Curriculum & Observation

Our Aistear-linked Curriculum Plans are developed by Canavan Byrne. Aistear is the National Curriculum Framework for children from birth to six years in Ireland. The word Aistear is the Irish word for ‘journey’ and was chosen because early childhood marks the beginning of children’s lifelong learning journeys. Aistear is a broad curriculum framework and can be used to guide and support each child’s learning experience. The framework outlines four key themes and outlines the key learning goals for children:

• Well-being
• Identity and Belonging
• Exploring and Thinking
• Communicating

Build Your Own Library of Resources to Support Children’s Emergent Interests

Observing children, documenting and reflecting on these observations will help the early years’ educator tune in to the emergent interests of children. A child-led curriculum relies on ongoing assessment of what the children do, say and make and this will help you to plan for more relevant and appropriate learning experiences. Ongoing self-assessment and conversation also enables you to reflect on past and current learning experiences so that you can adapt and improve. Aistear focuses on the child’s individual strengths, abilities and interests in order to plan for and enhance their future learning and development.
Our curriculum planning resources support this framework and will assist you in planning and assessing your ongoing work with children. Our curriculum plans are not prescribed templates, they are a bank of “curriculum ideas” that can be used to respond to children’s needs in a spontaneous inquiry -based manner
Guided by the organic direction of the children’s play, this rich library of resources should be downloaded and kept to hand within your learning spaces.
The assessment tools can be used to reflect, to support and to monitor children’s learning and development