The Transition Year Programme
The Transition Year Programme
The Transition Year Programme is a unique, one-year programme that promotes the personal, social, vocational and educational development of students and prepares them for their role as autonomous, participative and responsible members of society. TY provides a bridge to enable students to make the transition from the more dependent type of learning associated with Junior Cycle to the more independent learning environment associated with Senior Cycle. It encourages the development of a wide range of transferable critical thinking and creative problem solving skills.
What's the purpose of the Transition Year Programme?
To promote maturity:
- Maturity in studies by making students more self-directed learners through the development of general, technical and academic skills
- Maturity in relation to work and careers by developing work-related skills
- Personal maturity by providing opportunities to develop communication skills, self-confidence and a sense of responsibility
- Social maturity by developing greater ‘people’ skills and more awareness of the world outside school
- Maturity that will help the student make a more informed choice of subject for their Leaving Certificate studies
What subjects are studied?
This varies but every year students follow a timetable as they do in other years. The programme works towards getting a balance between some continuation of essential core subjects, a tasting and sampling of other subjects, a variety of distinctive courses designed to broaden students’ horizons and some modules and activities specifically aimed at promoting the maturity that is central to the whole Transition Year ideal.
What features are there to the Transition Year Programme?
The school offers modules, short courses on particular topics. We also offer a work experience programme. Mini-company, where students set up and operate a real business, is a popular way of learning. The use of visiting speakers as well as trips beyond the classroom are features of the programme. Project work, where students undertake independent research, usually more extensive than traditional ‘homework’, is also common to the programme.
Leaving Cert Vocational Programme
LCVP is a Senior Cycle Programme of the Department of Education, designed to give a strong vocational dimension to the Leaving Certificate (established). The programme combines the virtues of academic study with a new and dynamic focus on self-directed learning, enterprise, work and the community.
Young people taking the LCVP have a unique opportunity to develop their interpersonal, vocational and technological skills. These skills are equally relevant to the needs of those preparing for further education, seeking employment or planning to commence their own business some time in the future.
