Ambitious plan to evolve education

THE Director of School’s, Youth and Music at the Kerry Education and Training Board, Ann O’Dwyer, says the board’s new strategy sets out an ambitious five year plan for the board and its stakeholders.

“Kerry ETB Primary and Post Primary schools, Youth Work and Music provision look forward to implementing this strategy over the next 5 years. It is the ambition of all our schools to achieve the ‘ highly effective school’ standards of teaching and learning, school management and ICT integration as set out by the Department of Education and Skills Inspectorate in the ‘Looking at our Schools Quality Framework for Primary and Post Primary Schools,” she said.

“Kerry ETB schools are fully implementing the new Junior Cycle and will have commenced the implementation of the new Senior Cycle during the life of this strategy. We will also continue to prioritise the health and wellbeing of students through the full implementation of the DES Wellbeing Programme and also the ongoing development of the Student Support Teams.”

“It is also envisaged that we will develop three to four additional Community National Schools in order to provide for diversity and inclusion in the primary sector. Kerry ETB will also work with our partner Kerry County Council, schools and music bodies to establish Music Generation in Kerry over the coming years,” said Ann O’Dwyer.

“It is our plan to support the continued development of both targeted and generic youth work programmes across the county, based on the needs identified in the recent youth work audit. Kerry ETB will support the improvement of the Irish language through our work the relevant agencies on the implementation of the various Irish Plans across the county as well as continuing to prioritise oral language acquisition on our eight schools,” she said.