Name of Student: Lorcan Gibney

Article/Reading: Junior Cycle reforms

1. CONCISE SUMMARY OF READING

On 4th October 2012 then Minister for Education and Skills Ruarí Quinn
announced a radical shake up of the Junior Certificate which will see students
at the centre of the new approach, rather than examinations. Many
education experts described it as the biggest shake up in the Irish education
system since the discontinuation of the Intermediate Certificate. The reforms
were recommended by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment,
who recommended that the new Junior Cycle focus on developing eight key
skills: being literate, managing myself, staying well, managing information &
thinking, being numerate, being creative, working with others, and
communicating while following the key principles of Learning to learn, choice
and flexibility, Quality, Creativity and Innovation, Engagement and
Participation, Continuity and Development, Inclusive Education and
Wellbeing. Upon releasing the Framework for Junior Cycle (2015) the Minister
for Education and skills Jan O’Sullivan stated that it would set out a clear vision
of how teaching, learning and assessment practices will evolve in the first
three years of post-primary education to ensure a learning experience for our
young people that is appropriate to the needs of the 21st century

The Framework for Junior Cycle (2015) gives schools greater flexibility to design
programmes that are suited to the needs of their junior cycle students and to
the context of the school. Each school’s programme:
 will be guided by the twenty-four statements of learning, eight principles
and eight key skills that are at the core of the new Junior Cycle
 will encompass learning in subjects or a combination of subjects and short
courses
 will include an area of learning entitled Wellbeing
 will provide a range of other learning experiences
 may include priority learning units (PLUs) that will help to provide a junior
cycle programme that is appropriate to the needs of students with
significant special educational needs.
Schools will have the flexibility and discretion to decide what combination of
subjects, short courses or other learning experiences will be provided in their
three-year junior cycle programme.

The Framework for Junior Cycle (2015) outlines the curriculum and assessment
arrangements that will provide students with learning opportunities that
achieve a balance between learning subject knowledge and developing a
wide range of skills and thinking abilities. These curriculum and assessment
arrangements will promote a focus on active and collaborative learning.
Learners will be enabled to use and analyse information in new and creative
ways, to investigate issues, to explore, to think for themselves, to be creative in
solving problems and to apply their learning to new challenges and situations.

The new Junior Cycle also introduces a dual approach to assessment that will
support the students learning over the three-year period compared to
focusing solely on an end of year externally assessed exam and instead
increases the prominence given to classroom-based assessment and
formative assessment. This change of emphasis arises from an
acknowledgement that students learn best when teachers provide feedback
that helps students to understand how their learning can be improved. In the
case of each subject, two structured Classroom-Based Assessments will be
introduced which will contribute to and build on the use of formative
assessment in the classroom. One of these Classroom-Based Assessments will
take place in second year, and the other during third year

2. CRITICAL REFLECTION
Upon a detailed reading of the Junior Cycle reforms using the Framework
for Junior Cycle published by the Department of Education & Skills in
association with the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (2015).
I’m very strong in favour of the new junior cycle reforms as it will lessen the
burden and stress for students sitting an exam to regurgitate knowledge
gathered over a three-year period in three hours, it also solves the problem
of students being in limbo for second year. Many teachers will agree that
during the old Junior cycle it could be hard to keep students motivated for
second year. The fact that the new junior cycle will have assessments
throughout the three years I feel helps alleviates this. Pressure for reform
started some years back, as crucial research was made available by the
Economic and Social Research Institute on the experiences of students in
secondary schooling. It was carried out as part of the institute’s longitudinal
study of 900 students in 12 carefully selected schools.
It confirmed that by second year, two distinct groups of students are
forming. The first is more highly engaged in school work – it is
disproportionately made up of females from middle-class professional
backgrounds and those in mixed-ability or higher-stream classes. The
second group is drifting or even actively disengaging from schoolwork. It is
largely made up of male students from working-class backgrounds and
those in lower-stream classes. The differentiation has an impact on
achievement in third year. (Milling, 2017)

The current system is not serving young people very well, says Majella
Dempsey, a lecturer in education at Maynooth University and a specialist
on developing young people’s key skills. “In the new junior cycle
curriculum, there is a move towards focusing on learning outcomes and
embedding the development of key skills such as teamwork, creativity and
managing information into subjects. (McGuire, 2016). The key skills are new
aspect to the Junior Cycle which I feel is great addition. Not only will
students be benefiting from learning in a variety of new way put they will
also be taking in new skills, some of which they won’t even realise they are
doing at the time. For example, the students would be improving there
working with others and communication skills if the teacher engages them
in some group projects etc. Students engaged in group work, or
cooperative learning, show increased individual achievement compared
to students working alone. For example, in their meta-analysis examining
over 168 studies of undergraduate students, Johnson et al. (2014)
determined that students learning in a collaborative situation had greater
knowledge acquisition, retention of material, and higher-order problem
solving and reasoning abilities than students working alone. There are
several reasons for this difference. Students’ interactions and discussions
with others allow the group to construct new knowledge, place it within a
conceptual framework of existing knowledge, and then refine and assess
what they know and do not know. (Johnson et al., 2014)

Chief executive of the NCCA, Anne Looney states that due to the reforms
at Junior Cycle “students will have had a much wider range of learning
experiences in school, more use of technology, lots of different kinds of
assessment and not just written exams, even though they will have covered
fewer subjects for assessment purposes” it’s quite obvious just from this
statement the benefits the students should be gaining from the new
reforms, the same amount of learning but through a wider range of
experiences but sitting less subjects. (Murray, 2013) Back in 2015 when the
new Junior Cycle reforms were at an early stage one principal, for
example, who organised an independent, externally facilitated appraisal
of this approach, reports that teachers involved are identifying numerous
benefits. These include: greater engagement by all students, including
those previously disengaged, greater inclusion of children with learning
challenges, greater equity, deeper learning and teacher invigoration.

3. LIST OF REFERENCES

 Milling, F. (2017). Opinion: Junior cycle reforms are a badly needed

corrective. The Irish Times. [online] Available at:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/opinion-junior-cycle-reforms-are-
a-badly-needed-corrective-1.2928086 [Accessed 2 Nov. 2017].
 McGuire, P. (2016). Where now for junior cycle reform? The Irish Times.
[online] Available at:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/where-now-for-junior-
cycle-reform-1.2539986 [Accessed 2 Nov. 2017].
 Murray, N. (2013). Junior Cert replacement of ‘huge benefit’ to
pupils. The Irish Examiner. [online] Available at:
 http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/junior-cert-replacement-of-
huge-benefit-to-pupils-243286.html [Accessed 2 Nov. 2017].
 Salmon, E. (2015). Junior Cert reform is vital - and some of us have
already seen the benefits. The Irish Independent. [online] Available
at: https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/junior-cert-
reform-is-vital-and-some-of-us-have-already-seen-the-benefits-
30930357.html [Accessed 2 Nov. 2017].
 Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (2014).
Cooperative learning: Improving university instruction by
basing practice on validated theory. Journal on Excellence
in University Teaching, 25(4), 1-26.