Understanding the prevalence and types of special educational needs (SEN) that present in schools is important to ensure that appropriate resources are available to meet the needs of all students. This study investigated the prevalence and types of SEN in Irish immersion (IM) post-primary schools, in the Republic of Ireland. A questionnaire was completed by 38% (n = 29) of schools, with an enrolment of 53% (n = 8,406) of the IM post-primary school population. The questionnaire identified the changes that have occurred in the prevalence and types of SEN in these schools over the past 20 years. The findings presented discuss the prevalence rate of SEN in these schools for the academic school year 2023/2024, the types of SEN in these schools and their distribution by class groupings. The key findings of the research show that there has been a significant increase in the prevalence rate over the last 20 years. This increase is significant and noteworthy of discussion since bilingualism and immersion education are often deemed unsuitable for students with SEN.
Work experience is regarded as a vital component of Transition Year (TY) by students, parents, and teachers. Despite this centrality, the manner in which placements are organised has evolved in an ad hoc manner, and limited attention has been paid to the perspectives of hosting organisations. This study explores the experiences and views of 11 providers of TY placements. Situating TY work experience within its historical and policy context and drawing on research on work-based learning and career development, the paper examines providers' motivations, expectations, and challenges. While organisations expressed strong commitment to supporting young people's early engagement with the world of work, the findings reveal significant ambiguities concerning the educational purpose of placements and the nature of school-employer relationships. The study argues that stronger structures, clearer shared understandings, and more systematic engagement between schools and providers are needed for the full potential of TY work experience to be realised.
This study examines the relationships between teacher resistance to change, teacher agency, and teacher work alienation and investigates whether principal support moderates these associations. Survey data were collected from 494 teachers working in public schools in T & uuml;rkiye and analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The findings supported the proposed model, indicating that teacher resistance to change is positively associated with work alienation, while teacher agency is negatively associated with it. The results also revealed that principal support moderates the relationship between both predictors and teacher work alienation. The paper concludes with implications for policy and practice.
This paper critically analyses the Primary Curriculum Framework (PCF) (Department of Education [DE], 2023a) using Ball's (1994) policy cycle framework. This is a widely used model for examining how education policy is shaped, produced, and enacted across the contexts of influence, text production, and practice. The PCF represents a significant shift in Irish education, marking a move away from the more structured, objectives-based 1999 curriculum towards a flexible, learning outcomes-based framework which positions teachers as active curriculum-makers. The analysis explores how historical centralisation, global policy trends, and performance benchmarking influenced the PCF's development (context of influence); how its language and structure construct particular visions of learning and teaching (context of text production); and how these may be interpreted within diverse school contexts (context of practice). The paper argues that while the PCF seeks to balance equity, excellence, and teacher agency, its success will depend on how it is enacted amid enduring structural and performative pressures. With the PCF in a pre-enactment phase, this analysis anticipates potential enactment tensions through Ball's framework. The paper contributes to educational policy discourse by foregrounding how teacher agency is constructed and negotiated through curriculum policy within a centralised education system.
In immersion settings, children are immersed in a language that may not be their home language. Bilingualism, speaking in two languages, and biliteracy, reading and writing in two languages, are goals of immersion education. This study investigates the teaching and learning of reading in Irish, a minority language, and includes immersion primary schools in the two jurisdictions in Ireland. The study focuses on pupils in the higher classes in primary schools, when reading in two languages has been established, to investigate how they read in Irish. Findings from questionnaires inform a description of teaching and learning of reading in Irish. Differences and similarities across the jurisdictions are evident. Hornberger's [(1989) 'Continua of biliteracy'. Review of Educational Research 59 (3): 271-296. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543059003271] and Hornberger's [(2003) Continua of biliteracy: An ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings (Vol. 41)]. Multilingual Matters continua of biliteracy is used as a theoretical framework to highlight and explain current practice and disclose areas of power imbalances between majority and minority language instruction.
Teacher collaboration is a core contributor to professional learning and support for teachers when facing curriculum change. However, studies have found limited forms of collaboration amongst post-primary teachers in Ireland. Set within the context of the Framework for Junior Cycle, this paper draws on interview data from educational stakeholders (n = 15), principals (n = 65), teachers (n = 136) and teacher survey data (n = 1451), to explore the impact of the Framework on teachers' professional collaboration, and what supported and hindered this collaboration. Thematic and statistical analysis identified that participants believed the frequency of teacher collaboration had increased since the introduction of the Framework, resulting in more positive relationships, development of a greater level of shared professional language, as well as enhancing teachers' capacity to make effective judgements on students' work. Structured time to engage in collaboration, through Subject Learning and Assessment Review (SLAR) meetings and Professional Time, as well as professional development, were considered key supports to enable collaboration. Teacher union directives regarding the timetabling of SLAR meetings, as well as the nature of accountability regarding Professional Time, were considered barriers. The paper considers how enhanced collaboration may impact future curriculum changes, while questioning how these collaborative relationships can be supported to further enhance critical collaboration and teacher professional learning.
First published in 2015, the Primary Language Curriculum (PLC) was described by its architects as 'a significant landmark in the ongoing development of the curriculum for primary schools' (DES [2019a]. Primary language curriculum: Stages 1-4. Department of Education.). It represents a notable shift in Irish curricular design, introducing learning outcomes and progression continua - both previously uncharted in the context of Irish primary education. Despite the scale and ambition of this reform, limited attention has been paid to critical analysis of the policy text from a curriculum-theory perspective. This paper addresses this gap by applying Kelly's ([2009]. The curriculum: theory and practice. 6th ed. Sage.) typology of curriculum planning models to examine the PLC as a policy artefact. In doing so, it poses the fundamental question: what type of curriculum is the Primary Language Curriculum? Through this lens, the paper explores implications for curriculum enactment and offers insights for future curriculum development in Ireland and beyond.
Despite extensive investment, deep curriculum change is a challenging and frequently elusive process. By exploring the experiences of teachers enacting Education Outside the Classroom (EOtC), this paper examines the assets and liabilities these teachers experienced during a time of curriculum change. Drawing on Schlossberg's theory exploring adaptation to change, ten teachers from ten schools across four countries (Finland, Hungary, Ireland and Spain) participated in semi-structured interviews. Following deductive and inductive analysis framed around Schlossberg's domains of Interpersonal, Institutional and Physical Settings, this study found that teachers, working in different settings, experience different levels of assets and liabilities. Teachers' discussion did not identify many liabilities relating to the Physical Setting, potentially suggesting that the approach of taking students outside the classroom is not a major barrier to engaging in EOtC. In comparison, Institutional Supports, acting as assets and liabilities, appear to be the area that dominates teachers' considerations. In certain contexts, there appear to be tensions between interpersonal and institutional support, particularly relating to dominant beliefs. This study highlights how, at times of curriculum change, we need to consider the context more carefully, and the paper concludes by proposing key areas of consideration.
Student assessment literacy is defined as an understanding of the process and purpose of assessment and how it connects with learning and achievement (Hannigan, C., D. Alonzo, and C. Z. Oo. 2022. "Student Assessment Literacy: Indicators and Domains from the Literature." Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 29 (4): 482-504.). It is aligned to assessment for learning (AFL) in that students understand the nature of learning as an intentional process and the evaluation of learning as an informed and systematic judgement. In post-primary education in Ireland, there is much emphasis on the development of skills, values and dispositions that will enable students to participate in a meaningful way in the world beyond school. This paper explores how teachers' values and assessment pedagogy determine their approach to AFL in the classroom. It also examines how agentic student participation in AFL activities develops their assessment literacy. It is based on a qualitative multiple case-study comprising observation of classroom practice and interviews with students and teachers to examine the interplay between the language and practice of AFL and student participation in the process. One of the main findings of the study is that, despite the pressures of high-stakes examinations, effective AFL pedagogy has the potential to enhance students' assessment literacy and consequently their capacity for autonomous and self-directed lifelong learning.
Early reading development is critical for long-term academic success, highlighting the need for timely and effective intervention for children with reading difficulties. This paper critically examines Reading Recovery (RR), Ireland's principal government-funded early reading intervention, questioning its alignment with contemporary reading research and its capacity to support children with persistent word reading difficulties. Drawing on Ehri's theory of orthographic mapping, the paper identifies three core limitations of RR: its lack of systematic instruction in foundational reading skills, the insufficient duration of the intervention to meet the needs of children requiring sustained support, and the limited evidence for its long-term effectiveness. Recent international policy shifts, including decisions in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States to withdraw support for RR, reflect growing concern about the intervention's theoretical foundations and instructional design. Despite two decades of implementation in Ireland, the absence of an independent evaluation of RR limits transparency and hinders evidence-informed policymaking. This paper argues for a policy shift toward scalable interventions that are more aligned with empirical evidence on how children learn to read. Such a shift is essential to ensure that children with persistent reading difficulties receive the systematic, sustained instruction they require to become confident, capable readers.
This participatory phenomenological study examines the complex experiences of autistic trans and non-binary students in Irish educational settings. Framed by an anti-oppressive lens, the study explored how participants navigate a paradox of being both hyper-visible and all but invisible. Data was gathered from four participants using semi-structured interviews and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Despite the rhetoric of inclusion being at the fore in discussions in relation to education, ableist and transphobic systemic structures create environments that simultaneously expose and erase this marginalised group. The findings of the study indicate that individual teacher capacity and individualised supports are not sufficient approaches in terms of bringing transformative change. Instead structural reforms must address the ideological and policy frameworks that inform educational settings, including the epistemic norms that define what counts as valid knowledge and ways of being, and the normative assumptions that dictate who is acceptable in relation to expressions of identity.
This special issue marks a significant milestone in the history of Irish Educational Studies, commemorating fifty years of scholarship, research, collaboration and dialogue within and beyond the educational landscape of Ireland. As such, it honours the vision and legacy of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland, which has played a seminal role in leading and advancing educational research in Ireland and beyond. This issue presents a carefully curated selection of articles, drawn from across a half-century of publication, showcasing the intellectual vitality and diversity that have defined IES. Through these works, we trace the historical development of the association and the journal, situating their evolution within the broader context of national educational policy and global scholarly trends. It was difficult to choose certain articles over others, such is the quality of the papers produced in the journal. In making our selection, we tried to capture a range of pivotal issues which shaped a particular period of Irish educational history and research, themes which reverberate to this day. Chronologically organised across four distinct periods, this temporal arrangement reflects not only the dynamic and evolving nature of the field of educational research but also highlights areas of continuity and transformation.
