Project Summary

The aim of this project is to develop the children’s confidence and competence in both English and Irish oral language, through a variety of language experiences. The project will also aim to address the gap between the Irish and English curriculum through the meaningful integration of digital technology.

This academic area was selected for the project due to the continuing roll out of the new Primary Language Curriculum.

The implementation of the Primary Language Curriculum is a particularly important challenge for the schools within our cluster as we must consider the needs of all of our pupils, in particular those with EAL and SEN. 45% of the pupils involved with this project are assessed as having EAL needs and it is our hope to use digital technologies to make their involvement in the PLC both an enjoyable and successful experience.

As our four schools are representative of single sex (girls), co-ed, Gaelscoileanna and SEN classes, we are convinced that our cluster is perfectly positioned to explore and examine the use of digital technologies to enhance the implementation of the PLC across a range of demographics. Our project will address the T1 and T2 aspects of competencies of the PLC for oral language in both gaelscoileanna and non-gaelscoileanna and will allow for the ongoing development of a whole-school PLC plan for T1 and T2 languages as outlined in the document (Primary Language Curriculum, DES, 2016).

Our project will incorporate the use of applications such as Espresso Coding, Khan Academy, I can Animate, Book Creator and other digital learning programmes and apps during the course of the project. The integration of these technologies will allow for a more innovative approach to teaching, learning and assessment throughout the whole process.

It is our vision that the outcomes and deliverables of our project will be used as a point of reference for the wider education community who share similar challenges to those presented to the schools in this cluster.

As the PLC is a new component of the primary school curriculum, it is our belief that the project we are proposing will be central to assisting schools in addressing the ‘new’ approach to language teaching, learning and assessment and pave a pathway as an exemplar to integrating digital learning and technologies as a natural and essential part of the PLC.