Guidance in the Junior Cycle Student Award

1. Guidance in the Junior Cycle Student Award Institute of Guidance Counsellors AGM Workshop 22nd March 2014 Mark Fennell

2. Place of Guidance in Junior CycleWhose responsibility? • What does guidance mean? • Who delivers guidance? • What is the role of the Guidance Counsellor? • What other pastoral structures are involved? • What is the role of the Guidance / Care team? • Do key skills mediate aims that are central to guidance?

3. The Meaning of Guidance in JCSA Themes

4. JCSA roll out from Autumn 2014 Mark Fennell 2014

5. Key Changes in JCSA • 8-10 ‘examined’ subjects (0-4 short courses) • 60% exam & 40% Schoolwork component • Other learning experiences (including guidance) • New subject specifications • 24 statements of learning (focus on outcomes) • 8 Key skills (including literacy & numeracy) • Breadth  Depth and more higher order thinking • Greater choice at school level on provision • Assessment for learning in a balanced pedagogy Mark Fennell 2014

6. The deeper meaning of JCSA reform Mark Fennell 2014

7. A Framework for Junior Cycle: ‘Other educational experiences…’ In particular, schools will continue to make provision for guidance for students. This will relate to the provision of a range of learning experiences in a developmental sequence that will assist students to acquire self-management skills so as to make effective choices and decisions about their lives. Provision for guidance will also continue to encompass the three separate but interrelated areas of personal and social development, educational guidance and career guidance. Framework principles such as Continuity and Learning to Learn, key skills such as Managing myself and a number of the statements of learning, especially those linked to making decisions, will be useful in informing guidance provision. In accordance with current policy, schools will continue to have flexibility in deciding how they will make provision for guidance (P16)

8. Situating guidance within the JCSA…where??? • Other learning experiences explicitly focused on guidance or guidance related themes? • Short course(s)? • Supporting subject choice within new programme? • Curriculum focus on ‘well being’ (SPHE, RE…)? • School wide commitment to guidance related goals across the curriculum? • Key skills and selected learning outcomes? • Guidance and diagnostic testing? • Continuity with primary / senior cycle?

9. Selected Statements of Learning closely linked to ‘Guidance’ (5) Has an awareness of personal values and an understanding of the process of moral decision making (6) Appreciates and respects how diverse values, beliefs and traditions have contributed to the communities and culture in which she/he lives (7) Values what it means to be an active citizen, with rights and responsibilities in local and wider contexts (11) Takes action to safeguard and promote her/his wellbeing and that of others

10. Mark Fennell 2014

11. Core cross cutting aims in JCSA:Self-efficacy / Well being: - sense of being safe - awareness of own competence - confidence - resilience - social skill - communicative confidence - affirmation of own identity - disposition to learn - capacity to seek help when needed

12. Key Skills and Assessment for Learning: Making Learning Explicit… Key Skills: Learner outcomes Assessment for Learning: Classroom interaction Learning aims Success criteria Formative feedback Questioning for dialogue and higher order thinking Self evaluation Peer evaluation Cooperative learning • Managing myself • Staying well • Communicating • Being creative • Working with others • Managing information and thinking • Literacy • Numeracy Mark Fennell 2014

13. Making it Happen:Model of Classroom Learning…

14. Learning v Performance Orientation  Self-Efficacy Chris Watkins Mark Fennell 2014

15. SummaryKey Skills and Learning Outcomes • Formation of a resilient and resourceful learning disposition • Understanding thinking and learning as cognitive and affective activities • Seeks to connect school based learning to wider personal and social experience • Is concerned with ethical and civic values • Sees such learning as embedded across subject domains

16. Guidance and Key Skills… • Will key skills be taken seriously? • What can Guidance Counsellors do to help colleagues do so? • Can key skills mediate ‘guidance values’ in junior cycle (Where? How? Who?)

17. Structures and Roles How will guidance be influential within Junior Cycle?

18. Five implications for Guidance across curriculum • Use of key skills as intentional learning aims to promote self-efficacy (including LHTL) • ‘Well being’ focus across the curriculum (including SPHE, CSPE or equivalent, RE and PE)…(’intentionality’ – 240 hrs) • Role of Learning Outcomes in assessment criteria (5,6, 7 & 11) • Function of Guidance planning / care team as influence upon curriculum planning, delivery and evaluation • Advocacy and ‘voice’ of Guidance Counsellor

20. Guidance themed module as a Short Course? • NCCA guidelines and template for short course design on website (http://www.juniorcycle.ie/Planning/Short-Course-Development.aspx • Structured around key skills and learning outcomes • NCCA will develop 8 short courses: Mark Fennell 2014

21. Guidance Counsellor in Organisational Structure & Culture of School? • Definition of what guidance means for you in junior cycle • Re-orientation of Guidance planning • Formulating and putting guidance aims on the agenda for planning and discussion • Relationship and perceived role / status of Guidance Counsellor to wider staff and school management • ‘Solo player’ model of GC

22. The Challenge • Guidance values are potentially embedded across the curriculum though the key skills • Can we establish a closer connection between pastoral care (e.g. anti-bullying, inclusion, guidance per se…), pastoral specific subjects (SPHE, RE…) and the wider curriculum? • What forum would enable and lead the conversation that is needed to make ‘guidance’ developmental aims intentional, conspicuous and valued?

23. Dr Mark FennellEducational Consultant & Facilitator Mobile: 087-967-8832 Email: markfennell@eircom.net Mark Fennell 2014