Senior Cycle Pathways Project

Our Network Schools play a key role in developing proposals for a more flexible, inclusive, and coherent senior cycle. Each school has appointed a Link Teacher who acts as the primary liaison with the NCCA, coordinating communication, distributing materials, and facilitating engagement activities. Schools also establish a School Pathways Team typically composed of two students, one parent, the Link Teacher, and a member of school management. This team ensures diverse perspectives are represented and contributes to surveys, focus groups, and reflective discussions. 

Beyond the team, schools are expected to engage their wider community including other students, parents, and staff using NCCA-provided tools to gather feedback. Throughout the project, schools maintain their autonomy while collaborating closely with the NCCA, contributing grounded insights from their own contexts to inform the work of this project. 

Schools taking part in the Senior Cycle Pathways project are given strong support to help them engage fully and confidently. The Link Teacher in each school acts as the main contact with the NCCA and helps coordinate activities. Importantly, the Link Teacher has access to a dedicated Education Officer from the NCCA for their school. The Education Officer provides direct support throughout the project, including regular contact, help with planning, and school visits to meet with the Link Teacher and the School Pathways Team. To help cover costs, each school also receives a €2,000 grant. In addition, schools are provided with templates for surveys and focus groups and regular updates. The project allows schools to work in ways that suit their own context, while also connecting with other schools through network meetings. This support helps schools gather ideas, share feedback, and contribute to shaping the future of senior cycle education.

Phase 1: May 2025 - September 2025

Each of the fourteen schools participating in the Senior Cycle Pathways project had meetings in their schools with the NCCA. 
The first visit served as an induction to the project and included both the Education Officer link person assigned to the school and the Deputy Chief Executive, Barry Slattery, who oversees the project. Ahead of the first visit, schools conducted surveys to gather insights from students, teachers, and parents to gather information to help scaffold discussion and provide stimulus for focus groups throughout the project. 

Phase 2: September 2025 - November 2025

The second phase for the fourteen schools focuses on deeper reflection on their student cohorts and the categories of cohorts in their schools. The School Pathways Team and the Education Officer review the insights they gathered to date and using this information, schools begin building student profiles across three cohort categories: well-aligned, partially aligned, and misaligned with current programmes.

The school link person, working with their team, develops Student Profiles to capture each of the three cohort categories. A range of three to six profiles. These Student Profiles are then shared and refined before the first Schools Network meeting on November 26th. A portfolio of Student Profiles is built to capture the diversity across the fourteen schools.

This work is designed to both shape the design of the first Schools Network meeting and inform the next phases of curriculum mapping and pathway development.

Phase 3: December 2025 - March 2026

Building on the learning to date, schools identify a range of curriculum components that could best support the diverse range of  interests, strengths, needs and ambitions of the students in our schools.

Phase 4: April 2026 - September 2026

Each Pathways Team considers how their school could structure the last 2 years of senior cycle to offer more flexible and integrated pathways for students, accommodating in realistic and feasible ways the menu of subjects, modules and components that emerged from Phase 3.