Guidance in the Junior Cycle
Student Award
Institute of Guidance Counsellors
AGM Workshop
22nd March 2014
Mark Fennell
Place of Guidance in Junior Cycle
Whose responsibility?
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What does guidance mean?
Who delivers guidance?
What is the role of the Guidance
Counsellor?
What other pastoral structures are
involved?
What is the role of the Guidance / Care
team?
Do key skills mediate aims that are central
to guidance?
The Meaning of Guidance in JCSA
Themes
JCSA roll out from Autumn 2014
Capacity
Building
• 1-2 years
• Bridge
Knowledge
gap
Transition
Embedding
• 6 years
• Balance tips
by 2017
• 3 years +
• Transformed
learning
practice &
culture of AFL
Mark Fennell 2014
Key Changes in JCSA
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8-10 ‘examined’ subjects (0-4 short courses)
60% exam & 40% Schoolwork component
Other learning experiences (including guidance)
New subject specifications
24 statements of learning (focus on outcomes)
8 Key skills (including literacy & numeracy)
Breadth  Depth and more higher order thinking
Greater choice at school level on provision
Assessment for learning in a balanced pedagogy
Mark Fennell 2014
The deeper meaning of
JCSA reform
Wider pupil
outcomes
and key
‘skills’
determine
curriculum
design and
delivery
Assessment
for and as
learning
embed key
skills in
teaching
and
learning
Mark Fennell 2014
Reframe
how
summative
assessment
relates to
learning
and
teaching
6
A Framework for Junior Cycle:
‘Other educational experiences…’
In particular, schools will continue to make provision for
guidance for students. This will relate to the provision of a
range of learning experiences in a developmental sequence
that will assist students to acquire self-management skills so
as to make effective choices and decisions about their lives.
Provision for guidance will also continue to encompass the
three separate but interrelated areas of personal and social
development, educational guidance and career guidance.
Framework principles such as Continuity and Learning to
Learn, key skills such as Managing myself and a number of
the statements of learning, especially those linked to making
decisions, will be useful in informing guidance provision. In
accordance with current policy, schools will continue to have
flexibility in deciding how they will make provision for
guidance
(P16)
Situating guidance within the
JCSA…where???
o
o
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o
o
Other learning experiences explicitly focused on
guidance or guidance related themes?
Short course(s)?
Supporting subject choice within new
programme?
Curriculum focus on ‘well being’ (SPHE, RE…)?
School wide commitment to guidance related
goals across the curriculum?
Key skills and selected learning outcomes?
Guidance and diagnostic testing?
Continuity with primary / senior cycle?
Selected Statements of Learning
closely linked to ‘Guidance’
(5) Has an awareness of personal values and an
understanding of the process of moral decision making
(6) Appreciates and respects how diverse values, beliefs and
traditions have contributed to the communities and culture in
which she/he lives
(7) Values what it means to be an active citizen, with rights
and responsibilities in local and wider contexts
(11) Takes action to safeguard and promote her/his wellbeing
and that of others
Mark Fennell 2014
Core cross cutting aims in JCSA:
Self-efficacy / Well being:
- sense of being safe
- awareness of own competence
- confidence
- resilience
- social skill
- communicative confidence
- affirmation of own identity
- disposition to learn
- capacity to seek help when needed
Key Skills and Assessment for Learning:
Making Learning Explicit…
Key Skills:
Learner outcomes
 Managing myself
 Staying well
 Communicating
 Being creative
 Working with others
 Managing information
and thinking
 Literacy
 Numeracy
Assessment for Learning:
Classroom interaction
 Learning aims
 Success criteria
 Formative feedback
 Questioning for
dialogue and higher
order thinking
 Self evaluation
 Peer evaluation
 Cooperative learning
Mark Fennell 2014
Making it Happen:
Model of Classroom Learning…
Junior Cycle Student
Award
Junior Certificate
Active (Inquiry driven and
deeply thoughtful)
Passive (Teacher driven
and overly receptive of prepackaged content)
Related to prior knowledge,
wider curriculum and life
experience
Discrete units of learning
and impersonal ‘school
based’ understanding alone
Social / dialogic cooperative learning and
expanded, increasingly
higher order literacies
Solitary, teacher voice
predominant and
competitive environment
quells pupil voice
Self regulative (Learning
How To Learn – emergent
transferable research skills)
Dependent / compliant with
methods of organisation
dictated to pupil only
Participative
Acquisitive
Learning v Performance
Orientation  Self-Efficacy
Learning Orientation
Performance Orientation
A dimension of learning which we all have as learners
Believe that effort causes success
Believe that ability causes success
Believe in ability to improve and
learn; ability is not fixed
Concerned to be seen as able and
to perform well in others eyes
Prefer challenging tasks whose
outcome reflects our approach
Seek satisfaction from doing better
than others
Get satisfaction from personallydefined success at difficult tasks
We emphasis competition, public
evaluation
Talk to ourselves; when engaged in
a task we talk ourselves through
When a task is difficult we display
helplessness; ‘I can’t do it’
A concern for improving one’s
competence
A concern for proving one’s
competence
Chris Watkins
Mark Fennell 2014
Summary
Key Skills and Learning Outcomes
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Formation of a resilient and resourceful
learning disposition
Understanding thinking and learning as
cognitive and affective activities
Seeks to connect school based learning to
wider personal and social experience
Is concerned with ethical and civic values
Sees such learning as embedded across
subject domains
Guidance and Key Skills…
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Will key skills be taken seriously?
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What can Guidance Counsellors do to
help colleagues do so?
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Can key skills mediate ‘guidance values’
in junior cycle (Where? How? Who?)
Structures and Roles
How will guidance be influential
within Junior Cycle?
Five implications for Guidance
across curriculum
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Use of key skills as intentional learning aims to promote
self-efficacy (including LHTL)
‘Well being’ focus across the curriculum (including SPHE,
CSPE or equivalent, RE and PE)…(’intentionality’ – 240 hrs)
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Role of Learning Outcomes in assessment criteria (5,6, 7 &
11)
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Function of Guidance planning / care team as influence
upon curriculum planning, delivery and evaluation
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Advocacy and ‘voice’ of Guidance Counsellor
Subject
Teachers
ISM / YH /
Pastoral
roles
Guidance
Team
Guidance
Counsellor
Guidance themed module as a
Short Course?
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NCCA guidelines and template for short
course design on website
(http://www.juniorcycle.ie/Planning/Short-Course-Development.aspx
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Structured around key skills and learning
outcomes
NCCA will develop 8 short courses:
Chinese language and
culture
Programming and Coding
CSPE (from 2015)
PE
SPHE
Digital media Literacy
Artistic Performance
Personal project for caring
for animals
Mark Fennell 2014
Guidance Counsellor in
Organisational Structure & Culture
of School?
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Definition of what guidance means for you
in junior cycle
Re-orientation of Guidance planning
Formulating and putting guidance aims on
the agenda for planning and discussion
Relationship and perceived role / status of
Guidance Counsellor to wider staff and
school management
‘Solo player’ model of GC
The Challenge
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Guidance values are potentially embedded
across the curriculum though the key skills
Can we establish a closer connection between
pastoral care (e.g. anti-bullying, inclusion,
guidance per se…), pastoral specific subjects
(SPHE, RE…) and the wider curriculum?
What forum would enable and lead the
conversation that is needed to make ‘guidance’
developmental aims intentional, conspicuous and
valued?
Dr Mark Fennell
Educational Consultant & Facilitator
Mobile:
087-967-8832
Email:
markfennell@eircom.net
Mark Fennell 2014
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