About the Programme

Programme goals

The programme has two clear goals:

1. Inspire students to learn about and value their personal and local history, and develop their sense of place;
2. Help students develop the skills of history, including research, forming questions, distinguishing fact from fiction/opinion, critical reflection and storytelling.

The programme aims to create an encouraging, supportive environment in which students undertake history projects that have a specific interest for them, and through which they can connect with their history and sense of place. It sets out to demonstrate that the multiple skills and talents needed to research and record history are life skills, with broad application beyond history. 

In part, the programme is driven by the belief that the multiple skills and talents needed to research and record history are life skills, with broad application beyond history. Learning and practising those skills may help address the OECD finding that 85% of Irish 15-year-olds cannot distinguish fact from opinion in a reliable way. 

The OECD’s PISA study 2018[1] indicated that just

15% of Irish 15-year-olds can distinguish fact from opinion

in a reliable way*.

*Andreas Schleicher, head of education for the OECD, quoted in https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/irish-schools-need-to-modernise-20th-century-approach-to-learning-warns-oecd-1.4516222