. Membership consists of various education stakeholders including representative bodies for students, parents, and teachers.

On 20 September 2023, the Minister announced an acceleration to the programme for Senior Cycle Redevelopment. Nine new and revised subjects will be introduced nationally in 2025; two years earlier than planned. All new and revised subjects will incorporate additional assessment components, assessed by the State Examinations Commission and worth a minimum of 40 percent of the available marks.

Further tranches of subject revisions are to be introduced annually from 2025. At today’s meeting of the Forum, members were briefed in detail about these developments. They also received a briefing on work underway under the auspices of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to diversify student pathways beyond Leaving Certificate.

Earlier this month, the Partners’ Forum submitted their inaugural report to the Minister. In their report, the Forum outlined their response to reported progress to date, and implementation proposals. The Forum has emphasised the importance of building agreement among stakeholders on the purposes of a redeveloped senior cycle. The importance of communicating the vision, as well as the detail, of Senior Cycle Redevelopment with stakeholders was also emphasised.

The Forum will meet again in January 2024.

The Senior Cycle Redevelopment Partners’ Forum is a representative stakeholder engagement group to underpin the collaboration necessary to support implementation and, address and discuss issues pertaining to the implementation of the redevelopment of Senior Cycle as they evolve.

The core functions of the Partners’ Forum are to:

• facilitate information exchange on progress, implementation challenges and work streams in relation to the implementation of Senior Cycle Redevelopment; and
• provide informed insights into the implementation of the Senior Cycle Redevelopment programme

The Forum’s membership includes representatives of a wide range of stakeholders including students, parents, teachers, and school management, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS) and other relevant organisations.

The Chair of the Forum provide reports at least twice yearly to the Minister for Education on the work of the Forum which shall include setting out the views of its membership in regard to the implementation of the Senior Cycle Redevelopment programme of work. A report for June 2023 has been submitted.

Senior Cycle redevelopment progress to date

• subject background papers have been prepared, public consultations completed, and Subject *Development Groups have convened for the two new Leaving Certificate subjects Drama, Film and Theatre Studies, and Climate Action and Sustainable Development, and for revisions to the current Leaving Certificate subject of Business
• Subject Development Groups for the remaining subjects in the first tranche (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Arabic, Latin, and Ancient Greek) have reconvened
• Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA) students have had improved access to Leaving Certificate Established (LCE) Mathematics and Modern Foreign Languages since September 2022, broadening the options for LCA
• students in schools that offer the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP) are now able to access LCVP link modules without meeting subject specific criteria, or the modern European language requirements
• a Post-Primary Special Education Development Group has been established within the NCCA’s structures to develop follow-on Senior Cycle modules for students progressing from Level 1 and Level 2 Learning Programmes at Junior Cycle level
• a new and revised Transition Year Programme Statement has been drafted and is available for public consultation until 20 October 2023
• there has been significant engagement with education stakeholder groups, including representatives of students, teachers, parents, school leadership, management bodies, and subject experts
• oral examinations in language subjects have been held during the school Easter period
• the Minister established the Senior Cycle Redevelopment Programme Delivery Board, and the Senior Cycle Redevelopment Partners’ Forum
• a detailed paper on the Technical Form of Curriculum Specifications has been approved by the NCCA Council. The paper will provide a template for how the curriculum/specification in each revised subject is presented
• the Minister has asked the NCCA to present a schedule setting out the phases, or tranches, over which all subjects will be revised and be in schools annually beginning with Tranche 1 in September 2025