Future Leaders programme impacting Transition Year students

By Cian O'Connell

The GAA OIDE Future Leaders programme continues to provide significant opportunities for Transition Year students throughout the country.

On Monday at Croke Park, pupils and teachers from 27 Gold Award winning schools gathered at the launch of the Redeveloped Future Leaders Programme.

There has been an increase in the number of schools participating in recent years which provides further encouragement.

National Future Leaders Co-ordinator Eoghan Hanley is delighted about the impact of the programme. "We had 415 schools doing the programme last year," he says.

"We've gold, silver, and bronze schools. It is up to schools to want to be recognised as gold, silver or bronze award winning schools - certain criteria applies.

"Not every school gets a gold, silver or bronze, but those on Monday were gold winning schools. It means they've run at least three events, created an active club school link, and one of the events would be linked in with the local community."

The fact that more schools are getting involved bodes well. "For the current academic year we're nearly at the 500 mark," Hanley reveals.

"I think you've 720 post primary schools in the country, we've a fair percentage now. There has been huge growth in the last two years, especially.

"You've a couple of reasons. Obviously, post Covid is one, once the restrictions were lifted schools could go out, and they're looking for things to do with their Transition Year students. They're able to be active and organise various events.

"I'm full-time in the role too which helps, being able to support schools on a day to day basis.

"Word of mouth is important too, Transition Year Co-ordinators would talk to each other, and they'd be comparing what they're doing.

"That has been a positive because more and more schools are looking to get involved which is great."

Schools can adapt the programme to suit their own methods. "It varies, each schools context is different," Hanley explains.

"The most common way is that you would be timetabled, the TYs would do one or two classes a week of Future Leaders over the course of the full year.

"That's probably the most common way. You've other ways too where a group of kids might choose to do Future Leaders, while others choose to do something else."

Other approaches have worked too. "Some schools might have it in a cross-circular way, the maths teacher might deliver performance analysis, the PE teacher might do the coaching module, and the English teacher might do the sports journalism, for example," he adds.

"It depends on the school, what type of space they have on the transition year timetable. The most successful ones we have are where it is timetabled, and the students have that space whether it's one, two or three classes a week of Future Leaders. They can do the modules and work together to plan the events."

Supporting teachers and Transition Year Co-Ordinators is crucial according to Hanley. "The programme is a joint initiative between the GAA and OIDE, the Department of Education's teacher support service," he says.

"Having it as a joint initiative with OIDE is integral to the programme, and integral to the continued growth and development of the programme. It means we've access to all of the schools and teachers.

"If a school needs support, either I go to visit them or one of our OIDE team visits to deliver in school support to the teachers to help them roll out the programme. We also have webinars in the evening time, webinars on the programme itself and all the different modules."

Training and support sessions are also held. "On Monday at Croke Park, we also had a teacher training event where we had approximately 100 teachers from new schools or teachers new to the programme," he says.

"The training day was about everything in the programme and how to get it running successfully in their own schools.

The programme has been redeveloped to align with the new Transition Year Programme statement and changes at senior cycle. We've been working on that for the last 18 months or so.

"Now, we want to make sure each school understands what those changes are and how best to engage with the redeveloped programme."

For further information visit learning.gaa.ie/FutureLeaders