Additional Staff Training Days

The Department of Education has given all schools in Northern Ireland 2 additional staff training days this year. The reason is that D.E. is currently proposing significant changes to the curriculum and how children learn in school through a strategy called TransformED.

The areas which this is trying to address are curriculum reform, assessment and qualifications, teacher professional learning, school improvement and leadership and tackling educational disadvantage.

The 2 additional days provided to schools are to allow staff to understand what this will mean for their schools and to try to get to grips with the changes that will need to be made.

We were informed that we would be able to take these days on Friday 30^th January, and they must be taken in Terms 2 and 3 of this school year. After a discussion with the Board of Governors, it was agreed that this time would be invaluable for staff and the dates set for these will be Monday 16^th March and Tuesday 5^th May.

This means children will not attend school on these days. While we appreciate that this will cause disruption for some parents, the Board of Governors felt that if parents were informed now, this would give them enough time to make any arrangements needed.  We have also tried to arrange these days around times when children were already off school.

This will apply to all children from Nursery to Primary 7.