Development of a National
Literacy and Numeracy Policy
Bernadette Kiely
JCSP Support Service
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Background
International research has highlighted the
circumstances that regularly ‘ignite’ school
system reform:
• Economic crisis
• A major report -Pisa 2009
• New political leadership
(McKinsey 2010)
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
National Programme for
Government 2011
• Schools will be required to draw up 5 year development
plans for schools and teachers
• To position Ireland in top 10 performing countries in PISA
• Review of JC & LC –encourage greater innovation and
independent learning
• Every school will have a Literacy Action Plan
• Responsibility for achieving outcomes will rest with
principal
• CDP support for principals
• Pre-service training CPD for primary and post-primary
teachers
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Background
Recent reports:
• Reading Literacy in Disadvantaged Primary
Schools 2004
• Literacy and Numeracy in Disadvantaged SchoolsInspectorate 2005
• Looking at English 2006
• Incidental inspections Findings 2010
• NA 2009
• Pisa 2009
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Reading Literacy in Disadvantaged
Primary Schools
Eivers, Shiel and Shortt: Educational Research Centre 2004



6,500 pupils in 1st 3rd and
6th class
29% significantly
underachieving
Pupils whose parents
agreed that they liked
reading did better
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Recommendations
• Targets for Reading Literacy should be more realistic
• Stronger focus on Literacy in all schemes
• Designed to redress educational disadvantage. At least
90 minutes per day on English.
• School – wide focus on language and literacy
• Literacy Co-ordinators to support a Whole School
Approach
• Pre-Service Training / In-Career
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Literacy and numeracy in disadvantaged
School; Challenges for Teachers and
Learners 2005
During the evaluation it was evident that only a
few schools acknowledged the necessity of, and
gave considerable commitment
to, adapting their literacy and numeracy
programmes to maximise children’s potential.
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Recommendation
A more systematic, school-based planning process
is required to ensure continuity and progression
in children’s learning. Central to this process is
the establishment of specific priorities focused
on improvement in literacy and numeracy within
the context of a balanced child-centred
curriculum. Such priorities should be agreed at
whole-school level, and all staff members should
include them in their individual planning.
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Recommendation
• The DES publication Looking at Our School:
An Aid to Self-Evaluation in Primary Schools
should be utilised by school staffs in the
process of looking critically at their
schools.
P.33
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Recommendation
The success of teaching and learning
strategies requires the explicit
prioritisation of literacy and numeracy
education in which the most effective use
of available physical and human resources is
made. A culture of change for improvement
is required in order to enhance the quality
of children’s learning in a developmental
and meaningful way.
P. 35
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Looking at English, 2006
Synthesis of English Inspection Reports
75 post-primary schools
Jan 05 – May 06
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Provision of English - timetabling
Leaving Certificate
• 5 lessons per week
• Significant minority -6 per week
Junior Certificate – ‘considerably poorer’
• Majority 5 lessons pw in 3rd year
• 25% of schools -4 lesson pw in all 3 years
• 1st year worst - majority offered 4 pw
• 3 lessons pw in 1st year
• Worst offered 3 pw on 3 consecutive days
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Timetabling at Junior Cycle
• Not high enough priority
• Strongly focused on preparation for exam
• Focus on delivery of content, not on
development of skills
• Concurrent timetabling rare in first year
• Restricts movement between levels
• Restricts team teaching, whole-year
activities, inter-class activities
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Optimal situation for English
‘The optimal situation is for students to
have an English lesson on each of the five
days of the week, to enable them to
develop the necessary skills and
competences and to provide them with
regular reinforcement of these.’
(P.8)
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Area of weakness
A weakness was often found in otherwise
substantial plans in the area of planned
learning outcomes. References to aims
and objectives were frequently too
general to be of much practical use. In
other words, they lacked a focus on the
specific skills to be acquired by students
in each class or year group.
P.21
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Good Practice
• The school management is to be commended for
facilitating four or five formal meetings per year for
subject departments.
• The learning support team has structured meeting time
with the principal and deputy principal every week, and
close liaison between the learning support team and the
English department was evident.
• Minutes of English department meetings are kept, in
which decisions and plans are recorded. These meetings
promoted team building, collaborative planning and
decision making.
• Teachers are also facilitated to attend in-service and to
pursue further qualifications, for instance the postgraduate diploma in special educational needs.
P.16
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Good Practice
Good English departments showed the following
characteristics:
• a participative approach to planning for English
• the sharing of resources and of expertise, particularly in
teaching strategies
• the facilitation and promotion of good practice by an active
co-ordinator (or rotating co-ordinators)
• regular meetings, both formally scheduled and as issues
arise, with agendas and records of decisions taken
• effective systems of communication within the
department, with learning-support teachers, and with the
management
• the distribution of routine tasks, such as setting papers and
preparing resources to avoid the duplication of work
• an active approach to CPD
P.20 Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Good Practice
• There is a subject coordinator for English and the
English department meets on a regular basis. These
meetings occur both in time allocated by the
principal for department planning meetings and at
other times arranged by the department itself.
Minutes of these meetings are kept, particularly
decisions relating to common plans for the term.
These arrangements speak to a high level of
dedication on the part of teachers and the existence
of a collaborative culture within the English
department.
P.27
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Good Practice
In a recent development, all subject
departments have devised glossaries
giving the meanings and applications of
subject-specific terms to assist learningsupport and resource teachers in their
work with students.
P.29
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Incidental Inspection Findings 2010
• Unannounced
inspections
• 450 primary schools
• October 09 –10
• 800 English lessons
• 500 Maths lessons
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Findings - English
•
•
•
•
Concern re appropriate teaching approaches
Oral Language
Collaborative/co-operative learning
Planning practices strongly linked to pupil
learning outcomes
• Assessment practices also strongly linked
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Findings - Maths
• Inadequate opportunities to learn through talk
and discussion (18%)
• Concern in the context of skill development, and
specifically the development of problem-solving
skills that pupils in less than half (48.4%) of the
lessons observed were enabled to work
collaboratively
• Concern re use of resources
• Concern re assessment practices
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Findings – Literacy and Numeracy
Consideration needs to be given to prioritising
aspects of the teaching of literacy and numeracy
– and especially the use of assessment to
improve learning – in the provision of
continuous professional development for
teachers and principals. These are important
school improvement issues that need to be
addressed in all schools. P. 22
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Assessment Primary
NA 2009
Assessment Post-Primary
Pisa 2009
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
NA 2009
• National Assessments have been carried out
periodically since 1972
• NA 2009 saw two major changes:
– Same pupils assessed for both domains
– A shift in target grades (to 2nd and 6th classes)
• No improvement in literacy or numeracy
Junior
Certificate
School
25
Programme
Findings
There was limited use of:
• documented observations,
• of strategies that enable planning of instruction related to pupils’
learning needs e.g. teacher-made checklists,
• of pupil-centred strategies (e.g., portfolio assessment),
• of reflective journals,
• of pupil-self assessment.
WSE reports also highlight some shortcomings in these areas,
noting that assessment for learning strategies are not used in all
classrooms, and suggesting that the information derived from
such assessments could contribute usefully to teacher planning.
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Recommendations
Each school should have a CPD plan that
identifies key school- and individual-level CPD
needs.
Those identified needs should be the criteria
on which participation in CPD is based.
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Recommendations
Strong leadership, collaborative wholeschool planning and collaborative teaching
(with additional support incorporated into
classroom teaching and a consistency of
approach across classrooms), sharing of
good practice, and using aggregated
assessment data are a few of the factors
most commonly reported as features of
effective schools.
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
PISA 2009: The performance
and progress of 15-year-olds
in Ireland
Educational Research Centre
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Overview of PISA
• Programme for International Student Assessment
– Project of OECD
• International survey of achievement of 15-year-old
students
• Reading literacy, mathematical literacy, scientific literacy
• Three-yearly cycles
– 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009
• In 2009, 65 countries/economies participated in PISA
– 34 OECD member/candidate countries and 31 ‘partner’ countries
• In Ireland, 144 schools and 3,937 students participated in
PISA 2009
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Reading
•Selected countries above OECD average
– Shanghai-China, Korea, Finland, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, Japan
•Selected countries at OECD average
– United States, Sweden, Germany, Ireland,
France, United Kingdom
•Selected countries below OECD average
– Austria, Spain, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy,
Luxembourg
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Mathematics
• Selected countries above OECD average
– Shanghai-China, Singapore, Hong KongChina, Korea, Finland, Japan, Canada,
Netherlands, New Zealand, Belgium,
Australia, Germany
• Selected countries at OECD average
– Norway, France, Austria, Poland, Sweden,
Czech Republic, United Kingdom
• Selected countries below OECD average
– Luxembourg, United States, Ireland, Spain,
Italy, Greece, Israel
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Characteristics associated with higher
levels of reading achievement
• Higher levels of student and school Economic,
Social and Cultural Status
•
•
•
•
•
•
Home educational resources
Cultural possessions
Material possessions
Parental occupation
Educational level of parents
Number of books in the home
• Higher levels of parental interaction
• More positive student-teacher relations
• Better disciplinary climate
• Higher perceived relevance of schooling
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Characteristics associated with higher
levels of reading achievement
• Students in Transition Year achieved significantly
higher reading and science scores than students
in all other grade levels
•Not significantly different to Fifth Years in
mathematics
• Students attending girls secondary schools
achieved significantly higher reading scores than
students in all other school types
• Students attending schools with lower levels of
negative student behaviour
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Characteristics associated with lower
levels of reading achievement
• Students belonging to lone-parent families
• First generation migrant students
– Native students and second generation migrant
students do not have significantly different mean
reading scores
• Migrant students who don’t speak English/Irish
• Students who spend more than 8 hours a week
during term time in paid work
• Students attending DEIS schools
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Factors that Could have Contributed to
Changes in Performance in Ireland
•Changes in the school-going population
•Curriculum changes
•Random fluctuations
•Linking and scaling methodology used in
PISA
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
• PISA results suggest that 17% of Irish
fifteen year-olds – and as many as one in
four teenage boys – lack the literacy skills
necessary to function in today’s
knowledge-intensive society
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Better Literacy & Numeracy
•Consultation document
•A draft plan, invited submissions
•Good is no longer good enough
•480+ responses, all will be
published
•Meetings with external groups
completed
•Positive suggestions incorporated
•Launch early summer
•Different title
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
In post-primary schools, the development of
literacy and numeracy skills is not just the
responsibility of teachers of English, Irish
and mathematics: teachers of all post
primary subjects have an important role to
play in developing and consolidating the
student’s ability to use literacy and
numeracy.
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Actions to support principals in leading
improvement in literacy and numeracy
• Support principals in implementing robust
school self-evaluation, focussing in particular on
improvements in literacy and numeracy
• Provide leadership development programmes
for aspiring principals
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Focus the provision of Department-supported CPD
for teachers on the teaching of literacy and
numeracy and the use of assessment
• Twenty hours of CPD in literacy, numeracy and
assessment every five years for primary
teachers and teachers of L1 (English/Irish) at
second level
• Professional development units on literacy and
numeracy across the curriculum for second-level
teachers
• Support - online, video, resources
• Team of 20 advisors on literacy and numeracy for
primary and post- primary
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Actions to improve literacy and
numeracy in post-primary schools
• Continue the development and roll-out of
Project Maths
• Prioritise the revision of the English syllabus and
the Junior Certificate English examination
• Prioritise the development of literacy and
numeracy across all subject areas and areas of
learning in the revised junior cycle curriculum
• Continue to support enhanced literacy,
numeracy and language development in DEIS
schools
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Actions to improve literacy and numeracy
achievement in schools serving
disadvantaged communities
• Supports for target setting will be
reviewed and strengthened to identify and
enhance best practice in planning and
target setting
• Develop and implement an oral language
development programme in pre-schools
that are linked to DEIS primary schools
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Assessment
• Better assessment evidence at primary
• Transfer of information at transition - report
card
• Assessment at post primary level – development
of tests
• Develop national standards of student
achievement for literacy and numeracy at five
stages (infant classes, junior primary, middle
primary, senior primary, lower secondary) and at
various proficiency levels
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme
Summary
• Need for renewed focus on literacy and
numeracy
• More focused target setting
• Use of assessment data
• Systematic planning meetings- minutes etc
• Regular & well structured communication
between members of departments
• Collaborative planning & teaching
Junior
Certificate
School
Programme