gov - Minister McHugh launches third call for School Excellence Fund

The Minister for Education and Skills, Joe McHugh TD, today reaffirmed his commitment to encouraging innovation and excellence in our education system by announcing a third call for inclusion in School Excellence Fund-DEIS which is worth approximately €550,000.

The School Excellence Fund is an initiative in the Programme for Government to encourage and recognize excellence and innovation in our schools. Under the initiative, schools are funded to work together to identify innovative solutions to issues which are context specific in order to establish the most effective means of addressing those issues. Phase 3 of SEF-DEIS will support participating clusters of schools to tackle educational disadvantage and improve learning outcomes for students.

Today’s announcement is another step in delivering on the Action Plan for Education 2019 commitment to advance the progress of learners at risk of educational disadvantage in order to support them to achieve their potential.

Minister McHugh said:

“We are committed to using education and training services to help break the cycle of disadvantage. 2019 marks the third year in a row of a major reinvestment in the education sector. We are using that record investment to work towards improving outcomes for young people and students, breaking cycles of disadvantage, supporting teachers and ensuring schools to continually improve."

“I am encouraged and inspired by the projects underway in the earlier phases of SEF-DEIS. There are some very novel approaches being taken in some really important areas and it is fantastic to see such creative solutions being applied to these complex problems. I look forward to seeing what we can learn from each and share more broadly across the school sector."

“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the teachers, school leaders, students, schools and the third-level institutions who came together to work on these really exciting projects. Leadership is the key to making this approach work and we are very lucky in Ireland to have excellent school leaders.”

Schools are now encouraged to submit applications for inclusion in the third phase of the SEF-DEIS by 27 September 2019. It is envisaged that 10 clusters comprising approximately 40 schools will be selected to participate in the programme by 01 November 2019. More information, including how to apply can be found here: https://www.education.ie/en/Schools-Colleges/Services/DEIS-Delivering-Equality-of-Opportunity-in-Schools-/school-excellence-fund/school-excellence-fund.html.

ENDS

Notes to the Editor:

The DEIS Plan 2017 sets out a vision for future intervention in the area of social inclusion in education policy and was launched in February of 2017.

The focus of the DEIS Plan 2017 is about being the best at using the potential of the education system to break down those cycles of disadvantage through improved education outcomes.

DEIS Plan 2017 is the outcome of a comprehensive review of the original DEIS programme, best international practice and extensive input and consultation with other government departments and agencies, education partners and other stakeholders including students.

There are 108 Actions set out in DEIS Plan 2017 across 5 key goals:

to implement more robust and responsive assessment framework for identification of schools and effective resource allocation
to improve the learning experience and outcomes of pupils in DEIS schools
to improve the capacity of school leaders and teachers to engage, plan and deploy resources to their best advantage
to support and foster best practice in schools through inter-agency collaboration
to support the work of schools by providing the research, information, evaluation and feedback to achieve the goals of the plan

In the 2018/19 school year there are 896 schools in the DEIS Programme serving over 183,000 pupils. The breakdown is as follows:

Primary Urban Band 1	232
Primary Urban Band 2	107
Primary Rural	359
Post Primary	198

The total department spend on DEIS is over €125million. Additional funding is provided from Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection for the School Meals Programme and from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs for the School Completion Programme.

Actions 22 to 25 of DEIS Plan 2017 provide for the creation of SEF-DEIS.

SEF-DEIS is specifically targeted at schools within the DEIS scheme. However consideration may be given to clusters of DEIS and non-DEIS schools where project proposals are primarily aimed at enhancing outcomes for the educationally disadvantaged learners. Applications from clusters which include early year’s settings and Youthreach Centres will also be welcomed. SEF-DEIS is designed to ensure that innovative approaches and proposals to tackle educational disadvantage are supported and rewarded.

The overarching aim of the initiative is to improve learning outcomes for young people. In order to achieve improved outcomes, schools in the SEF-DEIS will be challenged to promote innovation by adopting new evidence-based approaches to tackling under-performance in literacy and in the STEM subjects or in the Arts subjects.

Phase 1 of SEF-DEIS was launched on 13th November 2017. Ten clusters comprising 34 schools at pre-school, primary and post primary schools (DEIS and non-DEIS schools) are participating in the development of innovative solutions to tackle educational disadvantage and to improve learning outcomes for students. Inspectors from DES work closely with each cluster in a supportive and challenging role. See list below.

Phase 2 of SEF-DEIS was launched on 2nd April 2018. Ten clusters have been selected to participate in Tranche 2 of the SEF – DEIS. These schools have recently finalised their applications to participate in the programme and implementation of their projects has begun. See list below.

Schools involved in the first phase of the SEF-DEIS. These schools commenced work in the programme in early 2018.

Location of cluster	Number of schools in cluster	Theme proposed by cluster
Cluster One	Balbriggan	One post-primary, two primary	Improving outcomes for EAL students
Cluster Two	Dublin North Inner City	Three primary, four pre-schools	Improving oral language in pre-school and infant classes
Cluster Three	Inchicore	One post-primary, two primary	Improving students’ well-being through Arts
Cluster Four	Enniscorthy	One post-primary, two primary	Improving problem-solving an oral language skills
Cluster Five	Rathangan	One post-primary, two primary	Cross-sectoral approach to the development of mathematical skills
Cluster Six	Athlone	One post-primary, three primary	Cross-sectoral approach to Science teaching
Cluster Seven	Cork City	One post-primary, one primary	Wellbeing and learning; Promoting wellbeing through a focus on Physical, Emotional, Academic, Cognitive and physical health
Cluster Eight	Clonmel	One post-primary, one primary	Development of students’ computational thinking skills and integrating technology and coding into the primary school curriculum
Cluster Nine	Limerick City	One post-primary, two primary	Ensuring the attainment of higher ability students
Cluster Ten	Sligo West	One post-primary, two primary schools	Improving pupil transitions and parental involvement

Schools involved in second phase of SEF-DEIS. These schools have recently finalised their applications to participate in the programme and implementation of their projects has begun.

Location of cluster	Number of schools in cluster	Theme proposed by cluster
Cluster One	Roscommon Community College, Roscommon	One PP, One P	Transferring Critical thinking skills within the school community through active learning methodologies
Cluster Two	Scoil Réalt na Mara, Kilkee, Co. Clare	One PP, One P	Deepening students’ scientific enquiry skills through the use of local field studies and peer tutoring
Cluster Three	Scoil Phádraig Naofa, Tullow, Co. Carlow	Two P, One EY	Modular storytelling
Cluster Four	Loreto Senior NS Crumlin, Dublin 12	One JNS, One SNS, One PP, One Youth Project and an After schools projects	The Loreto Crumlin literacy project
Cluster Five	St Patrick’s SNS, Corduff, Dublin 15	One EY, One JNS, One SNS	Music making matters
Cluster Six	Errigal College, Letterkenny, Donegal	Two P, One PP	Promoting an awareness of STEM subjects at primary and post-primary level to increase the numbers studying these subjects as career options in Letterkenny
Cluster Seven	Scoil Naomh Eoin, Navan, Co Meath	Two P, Two EY	Communication champs
Cluster Eight	St Joseph’s NS Dundalk, Co. Louth	Two P, Three PP	Las an tSlí – Pathways to the possible
Cluster Nine	Kilmacthomas Primary School	3 P (including one Gaelscoil), 1 PP	Rian Glas – ag spraoi le sumaí
Cluster Ten	Dublin North East Inner City	One P, Three PP	Project-based learning for science and mathematics

Minister McHugh launches third call for School Excellence Fund – DEIS

Notes to the Editor:

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