Time spent on traditional subjects in primary school to be cut under new plan

Proposed overhaul of curriculum to place greater emphasis on wellbeing

THE minimum time allocations for traditional subjects in primary school will be cut under plans for a radical overhaul of the curriculum that also puts a much greater focus on children’s wellbeing.

The biggest shake-up of the primary curriculum in more than two decades proposes major changes to the educational experience of tomorrow’s 4 to 12-year-olds, to equip them for work and life in the 21st Century.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) has presented its thinking in the Draft Primary Curriculum Framework, which it has published today ahead of an eight-month public consultation process.

It would be 2025 at the earliest before any changes would be introduced.

The curriculum advisory body faced the challenge of striking a balance between modernising the curriculum, to meet changing needs and demands, while also addressing schools’ concerns about initiative overload.

Key changes proposed include restructuring the curriculum to move away from 11 subjects in the first four years and replace them with five broad curriculum areas: language (covering Irish and English); maths, science and technology education; wellbeing; arts education; and social and environmental education.

Individual subjects would become more prominent from third class onwards, including the introduction, for the first time at primary level, of modern foreign languages.

There would also be time for a religious/ethical/multi-belief education programme as decided by the patron, but, in order to help carve out space for new or expanded areas of learning, the NCCA proposes cutting 30 minutes off the current two hours 30 minutes a week allowed for this.

Under the proposals, traditional subjects face cuts in the minimum time allocation, with the exception of wellbeing, which covers PE and social, personal and health education.

Here, the NCCA suggests an extra hour a week, bringing it to two hours 30 minutes, in response to a demand during consultations with schools and other education stakeholders for greater attention to be paid to this area.

While wellbeing is the only area to get extra time, the NCCA also wants schools to put an increased emphasis on arts education and technology, as well as creating slots for foreign languages for senior classes.

The proposals to loosen existing timetables also involve halving, from two hours 30 minutes to one hour 15 minutes, the weekly allocation for assembly and roll call.

The shift in focus from subjects in the first four years is linked to a new emphasis on the development of skills and dispositions in children, such as being a digital learner, being creative, or being an active citizen, that will allow them to adapt and deal with a range of challenges and situations.

This approach mirrors recent developments in early years education and Junior Cycle and provides a link between the two.

The NCCA’s desire to bring more flexibility to the curriculum is also reflected in the proposal that only language, maths and wellbeing would have weekly time allocation, and all others would have monthly allocations.

As well as minimum time allocations for subjects, whether weekly or monthly, schools would also have some “discretionary time” to use as they saw fit, and the overall hope of the NCCA is that it offers new scope to schools to shape timetables in response to the priorities of their pupils.

The NCCA offers a range of options for suggested time allocation to meet the overall aspirations of the framework.