Junior Cycle Reform: Looking Forward

Abstract

In this chapter, the key themes emerging from the analyses presented in the individual chapters in the volume are identified and addressed. It adopts a future-orientated perspective by seeking to identify the key lessons for policy and practice based on this analysis. The overarching themes which connect the chapters in the book are addressed as follows: (1) the influence of history, existing practice, and systemic context; (2) the influence of global trends and discourses external to the national system of education; (3) the challenge of reforms in respect of both policy development and implementation; (4) the influences of key actors particularly teachers and school leaders; and (5) challenges in negotiating contested perspectives, for example, in relation to assessment, to enable meaningful enactment of reforms. Informed by these themes, some broad lessons framed as attributes of a potentially successful systemic approach to curriculum reforms are identified. It is proposed that attention to these attributes would aid curriculum reforms in any education system engaging in fundamental realignment of curriculum policy and practice.