Do you think there is much wrong with the current Junior Cert

maynooth_rules

Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion to have, but at the ridiculous JCT in services it has been rammed down my throat that everything is wrong with the current JC.
I'm a History teacher and i think there is very little that needs to be changed. Id like to see some element of the course done in second year, perhaps 20% of the overall grade on a project in that year.
From teaching the new Junior Cert English course last year it really seems like they want to take a sledgehammer to the JC in the belief that it might motivate weaker students. I may be alone but Im terrified about what they will do to the subject I love teaching.

The_Valeyard

No. You are pretty on the ball there.

New JC is a complete joke.

judeboy101

In fairness, there was nothing wrong with the inter/group cert. Making kids stay in school til LC is a disastrous policy. The fixation on 3rd level has gutted our trades and made our economy depend on cheap eastern european workforces.

spurious

If they had implemented it fully, as intended in 1992, with an externally assessed project/practical/oral element in every subject, it would have been almost perfect.

mirrorwall14

The junior cert music in its current form is honestly awful. Multiple sets of pieces where material needs to literally be learnt off for the exam instead of skill building. However the syllabus itself was reasonable, it is the exam paper structure that was the icing on the cake so to speak.

Q1 learn off 6, 3 will appear
Q2 learn off 3, 1 will appear
Q3 Learn off the history of Irish Music for the essay question
Q4 dictation. No learning off for this but incredibly summative assessment with little opportunity to show off the development of skills required. Hated by a majority of JC students and personally I found it impossible until LC
Q5 Learn off 14 pieces, composers and features. One will appear. To be fair the rest of this does test aural skills but in context so tough for the lower ability students and generally poorly answered
Q6-8 application of composition. Rigid but fine and approachable by students.
Q9 optional replacement for 6-8. Rarely done as incredibly broad
Q10 learn off a general study (project) and literally write it out for 20 marks

However, despite this, I remain to be convinced that the new Junior Cycle music is in anyway more appropriate. How can a specification be so vague that it doesn't even mention treble and bass clef? This one is. We spent two hours of an inservice starting to look at how we will breakdown learning outcomes into intentions and success criteria. There were two of us. We have completely different ideas of what the outcomes mean and what we deem success criteria to be. Multiply that by every music teacher in the country and you get chaos.

As a parent I am incredibly pissed off. It looks like it will be a case of needing to find out what a school is doing as 'their' junior cycle in each subject before trying to figure out where the hell to send them. It's perfectly possible in music for example for one school to have a 'classical' junior cycle and another to be a 'popular' junior cycle or a 'singing' one... you get the idea.

mirrorwall14

Oh and in Project Maths I cannot see the issue. We already have an unpredictable exam paper. We had to bring in experiments and different methodologies already.

I am honestly terrified of that spec. If it's anything like music I'm expecting it to say things like

'Use a variety of methods to display statistical data'

And we'll be left to figure out how many methods, what they are etc.

Or maybe it will be worse and it will be
'Use algebra' lol

Bean Scoile

I probably don't know enough about it to be commenting, but what I've heard for my subject so far doesn't impress me.

The junior cert oral exam in Irish is apparently gone, as it did not improve communication, it encouraged learning sraith pictiúir off by heart... begs the question, when are they taking the sraith pictiúir off the leaving cert?

Also, the announcement this week that Irish is to be split into 2 subjects seems like a bad idea. Surely it will encourage people to leave Gaelscoileanna before the exams to avail of the easier version?

RealJohn

I have felt, since I started teaching, that the outgoing junior cert science course was pretty rubbish, examined badly and does little to prepare students for the leaving cert science subjects. In that respect, I welcome a change. However, the new system and new course are also not fit for purpose. At least the 35% in cheap marks has been reduced to 10% but the course is still very simplistic and very narrow. I hope it will result in students learning to approach science in a better way but I'm not optimistic.

Frankly, we don't do education well in this country anymore. At least when we were all about rote learning, the students actually learned and the stronger students grew to understand. The more recent approaches seem to push 'understanding' on students without them actually knowing anything. Not much point in being able to understand when you don't know anything to understand.

RealJohn

Bean Scoile wrote: »

I probably don't know enough about it to be commenting, but what I've heard for my subject so far doesn't impress me.

The junior cert oral exam in Irish is apparently gone, as it did not improve communication, it encouraged learning sraith pictiúir off by heart... begs the question, when are they taking the sraith pictiúir off the leaving cert?

Also, the announcement this week that Irish is to be split into 2 subjects seems like a bad idea. Surely it will encourage people to leave Gaelscoileanna before the exams to avail of the easier version?

Fine Gael have been anti-Irish from day one (I wonder if they're involved in the running of boards.ie) and won't be happy until they've done away with our language, culture and tradition. They're probably delighted with brexit, thinking it might enable them to re-unite with their masters in Westminster.

feardeas

judeboy101 wrote:

In fairness, there was nothing wrong with the inter/group cert. Making kids stay in school til LC is a disastrous policy. The fixation on 3rd level has gutted our trades and made our economy depend on cheap eastern european workforces.

Inter was way before my time. I think the reality is that those that learn more earn more. I also think it's great that it's no longer seen as ultimately elitist. The IT sector has really served to open it up.
Also I think that the environment of third level helps to broaden and open minds and that might halt the likes of Trump in their tracks.

The trades were popular during the boom when jobs were aplenty. The reason they dried up was because construction died dead. Recently heard that lads from where I'm from myself who stayed after the crash RE-trained in different areas and have zero interest or intention of going back to it, their view is that there's easier ways to earn.

Think apprentice type training can and should be used in white collar jobs like insurance, accountancy, banking etc which the government are trying to do it seems. That will take a change in mindset.

As for the junior cert. I think after nearly 30 years the curriculum had to change. New world. Teach English and see some very good points. Don't agree that it has being dumbed down. If you look at the learning outcomes it's obvious that if a student met them they'd be skilled in the subject. They may need further elaboration on answering in senior cycle but they would have the skills.

Other subject is geography. I filled in the survey on NCCA website back in the autumn. I was concerned with the idea they had of maybe mixing it with other subjects in first year. Although the background document was comprehensive and had really looked at some very interesting global examples of it in other countries.

judeboy101

feardeas wrote: »

Inter was way before my time. I think the reality is that those that learn more earn more. I also think it's great that it's no longer seen as ultimately elitist. The IT sector has really served to open it up.
Also I think that the environment of third level helps to broaden and open minds and that might halt the likes of Trump in their tracks.

The trades were popular during the boom when jobs were aplenty. The reason they dried up was because construction died dead. Recently heard that lads from where I'm from myself who stayed after the crash RE-trained in different areas and have zero interest or intention of going back to it, their view is that there's easier ways to earn.

Think apprentice type training can and should be used in white collar jobs like insurance, accountancy, banking etc which the government are trying to do it seems. That will take a change in mindset.

As for the junior cert. I think after nearly 30 years the curriculum had to change. New world. Teach English and see some very good points. Don't agree that it has being dumbed down. If you look at the learning outcomes it's obvious that if a student met them they'd be skilled in the subject. They may need further elaboration on answering in senior cycle but they would have the skills.

Other subject is geography. I filled in the survey on NCCA website back in the autumn. I was concerned with the idea they had of maybe mixing it with other subjects in first year. Although the background document was comprehensive and had really looked at some very interesting global examples of it in other countries.

Under the new science curriculum you can technically go through all of primary and secondary education without knowing you have a kidney or knowing what seeds are.

PureClareGold

judeboy101 wrote: »

Under the new science curriculum you can technically go through all of primary and secondary education without knowing you have a kidney or knowing what seeds are.

Isn't that just Armageddon talk. Surely the professionalism of the expert in the classroom ie the teacher will ensure that our students are given the knowledge we would expect them to know.
Just because something isn't going to be on the exam paper doesn't mean it's not valuable. That has been the blight on Irish education where we only consider stuff as being valuable if it's on the exam.

judeboy101

PureClareGold wrote: »

Isn't that just Armageddon talk. Surely the professionalism of the expert in the classroom ie the teacher will ensure that our students are given the knowledge we would expect them to know.
Just because something isn't going to be on the exam paper doesn't mean it's not valuable. That has been the blight on Irish education where we only consider stuff as being valuable if it's on the exam.

I don't know any teacher who teaches chemical equilibrium equations to junior science, its fascinating, but not on the curriculum. I don't know any teacher who teaches the particle zoo to junior certs, its fascinating, but not on the curriculum. I don't know any teacher who teaches the nephron and osmoregulation to junior science, its fascinating, but not on the curriculum. The reduced hours allocated to science coupled with the fact is not a core subject mean that teachers will teach to the outcomes, especially at common level.

PureClareGold

judeboy101 wrote: »

I don't know any teacher who teaches chemical equilibrium equations to junior science, its fascinating, but not on the curriculum. I don't know any teacher who teaches the particle zoo to junior certs, its fascinating, but not on the curriculum. I don't know any teacher who teaches the nephron and osmoregulation to junior science, its fascinating, but not on the curriculum. The reduced hours allocated to science coupled with the fact is not a core subject mean that teachers will teach to the outcomes, especially at common level.

All of that has gone right over my head. What's your point? You don't know any teacher who teaches these fascinating sections to students. I get that. They seem to me as fairly detailed concepts.
The point I was making earlier was in relation to the kidney and seeds and your use of the word "technically". Children learn about seeds in primary because their teachers feel it's important. Parents teach their children about seeds by planting stuff in their gardens.

Looking at one learning outcome from the science spec "evaluate how human health is affected by: inherited factors and environmental factors including nutrition; lifestyle choices; examine the role of micro-organisms in human health"
Would it not be possible to teach students about alcohol abuse and it's affect on the kidneys here and also teach them a valuable lifelong lesson?

emo72

The cynic in me thinks that changes of curriculum are brought in to justify civil servants in the dept of ed. Also nice contracts for their book publishing pals. But I'm a massive cynic.

judeboy101

PureClareGold wrote: »

All of that has gone right over my head. What's your point? You don't know any teacher who teaches these fascinating sections to students. I get that. They seem to me as fairly detailed concepts.
The point I was making earlier was in relation to the kidney and seeds and your use of the word "technically". Children learn about seeds in primary because their teachers feel it's important. Parents teach their children about seeds by planting stuff in their gardens.

Looking at one learning outcome from the science spec "evaluate how human health is affected by: inherited factors and environmental factors including nutrition; lifestyle choices; examine the role of micro-organisms in human health"
Would it not be possible to teach students about alcohol abuse and it's affect on the kidneys here and also teach them a valuable lifelong lesson?

Using the new junior cert one would first have to explore, alcohol, then addiction, the cultural and social attitudes, then liver function, and then the kidneys. Why that order? Because without significant decrease in liver function, alcohol abuse does no more damage to your body than incorrect daily hydration. Now I'm sure all the busy parents and primary teachers out there have the time and inclination to discuss germination, Seed dispersal and plant reproduction. And you seem to miss the point that science is optional and as fewer small secondary schools are built. It is easier to offer science as an 'option'.

PureClareGold

judeboy101 wrote: »

Using the new junior cert one would first have to explore, alcohol, then addiction, the cultural and social attitudes, then liver function, and then the kidneys. Why that order? Because without significant decrease in liver function, alcohol abuse does no more damage to your body than incorrect daily hydration. Now I'm sure all the busy parents and primary teachers out there have the time and inclination to discuss germination, Seed dispersal and plant reproduction. And you seem to miss the point that science is optional and as fewer small secondary schools are built. It is easier to offer science as an 'option'.

Thank you for explaining that to me. You've done an amazing job using one learning outcome to begin explaining the kidney to me in a very short space of time. You have also opened up other areas that I would like to explore in my own time.
Seems to me this new Junior cert works.
Will it come up on the exam though cause if it doesn't I don't need to know it for the rest of my life.

judeboy101

emo72 wrote: »

The cynic in me thinks that changes of curriculum are brought in to justify civil servants in the dept of ed. Also nice contracts for their book publishing pals. But I'm a massive cynic.

TINFOIL HAT ON: The sceptic in me thinks this is all a plan to sow up dependence with apple for iPad use

judeboy101

PureClareGold wrote: »

Thank you for explaining that to me. You've done an amazing job using one learning outcome to begin explaining the kidney to me in a very short space of time. You have also opened up other areas that I would like to explore in my own time.
Seems to me this new Junior cert works.
Will it come up on the exam though cause if it doesn't I don't need to know it for the rest of my life.

Ah yes, but then little mohammed tells mammy Mr judeboy is teaching him about alcohol, mammy checks and sees it is not on the junior curriculum, Mr judeboy's principal has been looking for any chance to nail Mr judeboy as judeboy is a strong union voice in the school. so the principal tells mammy Mohammed that if i have insulted her son's religion then to lodge a formal complaint with the teaching council.

PureClareGold

judeboy101 wrote: »

Ah yes, but then little mohammed tells mammy Mr judeboy is teaching him about alcohol, mammy checks and sees it is not on the junior curriculum, Mr judeboy's principal has been looking for any chance to nail Mr judeboy as judeboy is a strong union voice in the school. so the principal tells mammy Mohammed that if i have insulted her son's religion then to lodge a formal complaint with the teaching council.

We'll that's a huge leap to make. First of all the complaint would be heard by your BOM. But let's stick with your conspiracy theory. You end up before a fitness to practice hearing of the Teaching Council held in public. You outline your plan, how you were addressing a learning outcome. How you were addressing the key skills and how you were helping student well-being. You would be held up as a champion of the new Junior cert and someone we should all aspire to be like.
Do you think the medical council would strike off a doctor who is an eye ear and throat specialist if they were giving a patient advice on something else that was impacting on their health?
Come on let's stop with the extreme examples that may never ever occur and engage in logical discussion.

judeboy101

PureClareGold wrote: »

We'll that's a huge leap to make. First of all the complaint would be heard by your BOM. But let's stick with your conspiracy theory. You end up before a fitness to practice hearing of the Teaching Council held in public. You outline your plan, how you were addressing a learning outcome. How you were addressing the key skills and how you were helping student well-being. You would be held up as a champion of the new Junior cert and someone we should all aspire to be like.
Do you think the medical council would strike off a doctor who is an eye ear and throat specialist if they were giving a patient advice on something else that was impacting on their health?
Come on let's stop with the extreme examples that may never ever occur and engage in logical discussion.

1. Parents can bypass school under new rules and go straight to TC
2. If an eye and ear doctor decided to do a gyny test I think the MC would be worried
3. A future employer wont give a **** you were found innocent, all they will care is that you don't follow the curriculum and that you drag the schools name into public.

PureClareGold

judeboy101 wrote: »

1. Parents can bypass school under new rules and go straight to TC
2. If an eye and ear doctor decided to do a gyny test I think the MC would be worried
3. A future employer wont give a **** you were found innocent, all they will care is that you don't follow the curriculum and that you drag the schools name into public.

God it must be awful for you thinking about these things every time you walk into a classroom. I feel sorry for you if that is the situation you find yourself in. I feel confident enough in myself to stand over what I do in the classroom. As an English teacher I regularly have discussions surrounding issues that are not on the curriculum. They will benefit my students be articulate young adults and help them outside the school gates. I don't fear being hauled before the teaching council and if I was then maybe my style of teaching and my values don't correspond with the view you portray of having to stick rigidly to the curriculum and not stray for fear of parents complaining.

judeboy101

PureClareGold wrote: »

God it must be awful for you thinking about these things every time you walk into a classroom. I feel sorry for you if that is the situation you find yourself in. I feel confident enough in myself to stand over what I do in the classroom. As an English teacher I regularly have discussions surrounding issues that are not on the curriculum. They will benefit my students be articulate young adults and help them outside the school gates. I don't fear being hauled before the teaching council and if I was then maybe my style of teaching and my values don't correspond with the view you portray of having to stick rigidly to the curriculum and not stray for fear of parents complaining.

Please address the 3 points I made which refute your previous pronunciations

PureClareGold

judeboy101 wrote: »

Please address the 3 points I made which refute your previous pronunciations

1. I'll bow to your greater knowledge here. I thought it had to go through school procedures first. Just because a complaint is made doesn't mean you end up struck off though. With teachers making up the majority on the TC I would doubt a complaint as outlined by yourself earlier would end up before the committee. Again I feel it's sensationalism to try and prove a point.

2. I don't think an eye ear and throat doc would do a gnye test. However they might be able to offer some advice and point the patient in the right direction. This is what you as a teacher would be doing by guiding your students towards further learning in relation to vote kidney.

3. You make presumptions about other schools. If your found "innocent" as you call it, why would you be looking for a new school. Some school principals are very progressive and do see teachers going outside the strict curriculum as being of benefit to the students well-being and their community.

There I've addressed them. You refer to one parent making a complaint and have blown it totally out of proportion. Surely the views of the other 23 students and their parents/guardians matter also and if they're not complaining then maybe your doing a lot right.

judeboy101

PureClareGold wrote: »

1. I'll bow to your greater knowledge here. I thought it had to go through school procedures first. Just because a complaint is made doesn't mean you end up struck off though. With teachers making up the majority on the TC I would doubt a complaint as outlined by yourself earlier would end up before the committee. Again I feel it's sensationalism to try and prove a point.

2. I don't think an eye ear and throat doc would do a gnye test. However they might be able to offer some advice and point the patient in the right direction. This is what you as a teacher would be doing by guiding your students towards further learning in relation to vote kidney.

3. You make presumptions about other schools. If your found "innocent" as you call it, why would you be looking for a new school. Some school principals are very progressive and do see teachers going outside the strict curriculum as being of benefit to the students well-being and their community.

There I've addressed them. You refer to one parent making a complaint and have blown it totally out of proportion. Surely the views of the other 23 students and their parents/guardians matter also and if they're not complaining then maybe your doing a lot right.

Complaints aren't a democratic decision. If you go into a room full of 1000 homosexuals and shout "F agg *t" , 999 laugh at you but one complains, you go down for hate speech. Some does not equal the vast majority of principals.

PureClareGold

judeboy101 wrote: »

Complaints aren't a democratic decision. If you go into a room full of 1000 homosexuals and shout "F agg *t" , 999 laugh at you but one complains, you go down for hate speech. Some does not equal the vast majority of principals.

Will you chill out with the sensationalist attitude and have trust in your own professional judgement. You really need to reflect on some of what you've written here and check back into reality

judeboy101

PureClareGold wrote: »

Will you chill out with the sensationalist attitude and have trust in your own professional judgement. You really need to reflect on some of what you've written here and check back into reality

I think its you who are clinging to a robin-Williams-oh-captain-my-captain fantasy of teaching.

PureClareGold

judeboy101 wrote: »

I think its you who are clinging to a robin-Williams-oh-captain-my-captain fantasy of teaching.

Thank you. I take that as a compliment. Students who love my subject because of the love I instill.

judeboy101

PureClareGold wrote: »

Thank you. I take that as a compliment. Students who love my subject because of the love I instill.

And you know how he and his character ended up

rainbowtrout

PureClareGold wrote: »

Thank you for explaining that to me. You've done an amazing job using one learning outcome to begin explaining the kidney to me in a very short space of time. You have also opened up other areas that I would like to explore in my own time. Seems to me this new Junior cert works.
Will it come up on the exam though cause if it doesn't I don't need to know it for the rest of my life.

The current JC Science course is 240 hours minimum. The new JC Science course is 200 hours. The government keep bleating on about the importance of STEM subjects, and a STEM education and society and then cut the hours for science. Doesn't really add up for me.

It's not just the kidney and urinary system that was cut out of the biology section of the course, so was the skeleton, light and sound in physics and a few other things I can't recall off the top of my head. yes of course, these may crop up in class, but don't think for one minute they'll be given the depth of treatment when there are 40 less hours to teach the syllabus.

Those students are gonna get some shock when they land into LC Biology, Chemistry or Physics.

spurious

rainbowtrout wrote:

Those students are gonna get some shock when they land into LC Biology, Chemistry or Physics.

You know that will be the teacher's fault.