The Junior Cycle and Short courses
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Transcript of The Junior Cycle and Short courses
Portmarnock Community School
Link-school for the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA)
Addressing some of the issues with Junior Cycle reform since May 2012
From your Primary-school
“From 2014, the new junior cycle will feature newly developed subjects and short courses, a focus on literacy, numeracy and key skills, and new approaches of assessment and reporting”.
Department of Education and Skills
...put a lot of focus internally with teachers on the eight Junior Cycle Key Skills
...developing many of these in our existing teaching
Strengths...
Centrality of Literacy and Numeracy
We have done a lot of work in PCS on developing and implementing our literacy and numeracy policies
Strengths...
First-year 2014/2015 will see every secondary-school student in the Republic of Ireland undertaking a new English Syllabus with a new form of Junior Cycle Assessment in 2017
Junior Cycle English
Set texts – can be viewed at www.juniorcycle.ie
Based on the Key Skills Oral examination at the end of Second-year Portfolio presentation at the end of Third-
year JCSA (Junior Cycle Student Award)
examination in June of Third-year Teachers CPD is ongoing
Schools have the option to offer short-courses
This year we are offering two in one of our option blocks – student must do both
1. Programming and Coding2. Sports Science
Short courses
The course aims to develop the student’s ability to formulate problems logically, to design, write and test code, to develop
games, apps, animation and websites, and through these learning activities, to learn
about computer science.
Programming and Coding
students should be able to explain the basics of computer networks
Produce four webpages using HTML and CSS Explain how search engines work Demonstrate their understanding of binary
code Describe how data is communicated on the
Internet using protocols Investigate the representation of images on
computers
Programming and Coding
Mr. McNeive
Sports Science
all of the marks awarded will be for school work the evidence of learning will be generated according
to the (NCCA) short course specification and will relate directly to the aims and learning outcomes of the short course
there may be more than one assessment component involved – a mix of process and product elements
the component/s will be marked in the school and will include internal moderation to maintain standards
the grade awarded will be included on a JCSA (Junior Cycle Student Award) in 2017
NCCA pointers
Two periods per week, each
Over three years
Certification at the end of 3rd Year
Continuous Assessment – Common level
Assessment focus in Second and Third Year
In an option block that each of the other three subjects can be taken in 4th/ 5th Year
Organisation
48 students – a “draw from the hat” if oversubscribed (Unsuccessful students will be offered their second choice)
Open to all abilities
Open to all skill-sets
Organisation