Operation of the Project

The project was directed by a Steering Committee, jointly chaired by NCCA and the Department of Education and Science. Its membership was as follows;

• Assistant  Chief Executive, NCCA
• Senior Inspector, Dept of Education & Science.
• Assistant Principal Officer, In Career Development Unit.
• Chairperson, NCCA Course Committee.
• Representative, Irish Sports Council.
• Director, Cork Education Centre.
• Project Officer.

Project Officer

The Project Officer was responsible for the day to day operation of the project, in the context of the guidelines laid down by the Steering committee. He also facilitated the smooth flow of information between the agencies and individuals involved with the project in whatever capacity. Due to additional initiatives in the area of physical education curriculum development an Assistant Project Officer was appointed at the end of the first year of the project.  

Core Group

This group comprised 20 practicing teachers of physical education with special expertise and / or experience in particular areas of the physical education curriculum. These areas corresponding to the syllabus areas of the Junior Cycle syllabus were;

Adventure Activities

Aquatics

Athletics

Dance

Games

Gymnastics

Health Related Activity

The group produced detailed teaching materials based of frameworks provided by the Course Committee. These materials comprised guidelines on content selection, suggested modes of presentation and assessment, and teaching exemplars related to both established and innovative subject matter.

The teachers involved at this level also designed and delivered the in-career development courses to the participating teachers and critically had a key role in reviewing the materials in the light of feedback from participating schools.

Pilot Schools

Every post primary school in the country was invited to apply for participation in the project.. The pre requisites for application were that the school be willing to;

• provide a minimum of two to three class periods of physical education per week for each class group, for the duration of the project
• facilitate the teaching of prescribed modules of work in designated areas of the new syllabus
• accommodate the necessary programme of staff development

The potential applicants were informed that in the process of application, consideration would be given to the following criteria

• Geographical location
• School size and type
• Expertise and qualifications of Physical Education teacher
• Resources available (qualified teachers, time, facilities)

These schools were clustered in six (6) regions nationally;

West	South Leinster
North West	South East
North Leinster	South West

Project Operation.

Having produced the teaching units and devised the in career development courses the Core Group members undertook the introduce the pilot teachers to the project materials and methodologies. These courses, usually of two days duration, were then followed by a teaching phase of six to eight weeks. During this time the Project Team (Project Officers, Departmental Inspectors and External Evaluator) visited as many schools as possible to speak with teachers and principals. The feedback gained through these visits along with the more formal responses gathered from post lesson and unit forms were subsequently collated. This combined feedback on the teaching units was presented to the Core Group for its consideration. In almost all instances significant changes were made as a result of the experiences of the schools and in some cases very substantial restructuring took place. The design-teach-revise process was employed on three occasions leading to the production of a final draft of the teaching materials.