Goodness Me! Goodness You!

Developing a Senior Curriculum for Children in Community National Schools

What is a Curriculum? ‘It will be helpful if we

distinguish the use of the word “curriculum” to denote the content of a particular subject or area of study from the use of it to refer to the total programme of an educational institution’.

[A.V. Kelly – The Curriculum]

An Originally Diverse Irish School System

1831 – a state controlled primary school system was introduced in Ireland which was multi-denominational

Children of all denominations would be educated together in ‘secular’ subjects

Separate arrangements would be made for doctrinal instruction

Teacher education would also be ‘mixed’

A Denominational System de Facto

Each of the denominations resisted it, seeing the schooling process as ‘an extension of pastoral care’

‘This conflict between state and church...the state’s retaining the concept of a de jure mixed system which became increasingly denominational in fact’ (Coolahan 1981)

The Irish Context of Schooling – A Peculiar Reality 2015

96% of primary schools being denominational, with 90% Catholic and 6% Protestant

There are two Muslim schools and one Jewish school

Only 4% of schools are multi-denominational

Community National Schools

Goodness Me! Goodness You! in Community National Schools

A Multi-Belief Curriculum in Religion and Ethics

GMGY! Also expresses ethos of the school

Community National Schools

Fundamental principles

Child voice Parent and

community voice ‘Belief nurturing’ The equality of

religion and humanism

What is a Multi-denominational school?

A school which seeks to foster a genuine equality between all belief systems in the school (vs. faith schools which foster one)

A school where this equality is connected to expression and discussion of these belief systems in school time (vs. nondenominational which don’t allow this)

Paulo Freire’s Philosophy of Education

Making A Critical Difference in

Education

‘Participation – it is all the better to eat you with my children’

GMGY Senior Programme

4 Strands 1. Story 2. We Are A Community National School 3. Thinking Time 4. Beliefs and Religion

Embed Global Ed in GMGY

1. Developing exemplars in Development Education to embed in strands

- Story: Narrative approach - We Are a CNS: Values education - Thinking Time: Philosophy method - Belief and Religion: Pluralist beliefs 2. CPD for teachers in schools