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The government says it wants to improve students' mental and personal wellbeing Sinead Baker/TheJournal.ie
junior cycle
Changes to the Junior Cycle include a 'wellbeing programme' for students
A new emphasis on spoken Irish will also be introduced.
3.20pm, 4 Sep 2017
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FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS returning to school this month will see a new wellbeing programme included in the curriculum as part of efforts to enhance students’ mental and physical health within the Junior Cycle.
The programme will “enable students to build life skills and develop a strong sense of connectedness to their school and to their community”, the Minister for Education, Richard Bruton, said today.
Bruton was speaking at the launch the of the new Junior Cycle specifications for Irish, modern European languages and Visual Art, stating that a focus of the new programme is on “the student’s quality of life, wellbeing and mental health”.
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Languages
The new specifications for the Irish language place a focus on spoken language skills, which will now be formally assessed. This will be done through classroom-based assessments, which schools will report to parents at the end of the third year of the Junior Cycle.
Until now, the oral language test was optional as part of the old Junior Certificate examination.
“The introduction of new specifications for Junior Cycle Irish represents a significant change from existing approaches to the teaching, learning and assessment of Irish at junior cycle level,” a statement from the Department of Education and Skills said.
A focus on oral skills will also be introduced for modern European languages, including French, German, Spanish and Italian. The role that technology plays in the teaching and learning of foreign languages will also be explored.
Bruton said that the government hoped to see more students study foreign languages, and to speak these languages with greater competency.
A central part of being the best is our ability to support our students with the skills to be global citizens, to understand other cultures and societies, as well as the skills to function and thrive in the modern economy. The study of modern foreign languages enables students to develop these skills and their enjoyment of these languages.
Bruton also highlighted how Visual Art can help students’ develop, by giving them responsibility for a specific task at the same time as allowing them to exercise creative freedom. Visual Art is the new title for what was called Art, Craft and Design and involves practical work: from creating an artwork to running an event.
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From a biodiversity and wildlife perspective, this is very welcome. However, to claim that this will go anyway towards mitigating the effects of climate change is quite frankly, a joke.
@Stephen O’Neill: You know the saying.. ‘Death by a million cuts’, well its the same in reverse. All these restorations add up. Just need more of them and to speed up dramatically.
When will people wake up and realise that Global warming is a natural phenomenon and nothing is going to stop it. Only for Global warming we’d still be in the Ice Age, governments don’t want to hear this because they can’t tax a natural phenomenon. What was around at the beginning of time to melt the ice? It’s a load of bull and this is not the first time it has happened either . Every wind turbine that is sticking out of the ground has a bigger carbon footprint to make than the amount of carbon it saves in electricity generation in it’s lifespan. People need to do some serious research and stop listening to bull
With inflation at record highs and people can’t afford the basics needed to live we are putting 75,000 into a bog,
Some thing wrong with that picture??
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