Teaching and Learning

Teaching and Learning Initiatives

We have engaged in several initiatives to support teaching and learning within The High School.

TL21 Programme

The TL21 Programme is a workshop-based Professional Development programme for teachers and school leaders that promotes innovative practice and professional learning communities in post primary schools.

The programme’s aims are:

  • (i) to strengthen teachers’ capacities as co-operative and self-critical authors of their own work
  • (ii) to enable pupils to take an active and responsible part in their own learning

Participants in the programme attend a series of continuous professional development workshops in Blackrock Education Centre over a two-year period (five workshops each year).

Accreditation for participants is available in two forms:

  • (i) an MEd in Innovative Learning based on action research carried out in the participants’ schools
  • (ii) accreditation provided by individual Education Centres

In 2018/19 and 2019/20 six teachers worked with Maynooth University and Kildare Educational Centre on an action project about how we could use ICT as a tool to improve communication between staff in whole school context.

Magenta Principles

The Magenta Principles are an approach to teaching based on the premise that learning should be exciting and engaging. The aim is to get pupils to think, talk, and do. Supported by the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) this initiative explores practical strategies for teachers to improve teaching and learning in the classroom.

Central to the approach is the following question: What are students required to do with the information they learn in the classroom? Retaining and regurgitating the information is not enough; pupils need to show understanding of it by actively changing, reducing, classifying, applying, arranging, prioritizing, assembling, and deconstructing it.

Participants in this programme attend three continuous professional development workshops in Dublin over the course of a year. We are delighted to now have 16 teachers trained in the Magenta Principles.

The team share resources informally through The Teaching Well channel on MS Teams and at staff meetings.

Vanessa Connolly
Deputy Principal