Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Apologies have been received from Deputy Jen Cummins and Senator Gareth Scahill, who cannot be here.

Everyone is very welcome. I ask those attending remotely to mute their microphones when not contributing so we do not pick up any background noise or feedback. As usual, I remind all those in attendance to ensure their mobile phones are on silent mode or switched off entirely.

Members attending remotely are reminded of the constitutional requirement that, in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex. As witnesses are within the precincts of Leinster House, they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentations they will make to this committee. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege. It is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if witnesses’ statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity outside the Houses of the Oireachtas, or an official of the Houses, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

On the agenda for today's meeting is a discussion on the new primary school curriculum. On behalf of our committee, I warmly welcome our witnesses. From the National Parents Council, NPC, we have Ms Áine Lynch, CEO, and Ms Carmel O'Shea, advocacy services manager. From the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, INTO, we have Ms Deirdre O'Connor, deputy general secretary, and Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair, assistant general secretary. Fórsa was also invited to this meeting, but it declined, as the union does not represent teaching staff.

I am the Cathaoirleach, and I have an independent role when I chair committees, but I want to mention for the record that I am an INTO member.

I call Ms Lynch to make her opening statement, followed by Ms O'Connor. They will each have five minutes. The opening statements will then be followed by questions from members of the committee.

Ms Áine Lynch:

The National Parents Council thanks the Joint Committee on Education and Youth for the opportunity to contribute parents’ perspectives on the new primary curriculum.

The NPC has worked with the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, to bring the voice of parents to the development of the primary curriculum for many years. As part of our membership of the NCCA board for early and primary education, we have brought the parents' perspective to the planning of the changes to the curriculum for languages and mathematics.

In 2024, while the new primary curriculum framework was being developed, we held an inperson consultation, supported by the NCCA, to hear directly from parents about the proposed changes. During that session, we invited parents to share their views on each of the five new subject areas. We asked them to reflect on what they felt was most important within each area and how they saw their own role as parents in supporting their children’s learning. We also provided space for parents to raise any additional thoughts or concerns about the broader curriculum proposals. Parents were also asked for their perspectives on the seven new key competencies that will form part of the updated curriculum. Here, we explored how important they felt these competencies were for their children's development and how they believed such skills could be meaningfully integrated across different subjects. The insights gathered during this consultation were compiled into a full report, which was shared with the NCCA.

In preparation for this meeting, the NPC conducted a survey during January and February 2026 to gather parents’ views on the new curriculum. A total of 431 parents completed the survey. The findings presented in this report are based on the results of that survey.

Parents were asked about key aspects of the new curriculum, including their awareness of changes, such as the introduction of the seven key competencies, revised subject areas, adjustments to curriculum time allocations, new approaches to teaching and learning, and the addition of flexible time in the school timetable. They were also invited to comment on school–parent partnership practices currently in place and to share any further information or support they felt would help them engage with the new curriculum.

More than half of the parents surveyed said they were aware that a new primary curriculum was being introduced. Parents who knew about the new primary curriculum were asked which changes they were aware of. A considerable number were aware of the change from the previous 11 subjects to the new five-area curriculum and the introduction of seven key competencies.

Smaller numbers reported awareness of reduced time for Gaeilge and the introduction of flexible time within the school timetable.

Parents expressed a wide range of views on the new curriculum, with many welcoming the greater focus on play, well-being, physical activity and modern languages, as well as the effort to make learning more engaging and relevant for children. However, a number of parents were unhappy about the reduction in time for Irish, describing it as disappointing, unnecessary or damaging, whilst others commented that they felt the issue lay not with the amount of time but with how Irish is taught. The changes to the teaching of religion also resulted in mixed reactions; many parents said they would like it reduced or removed from the school day, while others strongly defended maintaining or even strengthening Catholic instruction. Opinions on digital learning, mathematics and the overall workload were equally varied, with some appreciating the inclusion of digital learning while others were concerned about too much screen use, or a curriculum that feels too full for teachers to deliver effectively.

When parents were asked about school-parent partnership practices, there was a broad range of experiences described. Some described positive practices such as open classroom hours, direct email communication with teachers, regular updates, invitations to school events and strong personal relationships with principals or individual staff members. A few noted opportunities like contact with support teachers, parent classes during the school day, social events organised by parents and involvement in other school initiatives. Some parents said that schools could increase the involvement of parents who have specialist knowledge and who are willing to contribute to learning materials and classroom resources.

Many other parents described feeling excluded or poorly informed. Several said their school does not feel welcoming and that very little information is shared about teaching methods, plans, events or curriculum content. Parent–teacher meetings were often described as too short, too early in the year and too infrequent to offer real insight into a child’s progress. Parents reported that some schools do not allow them onto the grounds or limit the parents’ association to fundraising rather than discussion about curriculum or school policies.

When we asked about information regarding the new curriculum, a large number wanted information sessions, workshops, meetings or webinars where teachers could explain the curriculum and answer questions, and some were interested in seeing sample workbooks, lesson plans or curriculum materials. Parents also asked for guidance on how to help their children at home, including support for children with learning difficulties such as dyslexia or autism. Overall, parents believe that by ensuring clear communication, strong foundations in core skills, meaningful parental engagement, balanced time allocations and well-supported implementation, the new primary curriculum has the potential to become a more inclusive, modern and child-centred approach to learning. Parents welcome the new direction but want to be informed, included and confident the changes will benefit all children. With strong implementation supports, the primary curriculum can become more inclusive and child-centred.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

We thank the joint committee for this opportunity to address it on the most important development in the primary education system in over 25 years - the introduction of a redeveloped primary school curriculum. The committee has received our submission on this matter, which sets out some of the detail of the content of the curriculum. Officials from the NCCA and the Department were before the committee last week to also speak to that. We also set out in some detail some of the concerns of our members and our requests to the committee for support on this important matter. We would like to use our time to highlight these concerns.

INTO members welcome the curriculum change and are willing to move towards its vision as presented in the primary curriculum framework as they know the importance of modernising the curriculum to reflect today’s realities. However, this union is very clear that the redeveloped primary curriculum will not succeed in its enactment without the necessary supports for teachers, schools and pupils. Until the continuing issues of teacher and principal workload, overcrowded classrooms, inadequate funding and piecemeal professional development are resolved, the curriculum will remain aspirational rather than achievable. The INTO is unequivocal that without time for planning and collaborating, there will be no meaningful curriculum reform. Teachers cannot develop high-quality, context-based curricula if they are denied the professional space to do so. That is why we are calling for six non-contact days per year, as was provided for the 1999 curriculum and is less than 3% of the school year, to include time for schools to collaboratively design content around the curriculum’s learning outcomes. We are shocked that, as outlined to this committee last week, the Department of Education and Youth believes that only two days of closure per year will be sufficient. We do not agree.

Teachers require whole school, sustained, professional development that is delivered face-to-face during school hours. They have called for practical, subject-specific training in the new areas being introduced, such as engineering, modern foreign languages, relationships and sexuality education as it is developing and digital literacy. Teachers also want to work together through communities of practice and leadership networks. Teachers are also concerned about the absence of dedicated in-school planning time. Unlike at second level, primary teachers are in front of their classes for the whole school day. Teachers are clear that without structured time to work together, curriculum design at school level will inevitably default to commercial school book publishers, rather than allowing our well-trained teachers to apply their own professional expertise to build curriculum content for their schools.

Past experiences with the rollout of the primary language curriculum serve as a warning, showing that without whole-school, sustained, face-to-face professional development delivered in schools, reform will not succeed. This additional time would also support principals who, as highlighted in the INTO’s Teacher Workload report, feel they have been pulled away from their core responsibility of leading teaching and learning by excessive administrative demands. Principals also need augmented in-school management teams who can take on leadership roles in relation to the curriculum. The NCCA, the statutory body charged with curriculum design, has laid out the necessary conditions for successful implementation in the document supporting systemwide primary curriculum change. That publication makes it clear that three elements are non-negotiable: strong leadership and coherence across the system, sustained professional development and capacity building and adequate resources and infrastructure.

The NCCA states that curriculum reform will fail if it is fragmented or under-resourced. We wholeheartedly agree with this view and are making it clear to this committee that this should not be allowed to happen. We stress that we support the redeveloped curriculum. Teachers are ready to lead this change and to bring its vision to life in classrooms across the country but they cannot, and should not, be expected to deliver this transformation without the conditions that both they and the Government’s own agency, the NCCA, have identified as essential. Therefore, we call on the committee to ensure that the Department guarantees six non-contact days per year for schools, which would include whole-school, face-to-face professional development delivered during school hours by Oide, which was represented here last week as well, with sustained subject-specific supports along with time for teachers and principals to have the professional space to collaboratively design curriculum content.

We also call for a guarantee of ring-fenced curriculum funding and properly resourced Oide teams, a time-bound plan for reducing class size to 19, in line with the programme for Government and a commitment to safeguard teacher well-being, including accessible counselling services and full substitute cover for all teachers’ leave and fully replenished middle management teams. Teachers want to build the best curriculum in the world for Irish children. Give them the time, resources and respect they need to succeed. Gabhaim buíochas.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms O'Connor and thank both organisations for their opening statements. We will proceed to members' questions. Each member will have six minutes. We allow a little overrun and sometimes, if someone is particularly over their time, the glass might be tapped which means conclude and wrap up. At the end, we will give some extra time to close out any loose threads we did not get tied up entirely.

Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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I thank our witnesses for attending. It is great to see four strong women talking to us about this across the table. I have a load of questions so I will just fire into it. It looks like the National Parents' Council did a great survey and got a good response, with over 400 parents coming back. I asked a question at this committee a couple of months ago about male teachers and female teachers and I could not believe the response that 7% to 10% of primary school teachers are male - it is just that small number - but 70% of them are principals. Was there any feedback from parents saying they would like to see more male teachers in schools? That is one of my questions.

I have three points on "extra time". The first is that we have done a massive amount of work here on the hot school meals programme. I have done a huge amount of work on it as well. We ran a survey for the past few weeks. One of the underlying things that has come back on the hot school meals - this question might be for the INTO - is that children do not have enough time to eat the food.

It is in my child's school for the past three weeks. While it is very positive, they seem to be rushing to try to eat it. If children are taking a lunch out of their bag, it is there beside them. They start eating their sandwich and they are done and then they are able to go outside and play but with the hot school meal, they have to wait their turn to get their meal. The kitchen staff call out the child's name and say, "There you go, that was your choice-----

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Can the Senator just stick with the agenda for today's meeting, which is curriculum reform-----

Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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Exactly, yes.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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-----not hot school meals?

Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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Well, curriculum reform, with the greatest respect, we are talking about teachers and what they would like to see in the new curriculum. I am talking about where the extra time will come from. Will teachers be able to give extra time for them to be able to go out and do a break. Is that okay with everybody?

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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It is okay with the chairperson. Keep going.

Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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With the hot school meals, where would we see the extra time coming from? There is also the issue of extra time with the parent-teacher meetings. Why are they held in November when the children have only gone into school in September? Should we see them happening at the start of the next year? I note that parents have said that they feel the parent-teacher meetings are too short. Should we be giving more time for that? Finally, I am interested in the answers on Irish. It is only when one is older, like myself, that one regrets not concentrating enough on Irish. I would love to see it taught in a different way. I am interested in the witnesses' comments on what parents said about Gaeilge and less time for that as well. I have one or two more questions but I will leave it there for now. My apologies; I got distracted by the hot school meals. The witnesses do not have to answer anything on the hot school meals if it is not appropriate.

Ms Áine Lynch:

There were a few question. On the issue of more male teachers, we did not ask about that in this survey but we have spoken to parents previously on that issue and they told us they would like to see more male teachers in the system. They brought it up when we were talking about the primary curriculum development back in 2024. It was a feature of some of the things that came through.

We brought up the time issue around hot school meals when we attended a committee meeting on the issue of hot school meals. There is a time issue there and how that interplays. Our comment at the time, a couple of weeks ago, was that there currently is not enough time to eat and have a break so there are two choices. We can either cut the learning time or make the day longer and that discussion has to happen. We are not going to resolve it here but we cannot make up time so, in terms of that time allocation, lunch does not currently work. However, parents and children used to tell us that it did not work with the sandwiches either, so it has been an ongoing issue.

Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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Thanks for answering that.

Ms Áine Lynch:

The parent-teacher meetings came up quite strongly in this survey. Parents did not feel that the relationship between themselves, the teacher and the school was strong enough and the parent-teacher meeting was one of the areas that was highlighted, although it is not the only way that the relationship is developed. Certainly, the meeting being too early in the year came up. However, we have consulted parents on this previously and there is also a tension in the fact that early in the year is useful for planning for the rest of the year, so actually parents would like two meetings. They would like one later in the year as well. The issue is not that parents do not need that information early in the school year to support their children but that they also need a meeting later in the year as well. On Irish, Ms O'Shea might want to talk about the responses.

Ms Carmel O'Shea:

Parents do not have just one view but there was a strong message coming back on this particular survey about the cut in the time for Gaeilge. People were disappointed that the focus might be taken away. There were also comments about the way that Irish is taught. There is opportunity in the new curriculum for Irish to be taught through other subjects. For example, when teachers are doing PE, they might teach it through Irish. There could be opportunities for teachers to use Irish throughout the school day and not just in the Irish time, which they do anyway. There was a concern that we would not end up with less time for Irish over all.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

I am going to just comment on the male:female ratio. We are more likely to be at 80:20 in the percentage of teachers. The Senator is absolutely right about the leadership roles. That is another question as to why male teachers feel that they should go into leadership roles.

Regarding the hot school meals, there is a time question. There is a well-being element in the curriculum involving eating, well-being and all of that kind of thing but there is another answer to it, which is additional people. More money for additional people to supervise children while they are eating. Teachers do not have to do that but there is no money in schools for doing that at the moment.

Parent-teacher meetings are school-based decisions and we should give schools the discretion to make those decisions to best meet the needs of the children in their school, which are not universal. Ms Ní Chéileachair might like to comment on the Gaeilge.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

There is a new unit in the Department that is looking at Gaeilge in English-medium schools. A plan has been developed, Is Féidir Liom, Is Féidir Linn, and that will be rolled out during the year. Extra resources have been given to An Chomhairle um Oideachais Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíocht, COGG, and it is looking at how Gaeilge is taught. It is important that it be properly resourced.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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As far as I am aware, I am still a member of the INTO, but I am not 100% certain.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

We will look it up.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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I am still paying back the loans. Go raibh míle maith agaibh as ucht a bheith anseo. As a mammy and a primary school teacher, I pretty much agree with most, if not everything, that has been said. I would love to hear the opinion of the INTO on recent conversations around SNAs. Is there a call for the role of the SNA to be expanded to help children in accessing the curriculum? I think it was circular 30/2014 that focused on cúram leanaí or care needs only. I have seen first hand what the SNA actually does and there is no way that the majority of our children could access the curriculum without their support. It is not just about care needs and we all know that. I would love to hear from the INTO on that.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

A process is under way at the moment, which is the SNA workforce development plan. We have not seen the outcome of that yet but we have inputted into it in terms of our interactions with the Department. Teachers have views about how the SNAs are a really valuable part of our workforce and how they support learning, in the context of this discussion. One of the issues in terms of the curriculum is that the key people for children with special educational needs are the teachers. We are concerned that in the focus on SNAs, a focus is being lost on the role of the special education teacher, SET, and the mainstream teacher and how they carry out that role. Children with special educational needs are in their classes all day. They need support from the SNAs but we also need to make sure we have smaller classes and that we have SETs. We are concerned that there has been no class size reduction for the past number of years and we are aware that teachers have been redeployed into special classes, primarily for children with autism. That is very much needed but we also have to look at the needs of all of the children in the system. That is the way I would look at it.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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I agree but teachers cannot deliver the curriculum to the best of their ability if they have children with a lot of additional needs. We are seeing now that there is an awful lot of children with an awful lot of additional needs in the one class because there is a lack of special class places and special schools. That is a whole other conversation. Would Ms Ní Cheileachair like to comment?

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

Ms O'Connor is right on this. Teachers are the people who deliver the curriculum. The SNAs facilitate the chlid's attendance in school and the child's ability to be in the classroom. They also look after their other needs. I am a former primary school principal of 20 years and the SNAs were vitally valuable in our staff. They did very valuable work that enabled the teachers to guide those children through their learning and to access to the curriculum. That is becoming more challenging in the classroom of today. Teachers need fewer children in front of them. They certainly need SNAs to help children with really complex needs to access mainstream education but we have to look at the number of teachers in our schools, the numbers that they are teaching in their classrooms and ask what is realistic. We have seen really good models across Europe where there are two teachers in a classroom and the amount of learning and real engagement with the curriculum and with teaching and learning in that context is phenomenal. The children's needs are met by assistants.

It is also really important to say that we are asking schools to do today what, in the past, other services did. The dearth of other services cannot be underestimated.

The service that deals with a child every day is the school.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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I agree-----

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

Teachers and SNAs are being asked to be speech therapists, occupational therapists, OTs, psychologists, psychiatrists and family support workers. That is not their role. Their role is to help access curriculum, teaching and learning. Other services are depleted and we have to fill those vacancies. However it happens, we have to do it.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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I agree. I never become a principal but I was a vice-principal for a time before I got elected and I experienced the burnout myself. That brings me on to another question about teacher well-being. On successful learning, burnout and workload, Ms Ní Chéileachair may want to speak to the report she mentioned.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

We carried out a very extensive review of teacher workload. We started the work in 2015, when we identified the causes of burnout and where workload was coming from. That is 11 years ago now and there has been no let-up. There has been a deluge of new initiatives into schools. I could sit here and list 20 of them but we would waste a lot of time. Teachers want to be able to teach. We need systems streamlined. We need to look after teacher well-being. They feel they are being all things to all people. They are working in a system that demands an awful lot more from them. They work in an era when there are very high societal and parental expectations of what teachers in schools can do and this is impacting hugely on teacher moral. Often, we hear teachers saying they just want to teach and to be let get on with the teaching. We need to listen to them.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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I agree and I thank the witnesses for the work they are doing for the teachers. I have more questions that I will come back to.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Very good. Next up is Senator Pauline Tully.

Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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Good morning to all the witnesses. I thank them for their opening statements. Looking at the new curriculum, because that is what we are talking about, I think they all welcome it, more or less, assuming it is properly resourced and the proper inservice given. I know they are comparing it to the 1999 curriculum. Does the six-day inservice they are suggesting come from that? Do I take it that was provided at the time?

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

That was the model. Between 1999 and 2008, teachers received continuous professional development, CPD, on all of the 11 subjects. There were two days on the introduction to curriculum, which Ms O'Connor will remember very well because she facilitated it. The subjects were then introduced year on year. Schools were given engagement and CPD with members through what was the primary curriculum support programme at the time and has now been replaced by Oide, which is the support service. They were given an input by a curriculum expert and then they were given a day back at school to start off, engage in curriculum planning and discuss what the curriculum would look like in their particular contexts.

Today's redeveloped curriculum is a lot less prescriptive. The 1999 curriculum came in an enormous box and was 2 stone in weight. This is five smaller books but there is a huge emphasis on teacher agency, on teachers as curriculum makers and on school staff and school communities making the curriculum real for their contexts. That does not happen by osmosis. That requires people to sit down to ask what that looks like in their school, what they are going to do at the junior and senior levels and where they are going to source their information. There is a huge emphasis in this curriculum on not relying on the textbook and on making children independent learners. To do that, they have to see that modelled by their teachers. That takes time and effort, and it is a really new way of working. We are very taken with this document from the NCCA but even if you do nothing but read the conclusion, it says the curriculum "will be significantly different in layout, structure and content from the 1999 curriculum." That is a really important statement. If we do not expect teachers to do what they have always done, we have to give them time to learn how to change their practices. It is a new pedagogical approach. It is a new set of teaching strategies. It is a new set of skills for teachers and for school staff to sit down and to collaborate on. It is a new set of skills to be a curriculum maker. Many teachers have had no experience of what that means. We have to give them the time, resources and proper guidance to do that. We need experts who will tell us what we want to know and then we have to go back and make sense of that at school level. We have to ask what it looks like, how it will be contextualised, who the leaders in the school will be on this, and what it is going to look like in our classrooms. There is a constant cycle of learning, engagement and review, of coming back and finding out what worked and what did not, and of deciding that we will not do something again or something else was really successful. However, that does not happen by osmosis and there is no time within the school day to do that. Teachers are not averse to professional learning. We know teachers do a huge amount of professional learning in their own time. Last year, teachers had over 358,000 engagements with the education centre network in their own time across primary and post-primary.

This is a whole-school piece. This has to be done collaboratively. This has to be the whole staff. It is important that we look at how the whole staff works together and how we engage in curriculum leadership in our schools. We cannot underestimate the time that will take.

Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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What does Ms Ní Chéileachair think teachers are most concerned about? I know there is a new teaching approach. Obviously, they need the time to sit down together as a staff to plan how they approach things. If teachers are suddenly told they do not teach out of a textbook any more, they need the resources to do that and the time to prepare the class. Would the concern be most about the new subjects being offered? We asked the questions in the committee last week about modern foreign languages. Many teachers will not have any sort of training in languages other than whatever they learned at school themselves, which was not very well taught. If I was asked to speak in French here now after learning it for five years, I would not do very well but I did it for my leaving certificate.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

I think there is a double concern, in that teachers have some grounding in the new playful pedagogy measures through the primary language curriculum, which was not hugely successfully run out and was very protracted. Maths has helped to a certain degree. There is a certain introduction to playful pedagogy in certain subjects. How that translates across the whole curriculum, particularly at the senior end, would be a concern for some teachers.

The concept of being a curriculum maker is also very new and teachers have to be given those skills. That should not be underestimated. Teachers are very bright and agentic professionals but they have been working in a system that is very overcrowded and where they are very prescribed in what they do. To suddenly give teachers autonomy and tell them to go off and design the curriculum themselves needs a huge scaffolding and support base.

On modern foreign languages, the Senator is right. You can go through the whole school system in Ireland now, not learn a modern foreign language at post-primary and then be expected to teach it as a primary teacher. That is a huge piece. Technology and engineering, and the whole sensitivity around relationships and sexuality education, RSE, ethics, religious beliefs and world views, are new areas for teachers. They feel they are very nuanced, particularly the RSE in the current reality, given the controversy that was around it, and also education about religions and beliefs, ERB. I participated in a workshop recently at our equality conference and it showed us how much we did not know and how much we needed to learn.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Very good. Next up is Deputy Peter Roche. Tá sé nóiméad aige.

Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for being with us. I scanned through both statements and I listened attentively when they were being delivered. I thought that the National Parents Council made absolute sense. Then, the INTO came along with its statement and that made perfect sense, too. Somewhere in between lies the solution or the fix for what is being planned. In all of this, you have to have teachers and the appropriate spaces. They are teaching pupils who are starting out in life and who want the very best from what they hear and see in the classroom. Every parent would aspire to just that as well. The last thing I want to see is any teacher straitjacketed such that you go down the middle and nothing else matters.

For me and, I would imagine, a lot of parents, the Irish language would be a non-negotiable. We really have to respect and embrace the Irish language going forward. If we water that down, then we are getting a little bit watery on it as a nation and a society.

I very much take the reference that was made to funding. In any Department, you have absolutely nothing without it. Any transition from what was to what we aspire to requires inclusion. I am talking about the inclusion of the parents' views. Somewhere in the middle lies the fix. No matter what it is that we go for, it should be evaluated every now and again to ensure it is fit for purpose and that somehow or another we have the very best fix for the student primarily but also for the people who are entrusted to teach our children. We hear a lot, and it has been discussed a lot in this forum, about the stress that teachers are already under without adding to that. I am hugely sympathetic to those who want change.

I am taken by the fact that, in the survey, which was quite comprehensive, over half responded. I have a question to put. I am curious as to what percentage did not respond or what cohort. How was that questionnaire, review or survey conducted?

Ms Áine Lynch:

The survey would be put out to our database but also through social media, so there would be no idea of knowing how many. We were in with the joint Oireachtas committee last week and the week before, so we put out many surveys on different subjects. The amount that responded to this was what we would expect for a survey on curriculum. We had a hot school meals survey - sorry to mention it again - and we had over 2,000 parents respond to that because of the type of subject it was. We were quite happy with the response on an issue of curriculum, but even among those parents who responded and wanted to have a voice on the curriculum, 50% did not know there was a new school curriculum. That is an important number.

Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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In any survey or any analysis that is done with parents who want to change the curriculum, for example, those who want to include foreign languages, those who do not want Irish are most likely to be the first respondents. The council may not get a clear picture from that. Do the witnesses understand what I am coming at? There needs to be a more incorporated survey or analysis done. I am someone who really loves the Irish language but I am not proficient in it. I would hate for the results of a survey to somehow or other define whether this is going to be parked up, shelved or otherwise, and that it would not be as meaningful as it was in the past.

With regard to the six days of non-contact for teachers, any parent who has to embrace a change or a plan like this knows that, mother of God, it is only right and reasonable to expect that the teachers need to take stock of where they are at and whether it is working and to draw comparisons between what other teachers or schools are experiencing with those changes.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

We have made the pitch for time for teachers to do that. In terms of the inclusion of parents' views, one of the things about the curriculum development process, which is slow and deliberative, is that it includes the views of all the stakeholders. The NPC contributed to that, which is really important. We do not do curriculum change fast in Ireland but I think that is a good thing because it means it is deliberative. Ms Arlene Forster and Dr. Patrick Sullivan from the NCCA were here last week. There is excellent work. The point about the six days, as the Deputy has said, relates to the need for time to effect this change. From a worker's perspective, no employer is going to say it is adopting something new in its workplace and not give the workers the time to adapt to that change.

Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I am out of time.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I am up next. Like Deputy Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh, I am a primary school teacher and an INTO member. I want to make a few points. Like Deputy Ní Raghallaigh, I was trained in Mary Immaculate College with the 1999 curriculum. The first problem was we found out that the year that had graduated just before us got the full box of curriculum books but thereafter they wanted to give us CD-ROMs. These all got scratched and by Christmas you could not put them into the hard drive. Now, CD-ROMs are obsolete. At the macro level, when the new curriculum is fully rolled out, it must be accessible and given in a manual that you can reach for at the back of the shelf. There is always time for having a book on a shelf. Having a digital copy is helpful but it is not always the main thing.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

They are landing in schools as we speak.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Good. The 1999 curriculum is vast but I just want to home in on something because Ms Ní Chéileachair and Ms O'Connor are both are teachers. I would be honest about this and they might be honest about this, too. The PE curriculum for sixth class has a strand unit on walking, cycling and camping activities and it suggests that, by the end of their eight years in primary school, the children should have prepared for camping and bivouacking. I think that bivouacking is where you go out in the woods with no shelter and are just in a bag overnight with straw wrapped around you or whatever it is. They would know how to use camping stoves and pitch a tent on a camping trip overnight. I know there is really good core content in the three Rs of reading, writing and arithmetic, but there is some really aspirational stuff there. I would say there is no school that has ticked that curricular box and there is no school equipped for that. There are schools right throughout the country that have general purpose, GP, rooms that are supposed to fulfil some of those extra areas of the curriculum that cannot be done from behind the desk but they are being told that those GP rooms are to be transformed into heating areas for school meals or maybe partitioned off for autism classes. How equipped are schools to take on the non-desk activities?

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

I suppose it is one of the things that schools have to outsource or buy in to some extent. One would hope that by the end of a primary school child's career, he or she might have experienced those kinds of things but it would be on their school tour or it would be in their outdoor learning. It is about accepting that all of the things that children do are learning experiences whether they are taking place in the classroom or elsewhere. That is problematic because it is not as accessible to every single child or every single school as it would be to others, so there are places where that is available to schools to do because they have the money and they have the resources to do all of those things. It is really important that the curriculum in its totality is accessible to every child in every school.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Do the witnesses believe that the infrastructure to deliver the full curriculum from beginning to end has been eroded over the years, for example, where schools had libraries but the shelves were taken out for autism classes. Some schools had computer suites that have now become mainstream classrooms, and GP halls are being turned into classrooms. Do the witnesses think the infrastructure has been eroded? Have we lost some of the gains?

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

There is a very real issue with that. I left a very nice modern building ten or 11 years ago when I went out on secondment. I was lucky. A lot of the building stock in the country is old and unfit for purpose and classrooms are very small. I know some schools that are operating in classrooms of 36 sq. m and 54 sq. m, whereas the standard size now is 90 sq. m. The difference in what you can do as a teacher in a 90 sq. m room with a class of 30 children is far greater than what you can do in a 36 sq. m room, which is not fit for that purpose.

Schools are very upset that they have lost their libraries, that they have lost their GP rooms, and that DEIS schools have been asked to take out their parents' rooms, which are vital. I think we are paying lip service to DEIS schools if we look at a new DEIS plan without insisting on those rooms. They are so vital in schools where there is social disadvantage.

We are sitting here next to representatives of the NPC and realise the importance of engagement with parents. Where the structures have been put in place and recognised and then taken away, we are paying lip service to those schools. We are robbing Peter to pay Paul in a lot of areas. We need to be serious about investment in education at every level, but physical infrastructure is a huge issue for some schools and it is very detrimental not only to the teaching and learning going on in regard to the children but also to INTO members and the parents who are sending their children into substandard buildings.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I fully agree. It is pretty woeful that the infrastructure, some of which was provided during the seventies and eighties, is now the same infrastructure the building unit looks at and says the school can repurpose that entire hall and partition it to have two classes. That is not the approach to take. I feel we are losing the gains. In the time I have left, when I was teaching for 16 years, you could get your head around the curriculum. I agree with Ms Ní Chéileachair that you cannot beat those contact days where there is inservice training. Teachers have to teach 12 subjects, if religious instruction is included, and teachers cannot be an expert in all of them. I remember drama was one subject I was floundering in. I used to often send a Post-it note to the classroom next door asking for any ideas for the week. I did not know where I was going with it. Yet I can remember the two contact days we had for the drama curriculum, which stood to me, and there were little things I was able to use.

You can get your head around the curriculum but it is all the hidden stuff. Stuff comes in in circulars and from the principal's office. Emails land in your inbox. None of the recent initiatives, such as the green flag, the amber flag, the Blue Star programme, the First Steps writing programme or Literacy Lift Off, were envisaged. These are just five of maybe 30 or 40 initiatives that came in. These were not envisaged in the 1999 curriculum and yet they are landed day after day on the desks of teachers who are trying to integrate them. They end up chopping and changing. Now we see a diminution of Irish instruction time, but there is an unwritten expectation time and again from the Department of education that we shave a little bit off maths, PE and Irish and shoehorn in all of these different initiatives. That is where the burnout is. You are then struggling at the end of the month, or maybe the following month if you are chasing down that cuntas míosúil, trying to wedge that in somewhere and find a curricular heading. It is just a nightmare.

The committee visited Finland. Sometimes, as the Finns say, simple is better: reading, writing, arithmetic and well-being - getting out in the fresh air and doing PE. We are shoehorning all of these programmes in and having flags we do not even know what they mean, and while that is not to diminish what they are, so much work goes into these things and it is at the expense of other things. On top of that, land in the sacrament classes, and I do not think parents or the Catholic Church realise how much instruction time is surrendered to fulfil those. Is there a lot of overload beyond the core curriculum as well?

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

In one sentence, there are loads of demands from all aspects of society for schools to address everything. I appeal to this committee that, the next time somebody comes in asking for schools to do this or teachers to do that, the committee members bear in mind what is going on in schools and the demands that are made on schools. I know everybody has their own pain or interest but that is where teachers really feel the pressure, that everything is landed at their doors.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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It is huge, and throw a pantomime on top of that.

Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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Go raibh maith ag na witnesses for joining us here today. It has all been said in terms of Gaeilge but I concur with my colleagues on the disappointment at the reduction in time, particularly at the moment with the focus that is on it across the country. I hope it will mean that Gaeilge is taught differently and taught more as a language and less as a subject. Perhaps we will see improvements in its uptake and usage.

Ms O'Connor mentioned already that we are very slow to introduce new curricula in this country. It seems to be madness that it has been a quarter of a century since the last time we introduced one. I asked the question here at committee and there were a variety of reasons, but in terms of this curriculum, it is our curriculum now and we are building on it as opposed to swapping it out in another quarter of a century. Is there a review programme? Is there a plan to ensure it is not as disruptive in another 25 years? I know a lot of it is very positive so disruptive might not be the right word.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

There is a balance to be struck on that. We do consultation very well in this country and that is one of the reasons the processes are slow. I also sit on the council of the NCCA, along with Ms O'Shea, and we are looking at shorter curriculum cycles. We need to start that now and there is an opportunity. For instance, I mentioned the primary language curriculum. The first iteration came in 2015, so it will be 11 years old this year. There is an opportunity now, with the introduction of modern foreign languages, to review how we do language within the next number of years. There is an opportunity with the policy on Gaeilge in English-medium schools to look at how we do Gaeilge. There was a consultation with parents and children during the development of that action plan, and while both the parents and the children valued Gaeilge very highly, they wanted to learn to speak it. They were not interested in doing the reading, poetry and all the rest of it. A terminal examination such as the leaving certificate puts different pressures on us. They wanted to be able to speak the native language and that is what we need to focus on. There is an opportunity to look at language.

We have introduced the primary maths curriculum on its own. We are now looking at science, technology and education and, in a few years' time, looking at the integration of STEM. There are things we can do to make the curriculum cycles shorter. The NCCA had a very interesting conference here in Dublin earlier in this academic year looking at how other countries do curriculum and use shorted curriculum cycles. They do not consult in the same way we do. As a trade union we really value that consultation, so we would not like to see it eliminated, but we are absolutely open to looking at shorter curriculum cycles. Ten years ago, our curriculum was the oldest primary curriculum in Europe. It is the grandmammy and the granddaddy at the moment at 27 years this year. It needs to be carefully planned but I think it is possible.

Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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On the issue of teacher burnout, which is a big issue, you do not appreciate the role of a teacher until you are a parent and are at home with your own kids and realise the holidays might sound like a great thing but they are really well-needed by both teachers and the children. We were all talking about parental engagement and I am of a very different view, even as a parent who wants to pick up the phone once a week to ask my child's teacher what happened on a particular day. Teachers I know, who shall remain nameless, find that very stressful. Parent-teacher meetings are not what they used to be. I know my mother went to parent-teacher meetings and came home and gave out stink to me for not paying attention. I think parental engagement is very different nowadays. There is a fine line that needs to be walked in that regard.

Parental burnout is another aspect and facilitating another six non-contact days can be very bad. It is okay for people who have full-time childcare. Was any thought, consideration or discussion given to doing those days outside of term time but being properly compensated and looked after for that?

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

We were not offered that. At the end of the day, we are a trade union. Teachers have terms and conditions. I am not saying those terms and conditions cannot be renegotiated but that is the space we have to get into. Just to re-emphasise, there was a lot of talk last week from Oide and the Department about moments of support outside of school time and all of the rest of it. There is a place for that, but if we want system-wide change, it has to be done inside the working day of teachers for all of these reasons. One, you can require teachers to be there. Two, the teachers have the opportunity to sit down with their colleagues, because if I do my Gaeilge training, my STEM training or whatever else outside of school time and everybody else is doing their own bits outside of school time, there is no coherence to that. I know it is difficult. The problem is that the childcare system in this country is broken. We would love to help out with that but we have another job to do, which is to teach the children.

Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms O'Connor.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for being here. I just had to step out for a minute so I am sorry if I am going over old ground here. For the INTO on the six non-contact days, it is said this is based on previous experience. Is that the only basis for it or has the organisation thought about what it will do in that period?

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

Curriculum is only one of the things happening in schools at present. Referring back to the Supporting systemwide primary curriculum change document, one of the recommendations by the expert group is that, if you really want to bring in a curriculum, you clear the space and focus on the curriculum. We have had an epic fail on that. We could list 30 things that are happening right now. This year alone, there are new child protection procedures coming in. We also have a new anti-bullying code coming, a new code of behaviour, guidelines on behaviours of concern, guidelines on reduced school days, new special education guidelines, and a higher level of inclusion than we have ever had. The nature of primary school classrooms has changed. We have had an epic fail, so let us focus on curriculum and get it done.

Our experience of the 1999 curriculum is that it was well resourced and well supported. As well as the CPD teachers got and the time for collaboration and school development planning on this, schools were also given resource grants as the subjects rolled out, which were invaluable to the schools at the time, and we have asked for that. That curriculum has stood us in really good stead. We know it is old, but teachers had ownership of that curriculum, implemented it and have great loyalty to it. That curriculum has made us one of the highest performing education systems in Europe. If that worked in the past, why say to us that it will not work now?

The nature of primary schools has changed.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Is that what is being said? Is it being said it will not work now, or is what the witnesses are saying just being taking on board and not coming back? What do the witnesses think has changed?

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

In a meeting recently with the Department, we were told the landscape had changed and that collaboration would happen in different ways. If you were a second class teacher in front of your class from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m., or whenever the children go home, and then you are engaging in your planning, when is the collaboration with your colleagues going to happen within that school day?

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Ms Ní Chéileachair's point is that collaboration should be resourced to make it happen. It is not an afterthought.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

When is that going to happen? If that is going to happen and that real planning is going to happen - Ms O'Connor mentioned the childcare piece, and teachers are parents and they have childcare issues - this is not easy and we are not going to say it is going to be easy, but if we are serious about curriculum change and about maintaining our high performing, very successful education system, we have to be serious about engaging at school level and with parents, as well as having the time for that and letting parents know. We have had a call with the NCCA and, in fairness, it has followed up on it. There will be information videos and brochures for parents following along with the curriculum in order that they know why their child is not doing it this way anymore or is not doing it the way the parents did it in school. The time and resources have to be given to this. It is not going to happen by osmosis or magic or because I am signing on to do a webinar at home at 8 p.m. when my kids have gone to bed. That is not going to affect real curriculum change in my school.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

We are very alive to when people say the context has changed. We know the societal changes, that more women are working, and this is very welcome. We know the childcare system does not meet the needs of working mothers - it does not meet the needs of our members - but we have to advocate for the importance of the curriculum and the importance of professional development for teachers in all aspects. When we say six days non-contact time, we are saying that needs to be built in on a paramount basis. We have the longest school year in Europe.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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On the six days, there is the idea of initiative overload. Do the witnesses have a forum to negotiate on the six days?

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

We are in negotiations with the Department on these things. We engage with the curriculum and policy unit, which the committee met with last week. We also engage through the Teachers Conciliation Council, TCC, and we try to use every lever we have to get in there. The Teachers Conciliation Council is the forum for teachers' terms and conditions. None of that is simple, but that is what we do. We are a trade union. We get in there and we do it.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Do the National Parents Council representatives feel the new curriculum will equip our children into the future, or is there anything they think is missed or deserves particular mention or is a real positive?

Ms Áine Lynch:

The flexibility and autonomy in the new curriculum will allow it to be so. Society is changing so quickly, hence flexibility and autonomy are built in.

I wish to speak to the six days, because that has been a feature of this conversation. We completely agree with the INTO in terms of what is needed in supporting teachers, but we have to be more creative in how we find that time, whether it is talking about terms and conditions or whatever that means. We are also in a crisis where post-Covid attendance has really struggled. This is not a childcare issue. This is an issue where we have children really struggling in education. If we are going to be serious about delivering a full education to children, it is not about childcare. It is about children being in the school. We have a crisis with attendance and many other things, and we have many demands. This is not just six days for the next few years. There are demands for schools to be closed for other issues, like the policy changes. If you add all of those up and then, on the other side of it, you are trying to tell children that every day is a new day and an important day in school, the messages do not compute. We need to seriously look at how we can get-----

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Square the circle.

Ms Áine Lynch:

-----teachers the appropriate teaching professional learning in all the different areas, while also having children stay in school.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

We wish to clarify we realise these six days will be used for other things besides curriculum. We are not looking to add on for other things. We are factoring these things into the system for every initiative coming from now on.

Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for being here with us today. I wish to focus on Gaeilge as much as I can in my time. First, I started in St. Joseph's National School in Toomevara in 2000. I was the beneficiary of the early years of the 1999 curriculum. I focus much of my work here in Dáil Éireann as Fianna Fáil spokesperson for education and youth on the way Gaeilge is taught, particularly at second level, to be fair. I had an incredible education in Gaeilge when I was in primary school in Toomevara, especially under the school principal, George Frend, in fifth and sixth class. It equipped me with a very high level of proficiency in speaking Irish going into secondary school. As to whether that was matched across all primary schools, possibly not, and that is a story we get. I worry about the way Irish is being taught, at no fault to the teachers, in that it is the approach taken to what we are supposed to learn when learning or studying Gaeilge. I also worry about the level of exemptions. Not to say they are all not legitimate, but it is the level that is there and the ability of young people in this country, or any of us, to speak our native language confidently. What are the witnesses' thoughts or concerns around what is going to happen to Gaeilge under this new curriculum or what needs to be done to ensure that, when young people leave primary school, they are confident speaking Irish and are equipped to then progress at second level?

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

First, the Government's action plan on Gaeilge in English-medium schools needs to be implemented and resourced. I know an Chomhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíochta, COGG, has been given extra staff to engage with English-medium schools. Up to now, they have only engaged with Irish-medium schools, and that is really welcome.

There is an issue with teacher confidence and competence. Those teachers, like the Deputy, may have really liked their Gaeilge sna bunranganna agus sa bhunscoil, but then they move on to a system in secondary school that is very focused on a terminal exam and the learning of material which they may see as irrelevant to them. As I said earlier, in the consultation with children, young people and parents during the development of the action plan on Gaeilge, it came across that they wanted to speak it. They want to speak Irish. From my own primary school education, when my principal in my bunscoil came in and spoke to the teachers in Irish, it was because that was what she did.

It was not that she did not want us to know what she was saying; by rang a dó we were well able to understand her because that was our level of Irish. Something along the line has changed. Teachers need to be supported with their Gaeilge labhartha. We also need to recognise there was nothing wrong withGaeilge líofa lofa. Ní gá dó a bheith foirfe. We need to speak it as a living language and I think there is a greater understanding of that, but that needs to be communicated to our schools and needs to be followed through into post-primary level as well. There is an opportunity with senior cycle reform to look at how we do Gaeilge sna hiarbhunscoileanna freisin because it has to be a system-wide approach. Some research done recently by the education centres and some of the colleges of education has shown that primary teachers would like more support and more support with their competence. The modern foreign languages curriculum and the integrated language curriculum we will be looking at means there is an opportunity for teachers to look at how we teach language and how we learn it. There are synergies there from introducing an extra language to give us an understanding about language learning that may not exist in the system at the moment. There is an opportunity with MFL to do that. We have asked Oide and asked the NCCA to ensure the language competence and confidence pieces of the curriculum as it is rolled out will refer to that and to Gaeilge when teachers are being upskilled in the languages awareness modules to indicate this is not just for French, Italian, Urdu or whatever your school's language will be but that this is also how you teach Gaeilge.

Ms Áine Lynch:

From our survey there are specific issues Ms O'Shea might speak to, but we have consulted on this for many years and one thing that parents have told us is this cannot just be about a school but has to be about the communities their children live in. It has to be a whole-of-government approach to how young people learn languages. We cannot underestimate the impact senior cycle has on the primary school experience either, but it has to be a whole-of-government approach. When you look at partnership, which parents talked about a lot in our survey, parents and communities have to be part of the partnership for language learning in the local community.

Ms O'Shea might speak to the survey a little.

Ms Carmel O'Shea:

What the parents were saying and what we have heard from children over the years is that they want to be able to speak the language. Interestingly, parents who did not go to school in Ireland, do not have any Irish and may come from another country are even more keen to learn Irish and for their children to learn it. However, it has to be done in partnership and this new curriculum gives us such an opportunity for partnership. Each of the five subject areas has a section called partnership. It is partnership with parents but also with the local community. I have seen lovely examples where schools are working in partnership with the parents and the community. The children go out on a particular day and go to a particular place, which might be a shop, a farm or whatever, and it has already been planned that whoever is there tá Gaeilge aige or aici and úsáideann siad an Ghaeilge. It is a wonderful way for it to be real in the community, exactly as the Deputy was saying, but that partnership and planning are needed to think beyond your classroom and your school and out into your community with your parents as part of that.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

Could I say a sentence about the exemptions?

Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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Yes.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

We have a concern about the exemptions as well. There is an education piece that needs to be done - a communication piece - with parents so that they will understand that the way Gaeilge is taught in primary school means there is no requirement for exemptions. Every child can listen. Every child can understand.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Take your time on this. I think all members would like to hear this. This is quite important, so ignore the clock for a minute.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

Part of the driver for exemptions at primary level is people trying to get ahead with getting exemptions at post-primary level but primary school teachers are well used to adapting particular material. Every child can say "Go raibh maith agat", "An bhfuil cead agam", "Ba mhaith leat", "Ar mhaith leat seo" and whatever else. To some extent, the drivers of exemptions are not teachers but parents. I can understand why they might feel they need to go for an exemption but I do not think it is because the child is struggling in school with the Gaeilge. They are thinking ahead to what is going to happen down the line. We would certainly like to see a review of how the exemptions are being dealt with in the context of a communicative curriculum. I am delighted to meet somebody who came up through a curriculum, the Gaeilge curriculum, which I gave two years of my life to doing inservice training for, and there is an extent to which the impact of that communicative approach is coming through in a more positive attitude to Gaeilge, which we can see across society from people like the members, so I have hope.

Ms Áine Lynch:

If I can come back in there on parents driving this, I think Ms O'Connor is right in that they are trying to get ahead of post-primary. It also really speaks to what parents were saying in our survey about how they want to be partners in their children's learning. I do not think we have to take particular issues and say we need to educate parents about that. If they are general partners in the learning, they understand the curriculum and what is going on in schools. We need ways of doing that which do not take too much time from a school, but there are ways of doing it with modern technologies and everything because parents need to be informed. Otherwise they will listen to what other parents are saying and what is happening on social media and they will do what they think is best for their children. Information is really key.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The overrun in time is important. The Irish exemption issue is something our committee might have to do a body of work on.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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Ba mhaith liom fíorchaoin fáilte a shíneadh amach chuig ár gcuairteoirí ar maidin. Gabhaim buíochas leo as a bheith anseo. Mo leithscéal go raibh orm dul amach chuig an Seomra don Ord Gnó agus le haghaidh cruinniú príobháideach. Tá mé ar ais arís agus tá súil agam go bhfuil cúpla nóiméid fágtha chun mo chuid pointí a leagan amach roimh an gcoiste. Ba mhaith liom tagairt a dhéanamh do chúrsaí inseirbhíse agus, faoi mar a bhí idir lámha ag na finnéithe ansin, do chúrsaí Gaeilge.

I am old enough to remember the inservice, such as it was, for the 1971 curriculum because I went into St. Patrick's College in 1971 and we were at the forefront of the delivery of the new curriculum. I will share with the witnesses a very short anecdote that will illustrate the level of inservice support in 1973. In the spring of that year, I think we only had a religion lecture on a Saturday morning, which was infrequently attended. A friend and I went into town to do a bit of siopadóireacht. I asked him where he was going and he said he was going to this place in the GPO Arcade to get books for his father, who was a rural principal on the Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal. I asked him what he was getting and he said his father had told him to get 22 copies of Tír na nÓg, which as far as I can recall was the buntús book for maybe rang a cúig. I asked why his father needed 22 copies and he told me there had to be one for everyone in the class. We were tittering at this because the whole thing about the new Irish course at that stage was that is was an modh closamhairc - the audiovisual method - and here was this poor unfortunate principal up in Donegal buying a teacher's handbook for every child in the class, such was his knowledge of where he was going to go with the new course. That is how teacher support was back then. Like Ms O'Connor, I was on the primary curriculum support team for a while and we helped to embed the next curriculum iteration in 1999, I think. We had learned a good lot but it was still far from perfect. The biggest complaint from INTO members, as far as I can remember, was that they were a long time trying to deliver the curriculum before they got the attendant support. I see the dichotomy between the two days and the three days that are being offered. How confident are we that we can give meaningful support to the teachers to deliver this? Two days seems very skimpy.

From the time I left the classroom until I was elected to the Seanad, I was working as a feitheoir with Hibernia College. For the best part of 20 years, I went around schools in Munster, mainly, and I was generally absolutely appalled by the caighdeán Gaeilge of the students who were delivering lessons. This is not just Hibernia as I had friends working in Mary Immaculate College and St. Patrick's College and the story was mar an gcéanna i ngach choláiste. The problem was that these people supposedly delivering Irish lessons to their classes - I have used this expression in here before - were fundamentally illiterate in the language. We are all educationalists here to one degree or another.

We know that you cannot teach and embed a language using as a conduit people who are fundamentally or functionally illiterate in the language. We have a serious problem. Unless we can get to grips with this in the next five or ten years, we will have no language to revive.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

Is deas liom bualadh leis an Seanadóir Conway arís. Rinne muid cúpla rud le chéile maidir leis an INTO agus le tacaíocht an churaclaim. Mar a dúirt Máirín Ní Chéileachair cheana, there is absolutely a need for investment in building up the confidence and competence of teachers who are in the system as regards their Gaeilge. It is also about teachers who are coming into the system. There was always debate about the level of competence of people entering teacher education. Their level of competence and confidence should be greater when they are coming out. If that is not happening, something needs to be looked at in initial teacher education. There is then the issue of teachers in the system who have gone through the various iterations. Gaeilge is having a moment. People are very positive towards it. It has not always been like that. You have to remember how people came up. I came up through the second level system when the focus was entirely different. I remember the big posters up on the wall with the gramadach. I will not even mention some of the literature we had to engage with. Some of it was really good.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

Peig is misunderstood.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

Caisleáin Óir was great. We are all coming to that. There absolutely needs to be investment in both initial teacher education and professional development for teachers to bring up their competence and their confidence because tá an Ghaeilge istigh in an-chuid daoine ach níl an mhuinín acu í a úsáid. Is deas liom go bhfuil daoine ag baint úsáid as an nGaeilge anseo.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

Chomh maith leis sin, déanann roinnt de na coláistí Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge. Bíonn ar na hábhair oidí caighdeán áirithe a bhaint amach sa Ghaeilge labhartha sula scaoiltear amach as an gcoláiste iad. That level of oral Irish is very important. It would be great to see it across all colleges of education. Ba chóir gur rud amháin é cumas na múinteoirí sa Ghaeilge agus iad ag dul isteach ach rud éigin eile agus iad ag teacht amach. That has to be assessed. Some of the colleges are engaging very successfully with TEG. The B1 standard in TEG is quite high. You must reach 70% to pass the TEG oral Irish assessment. It would be excellent to see that across the board in all of the colleges of education mar is easpa muiníne atá ann. Nuair a tháinig mise go Baile Átha Cliath mar mhúinteoir óg, my Gaeilge had to be perfect. Táim i bhfad níos compordaí anois ag labhairt mo chuid Gaeilge líofa-lofa. Ní dhéanann sé aon dochar don chóras í a labhairt.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We will move to a second round of questions. Members will have three minutes each. I commend Senator Conway on his line of questioning because there is a nettle to grasp here. I say this as a member of the teaching profession. The standard has slipped. With the standard of instruction slipping, the standard of learning slips. Overall, the standard of the national language of Ireland Inc. and our population of more than 5 million people also slips. That has to be intercepted. I agree with the Senator's point about that whole five-year thing. Tá caighdeán na Gaeilge ag laghdú. Is fact é sin. Deputy Ní Raghallaigh, who is a huge advocate for the language, is on this committee. It is a major concern. Politicians, the unions representing teachers, the teaching training colleges and the inspectorate all need to be more forthright. Without personalising it to any individual teachers, the collective standard has slipped. With that, the standard of learning slips. Is Deputy Ní Raghallaigh on the Gaeilge committee? Some of that committee's members were in Wales. Wales is going in the other direction. As a country, we have to do something big here. We will go with three minutes per member. Deputy Ní Raghallaigh is up first. We will allow a little overrun.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Táim chun leanúint ar aghaidh leis an nGaeilge. Táim chomh sásta an méid Gaeilge a chloisteáil sa choiste seo ó na Seanadóirí agus ó na Teachtaí eile. De ghnáth, mothaím go bhfuilim ag troid na troda liom féin. Táim ar an gcoiste Gaeilge chomh maith. Tá an-chuid pléite againn ansin. Tá sé thar a bheith dearfach an méid sin Gaeilge a chloisteáil inniu so táim chun leanúint ar aghaidh léi cé go raibh ceisteanna eile agam.

I am a lifelong activist and advocate for the Irish language. I only ever taught in Gaelscoileanna. I raised my kids through Irish. Is cinnte go bhfuil athrú dearfach meoin ag teastáil. Tá an t-athrú sin ag teastáil ón mbarr. Níl sé sin ag teacht. Tá na díolúintí á bplé againn go minic sa choiste Gaeilge. Agus na hoifigigh ag tabhairt freagra orainn, cuireann siad an milleán ar an líon daoine atá ag teacht ó áiteanna thar lear. Cuireann muid brú orthu. Ní ghlacann muid leis an bhfreagra sin. Tá seans ann go bhfuil díolúine ón scrúdú ag teastáil seachas ó na ceachtanna. Tá fadhb eile ann ó thaobh an chláir ama. Tá na ceachtanna oideachas speisialta ag tarlú ag an am céanna leis an nGaeilge so mothaíonn na tuismitheoirí go bhfuil rogha le déanamh acu idir an Ghaeilge agus tacaíocht bhreise oideachas speisialta. Is é mo thuairim agus tuairim an choiste Gaeilge - tá an-chuid tuairiscí curtha amach againn - ná go bhfuil athrú meoin ag teastáil ón mbarr. Níl muid chun é sin a shroicheadh.

Rinne an Seanadóir pointe faoin gcaighdeán sna coláistí. Ní raibh a fhios agam go raibh TEG ar bun acu anois. Táim sásta é sin a chloisteáil. Tá cairde liom gur múinteoirí iad agus ní féidir leo an Ghaeilge a labhairt. Tá siad ag labhairt ón leabhar agus ag tabhairt cúpla focal.

Sa chomhrá faoin nGaeilge, ceapaim go bhfuil sé an-tábhachtach díriú ar an laghdú 30 nóiméad. Tá níos mó le plé faoi sin. Níl sé maith go leor. Tá a fhios agam go bhfuil na finnéithe tar éis a rá that there is an opportunity there tríd na hábhair eile. Mothaím gur chóir go mbeadh sé sin ag tarlú ar aon nós. Is céim siar é 30 nóiméad a bhaint. Ba chóir go mbeidís ag troid ar son an 30 nóiméad sin. Táimid ag cur teangacha eile isteach. Bhíomar sa Bhreatain Bheag. Táim díreach tar éis teacht ar ais. Táthar ag déanamh i bhfad níos mó dul chun cinn ar leibhéal amháin. Tá níos mó maoiniú le fáil ansin ná mar atá anseo. I just think táimid ag tógáil céim siar. Nílimid chun an sprioc sin de 20% d'earcaithe chuig an earnáil phoiblí a bheith ag feidhmiú trí mheán na Gaeilge a chomhlíonadh muna mbíonn muid ag troid. Are the teachers and the INTO fighting for those 30 minutes?

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

Tharla sé sin ag leibhéal an NCCA. Níor chinneadh éasca a bhí ann. Bhí mé féin sa seomra. Chaith mise mo shaol ar fad mar mhúinteoir agus príomhoide i nGaelscoileanna. Is í an fhadhb is mó ná muinín na múinteoirí. Tráth dá raibh, bhí múinteoirí sásta feidhmiú i nGaeilge leis na hábhair eile. Fadó, rinne mé léachtóireacht i gColáiste Phádraig. Ag teacht i dtreo Sheachtain na Gaeilge nó na scrúduithe béil, I would say to my students that we would do the session today as Gaeilge. Bliain amháin, d'fhéach siad orm agus dúradar "No, ní féidir linn an seisiún a dhéanamh i nGaeilge." Tharla sé chomh tobann sin. Ní raibh muinín-----

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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An é sin na mic léinn?

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

Ba iad na mic léinn a bhí romham. Níl a fhios agam cad a tharla chun é sin a dhéanamh ach ní rabhadar sásta triail a bhaint as an dá uair an chloig de SPHE a dhéanamh i nGaeilge. Ba rud mór é sin domsa. It is about muinín agus cumas. Labhair í agus mairfidh sí. Tá na hacmhainní ann but it is a matter for the whole of government. Tá an méid sin polasaithe éagsúla againn. Government needs to get its act together agus iad sin a chomhtháthú ionas go mbeidh straitéis amháin againn a bhaineann le Gaeilge fud fad na tíre agus fud fad an Rialtais.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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An bhfuil muid ag troid don 30 nóiméad sin a fháil ar ais?

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

Tá sé againn faoi láthair. Is cinnte go bhfuil sé tábhachtach smaoineamh ar an gcuraclam ina iomláine agus ar fhoghlaim theanga.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Tuigim é sin. Gabhaim buíochas leis na finnéithe.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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It is a very important issue. I wish we had more time. I would be very receptive if the witnesses were to write formally to the committee. We need to do a body of work on that. It would very worthwhile to have the witnesses back again, perhaps with Foras na Gaeilge.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

We have done a lot of work with the coiste Gaeilge.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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There is value to-----

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

Beimid os comhair an choiste Gaeilge i gceann coicíse.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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It would be worthwhile to do a whole body of work in due course. The witnesses have taken a very interesting line here. It is probably a disservice to the issue that we are wedging it in.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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It is part of the curriculum.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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It is in the curriculum but we might dedicate a full meeting to it if the committee agrees. That could be actioned today if it were proposed.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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I propose we do that.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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I second the proposal.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We are talking about meeting specifically to deal with caighdeán na Gaeilge in the new curriculum. If the Deputy sees other elements that-----

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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The díolúintí are a huge issue.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Okay, very good. I call Deputy O'Rourke.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat. I want to ask the National Parents Council specifically about children with additional needs. We have the annual issue with access to school places, which gets a huge amount of attention, but there is also the question of what education, exposure and involvement with the curriculum the children get. Does the National Parents Council hear from parents about this? Will the witnesses speak about the distinct and complementary roles of special education teachers and SNAs? What needs to happen with the new curriculum in terms of flexibility and being tailored for children with additional needs?

Ms Áine Lynch:

This is a massive question. A bit like the earlier question, we could do a whole meeting on this specific issue. Quite often the emphasis on special educational needs is about resources. It was alluded to previously that SNA resources take up lot of this time as do places. Parents speak to us about the fact that although their children might be safe and cared for, they are not being told what they are learning or how they are learning it. They question how much it is inspected in the special education system versus the mainstream education system. The reason this is such a big conversation is because we are working towards inclusion. It is about how the children can be included and work on the same curriculum at a different level with their peers, and their right to that inclusion in terms of the curriculum. When we have specialist provision sometimes this can get diluted. It is a huge issue and parents have significant concerns about the curriculum their children are accessing when they have additional needs.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

The redeveloped curriculum is the first curriculum for primary and special schools. It is envisaged that there will be a common curriculum. In other iterations of the curriculum we developed the curriculum for mainstream and then we developed a parallel or another series of documents. It is one of the challenges of implementing the curriculum that each child in the classroom will reach their potential. It adds another layer of complexity to it. Ms Lynch and I have been involved in a TSI project with the Department of education on looking at how we can make our system more inclusive. We are back to the question of resources, and inclusion is not cheap; it costs time, money and thought. We need to give it everything that it is due but this does not happen without resources. It does not happen without a whole-of-society and a whole-of-government look at it. This is not just for the Department of education and for schools.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Is there a forum where this exact conversation is being had? The curriculum is one part of it.

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

We engage with all areas of the special education section of the Department of education, which has expanded amazingly. Even in my short time with the INTO I have gone from dealing with one principal officer to dealing with five, such as been the expansion of the role. There are forums in which it is being discussed. These are very serious and not always very easy conversations but they are happening. Other areas of the special education section also came on the most recent TSI project visit we were on. Other reforms that are happening can happen in conjunction. The Department tends to be a bit siloed sometimes and there needs to be far better interdepartmental and intradepartmental communication than there has been on this issue.

Ms Áine Lynch:

Deputy O'Rourke has identified something that is very important. Where there is a crisis with places, the emphasis and attention are on places. We need to make sure this attention is broadened. Getting a place is important, and having somewhere to go is important, but what happens when the children get there is even more important.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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A few moments ago I mentioned we would be doing a disservice but that was not what I meant. The line of questioning from Deputy Ní Raghallaigh and Senator Conway, and earlier from Deputy O'Meara, was on something I fully support. It is relevant today and I would love to see a full meeting on it. Maybe there is some way, and perhaps the secretariat can advise us, to stitch this in with coiste na Gaeilge. It is something many of our members passionately care about, as do the witnesses. We might try to set a block of time or several meetings for this. The suggestion has been recorded.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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I do not want to ask the INTO people to boil their cabbage twice. While I was away, they probably referred to the inservice regimen mooted by the Department. I would love to hear briefly their outline of this and their concerns. I also have a question for the parent representatives who are here. During the earlier part of the meeting, there was talk about involving parents in the classroom and I have a little anecdote that I want to share. When I was a young principal in Dunmore East, I brought in a guy who came to me initially and said he wanted to tell the children about his beekeeping. I said that was fine. He came along and God knows he should have been up in the training college. He came along with a series of six lessons prepared which he was going to deliver and bring in the bees. Health and safety was not the issue then that it is now. It was dramatically successful. On foot of this, about a month later, there was a guy plaguing me to speak. He was a big cheese in Bord na gCon; I do not know whether it still exists but it was the greyhound board. He wanted to bring in his two prize greyhounds and introduce them to the boys - it was an all-boys school. He brought them in. We all know the adage that we should never work with children or animals. Well, I was working with both and it was a disaster. The greyhounds were madly enthusiastic and the children were even more madly enthusiastic. There was utter chaos. That is the other end of the story. It is difficult for principals to organise and know who to pick and to invigilate for the people. Sometimes it can be so contributive and sometimes it can be utterly disastrous. It puts extra pressures on hard-working teaching principals, which I am sure a lot of us here know about.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

We have no difficulty reiterating what we said at the outset, which is that we do not think the proposals the Department has made, and which it set out before the committee last week, are adequate for all the reasons we have outlined today and which I will not rehearse again. Primarily, teachers need to be familiar with the new material coming into the curriculum. They need time to plan and implement the curriculum in a way that suits the children in their school, whether they are children who do not have English as their first language, whether they are coming from homes where there has not been a focus on education or intergenerational trauma in disadvantaged schools, or whether they are children with special educational needs. This takes time and planning. I will not say all of the things we said earlier but it is not adequate, as we said at the outset.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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I ask the Cathaoirleach to indulge me for 30 seconds.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Go ahead.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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The close on 20 years I spent going around classrooms with Hibernia coincided with the new Irish and the phenomenon of immigration. I want to put on the record that I do not think there is another body of workers in Ireland which has done more for the integration of the new Irish than primary school teachers.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Very well said.

I am the last of the speakers. Two of my colleagues homed in on the Irish language. I want to home in on the PE curriculum. It is a fine curriculum with many good strands, and the new curriculum looks positive as well. Teachers are sent off on CPD and to do courses. I remember doing a coaching course one time where there were PE students from UL and coaching experts. They mentioned the words "physical literacy" and all the teachers wondered about it. I had never heard of this in college and I had been eight years teaching at that point. They made a point that was so relevant. In the classroom when we start off with literacy and language we can very quickly tell if a child is struggling. We may get learning support or special education teaching, or some diagnostic testing might be required. It is similar with maths and dyscalculia. We see things, flag them and intervene. They made a point which is so relevant about something that is not on the curriculum. A child could be struggling with the most fundamental movements, which are benchmarked by the health services from the time of birth through the toddler years to school, but there is then a huge gap at school. It could be with regard to manipulating a ball, rolling on the ground or the gait of their walk or run. These are all things that will matter throughout life for their physical well-being and health, and not having joint pain and having flexibility when they are older.

The new curriculum ignores all that entirely. Dyspraxia is a huge thing in young people. Diagnosis of it probably lags behind other diagnoses and it is a point I think is grossly missing. I do not think any training college speaks about physical literacy and the need to intervene if someone is not reaching certain developmental benchmarks. We talk about those benchmarks up to the start of primary school and then it fizzles out. We might say one child is great at ball skills and other is great at running but another child cannot do it. We might ask "What about it?" and just tick it off on the report card at the end of the year. I do not think there is enough screening, intervention and benchmarking of where things are at. Would the witnesses as teachers and teacher representatives have a view on that?

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

I think the Cathaoirleach’s comments are very relevant and pertinent. We have a small piece of research but also a lot of anecdotal evidence from teachers for the intake of junior infants over the last two years - the Covid babies – on the fine and gross motor skills that those children do not have. It is a huge concern in schools at the moment that children are coming in, despite two years in ECCE, without the physical and co-ordination skills that we would have expected of the standard or "normal", if such a thing exists, junior infant. I refer to the skills that a five- or six-year-old child would be expected to have. These children are not able to do things like play with Lego, thread beads, hold a pencil, colour or manipulate things like playdoh or marla. They are certainly not able to use a scissors or to cut. These are skills we would have looked at at the beginning of junior infants before we ever went near a PE curriculum at all. Teachers are very concerned about this lack of motor skills, both fine and gross, and are going back to the very basics with PE and children’s gait. It ties into our last conversation. An Chomhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíochta has developed a good series of PE lessons through Gaeilge, corpoideachas trí Ghaeilge, for junior and senior infants and rang a haon agus rang a dó. That is what schools are implementing now. A lot of schools are implementing these lessons that are at a very basic level around primary movement. It is a real concern in schools. I do not think physical literacy is as missing as the Cathaoirleach thinks it is in the PE curriculum. It is a very live issue in schools but it is with regard to children’s skills in engaging in the primary classroom and not just with PE.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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When you launch a new curriculum, it is a bit of moon-landing moment. There may not be another new curriculum for another quarter of a century and maybe even longer. If you are a parent or teacher of a child with suspected dyslexia or dyscalculia, it is very obvious. The curriculum and all the additional layers we have built up in Irish education will be there as safety nets. I have read through it and need to study it more. I intend to go to some of my school training days back down in Clare. It seems to me that we have a moment to fix some of these elements of physical literacy. In general, dyspraxia is only diagnosed if your NEPS psychologist makes a very strong referral or the parents pay for an assessment. It is the poor relation of diagnoses and interventions. I thought the primary curriculum could have done a little more, given that we invest so much as a country in checking children within minutes of being born for things like hip flexibility and, when they are a little older, to see whether they can crawl and walk. Then the checking of developmental benchmarks that fizzles out. The skills are not there from using a knife and fork and threading beads, as Ms Ní Chéileachair said, to engagement in sports and how they move. It is a bit much to expect people to take on all these occupational therapy programmes and so on in later life. I am not saying we fix everything in the curriculum but it is something we cannot ignore.

We have two minutes for each organisation if they want to wrap up some elements. Does Deputy Ní Raghallaigh want to come in?

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Can I have ten seconds for a question?

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, go ahead.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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On the six non-contact days, was there any discussion on the Croke Park and Haddington Road hours?

Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

There has been discussion around that. At the moment there is a whole list of things that schools are required to do in that time. If that time is to be repurposed, there is a question about the current duties and activities that are carried out in those times. I do not see the Department or the inspectorate saying to schools “Stop doing this now and do this instead”. What is left in Croke Park hours is minutes. Those hours are there. They are used by schools already. If they are to be repurposed, there will have to be really strong discussion around that. We cannot shoehorn other things into them and say “Sure they do that in Croke Park hours” because when are they going to do the other very valuable work that is already happening in Croke Park hours? When is that going to happen? Tá an mála lán.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Okay.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Does the Deputy want to-----

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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No, that was it. I just wanted to know where that came into it because it is a few years since I knew what the Haddington Road and Croke Park hours were. Go raibh maith agat.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Away from teaching, I farm. When I wanted to become an organic farmer, I had to do five or six days of training. It was not on-farm training - it was off-farm training with experts led by the Department. We were talking about animal welfare and the principles of animal welfare. If there is a requirement to do six days of training on how to mind the animals in your shed in the winter or in your pasture in the summer, surely the Department could concede a little bit and say that teachers need six face-to-face contact days when they get expert guidance on what the new curriculum looks like. If it is good enough for the cattle on my farm, it should apply here too. I had to take six days out to go to learn how to do it properly so that it is ingrained. Teachers are learners too. You cannot just scroll down through a PDF document or click a few multiple-answer questions at the end of an assessment online and expect to have taken it all in. We are also learners. The delivery of a new curriculum and how we are instructed to deliver that curriculum is as vital as anything else.

Does Senator Conway have any last points to make?

Joe Conway (Independent)
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No. This is really off the point but apropos of what the Cathaoirleach was saying about his organic training, I understand that in the EU we have one directive only governing the welfare of cattle. However, in my research yesterday for a debate I discovered we have no European directive for the welfare of older people. As somebody in my eighth decade, I rest my case.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Very good. I will hand over to the witnesses and go first to the National Parents Council.

Ms Áine Lynch:

I was going say I would follow on what was said, but I am not going to follow on from that theme. I reiterate the point about the six days and the teacher as a professional learner. It is so vital in what happens here. We have heard real clarity around how post Covid, children are struggling in terms of their developmental needs. We know that attendance is a real struggle at the moment as well. We need to find a creative way of doing that six days with children staying in school. Obviously there will be a conversation about terms and conditions but we cannot do it at the expense of children missing school.

I want to finish on the student voice. We did a consultation with a group of students some years back. It was an open consultation in the middle of their summer holidays. They came to Croke Park just to talk to us about their learning. Without us directing the conversation, they brought up the curriculum and their learning. It very quickly got on to which subjects they liked and, to put an adult word on it, the competency of their teachers in different subjects. Irish came up really strongly but so did other subjects like science and PE. The children spoke about how their love of a subject was directly correlated with their teachers’ ability to communicate it. There was also the opposite, where children were not experiencing that. Some children were learning science straight from a textbook and repeating what they were learning, whereas others were doing science experiments. We need to look at all of this – teacher professional learning – in those areas and look at it across subjects and the specific subjects where we need to improve the experience for children.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms Lynch. We will go to the INTO.

Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

I will follow on from a number of things. There are a number of things that are in the system. We will have an opportunity in the national convention on education to look more generally at the education system and all those things. We are looking forward to engaging with people on that. We might make a play to this committee to make sure there is proper resourcing and time given to that convention because it is looking a bit rushed and a bit under-resourced at the moment.

Another thing that is in the system is that primary school teachers are generalists. They like doing this.

They primarily value the relationship between themselves and the pupils they teach and trying to do that in a holistic way. We cannot all be experts in everything. I know some kids will be frustrated because their teacher does not know as much about something as they do, which is the case. They do but we cannot know everything. That is a valuable part of the system but it requires upskilling and time.

I will not flog a dead horse but we have made the case for non-contact time for teachers to keep up with the curriculum and to deal with all of the other initiatives that are coming into schools. We also need funding to put materials into schools. We need to properly resource the Oide service. We need proper inservice from that. We need smaller classes. We need to go down to the European average, which the Government has committed to, but there has been no progress on that since the commitment was made. There was progress during the term of the previous Government but there is no indication of commitment to it at this time.

As well as that, we need teachers who are in a position where their well-being is respected and somebody is looking out for their well-being. We need someone looking at the fact they are feeling under pressure and the need for teachers to be supported so they can deliver the curriculum change that is badly needed.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Very good. I thank both of the organisations for what they do every day and I particular thank the four representatives for coming in and being so helpful and honest in their appraisal of this new curriculum as it is rolled out. Our committee sincerely thanks them for being here today. I thank the secretariat, clerk, technical team and everyone for the meeting today.