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3 Draft Leaving Certificate specifications consultations

3 Draft Leaving Certificate specifications consultations

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Overview: Course

The specification for this junior cycle short course Around the world in eighty days focuses on developing cognitive, social and practical skills through four inter-connected strands. The four strands presented here are: Home is where my heart is, A whole new world, Planes, trains and automobiles, and Bon voyage. At all times, students are encouraged to develop independent living skills to the greatest extent possible, which will serve them now and in the future.

Strand 1: Home is where my heart is. In this strand, students examine their place in their immediate environment and local community. It involves identifying and recognising people in their environment who help them and encourages research into local amenities that are accessible and beneficial to the students.

Strand 2: A whole new world. This strand broadens the student’s knowledge of other countries and cultures.  Through cross-curricular learning they develop skills of listening, classifying and comparing their own cultures to those of a contrasting country.

Strand 3: Planes, trains and automobiles. In this strand, students are introduced to the modes and methods of transportation. There are opportunities for classifying, researching and data collection of modes of transport of personal interest to the students.

Strand 4: Bon voyage. This strand enables students to build further on skills of communication as well as those of thinking and reasoning. They learn about planning and preparing for trips outside of their home and school. It enables them to work from a concept to a reality.

Practical, hands-on and problem-solving learning activities should be in evidence across all strands of the course. A trip to a race track, airport, train station or other place of interest to the student is a possibility, especially in either strand 3 or 4. Opportunities for reflection on learning should be offered throughout the course as should the use of digital technologies.

The Classroom-Based Assessment outlined below reflects the learning students undertake in this NCCA short course. Schools have the flexibility to adapt any NCCA-developed short course to suit their particular needs and school context, with the exception of the Classroom-Based Assessment, which all students taking this short course will complete. Schools may also develop their own short course(s) and related Classroom-Based Assessment. Guidelines for schools who wish to develop their own short courses are available at http://www.curriculumonline.ie/Junior-cycle/Junior-Cycle_Short-Courses.

The learning outcomes in this short course are broadly aligned with the level indicators for Level 1 of the National Framework of Qualifications (Appendix A).

The course has been designed for approximately 100 hours of student engagement.

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