The Junior Certificate School Programme (JCSP) is designed to ensure that young people can benefit from their time in school and enjoy the experience of improvement and success. It sets out to make the experience of school relevant and accessible to our young people who find it difficult to cope with the school system and who benefit from support in working towards the aim of the Junior Certificate. Students follow the traditional Junior Certificate programme and subjects. It is not an alternative to the Junior Certificate but a support framework to it. It aims to ensure that all participating students sit the same Junior Certificate examination as their peers, in as many subjects as they can succeed in.
A school wide approach to literacy is one element of the framework offered to schools as part of the Junior Certificate School Programme: a programme, which endeavours to make the Junior Certificate accessible and enjoyable for potential early school leavers.
This approach involves subject teachers adopting specific techniques in teaching the literacy demands of their subject area. It allows for subject-specific learning to take place more effectively while at the same time improving literacy levels. When several teachers use these strategies the students not only master subject content, but also develop the skills necessary to become independent learners.
The development of a consistent approach in such areas as spelling and marking is another element of the strategy that further supports students. These aim at raising the profile of reading throughout the whole school. Finally the development of support materials and in-service training for teachers is an on-going part of the JCSP literacy strategy. Short term initiatives and targeted interventions are a component of the strategy. Students take part in extra literacy and numeracy initiatives for the duration of the programme. Students follow the programme from 1st to 3rd year. Students are awarded with a student profile at the end of the 3rd year highlighting what subjects and initiatives they have completed.