IDEAL Future Work Package 2 Report

8 France Ireland Latvia Spain Curricular and professional changes Changes to educator salaries and the education profession (leaders and teachers) New curricula in primary and post primary levels Changes to funding models and teacher salaries New curricula in primary and post primary levels Curricular changes Change in curricula for junior secondary schools in 2013, more competence based Curricula more competence based Fully competence based Curricula more competence based Role of digital in the curriculum Change in curricula for senior secondary schools in 2018 Digital competencies integrated into new curricula Digital education guidelines on transforming education through digitalisation Digital competency key part of curricula Special curriculum on computational thinking, programming and robotics . Language focus Focus on English language learning Supporting language development, new language curricula I post primary, modern languages introduced to primary schools Language preservation Competencies on linguistic and multilingual competence Inclusive education Focus on inclusion with certification for teachers in this area and provision of individualised support Focus on making schools more inclusive Investment in digital infrastructure Focus on reducing number of early school leavers, more flexible approaches promoted to support this Social inclusion Anti-bullying initiatives made compulsory in all schools Focus on supporting schools with socio economic disadvantaged demographic Laptops to every student provided by government Mobile phone restrictions in school Assessment Increase in assessment and focus on continuous assessment in secondary levels Continuous assessment being promoted more widely Digital competencies are assessed with a focus on skills to use technologies. Continuous assessment being promoted more widely Table 3: Summary of Educational reforms in the past five years in France, Ireland, Latvia and Spain In addition to curriculum and professional reform, there has also been a focus on inclusion both from the perspective of diverse learning needs and ensuring these learners are supported within the mainstream educational system as much possible. Also the focus on inclusion from a societal perspective, in France this has been on anti-bullying. in Latvia there are several programs to support students. One is a program to provide laptop for every students, another program is to reduce bullying problems. There is also a program “Skolas soma” (school bag) which provides possibility to students to visit different cultural events. For example to visit exhibitions, theatre etc. where all students participate but it is paid from this program. For five years there was a country wide project for reducing social exclusion from education. In all other countries this has been on supporting those from lower socio economic backgrounds. In addition in line with competency based curriculum there has been a transition to more continuous based assessment in Ireland and Spain. Although a hybrid