Curriculum Planning & Assessment Toolkit

Aistear is the early childhood curriculum framework for all children from birth to six years. The word Aistear is the Irish word for "journey" and was chosen because early childhood marks the beginning of children’s lifelong learning journeys. The framework is used as a guide in planning learning experiences.

This pack provides a few template resources as examples as to how one might implement planning templates for early years services. These are obviously not exhaustive and as a reflective practitioner it is important to ensure that the planning and assessment tools used by your service fit with your vision and ethos of the learning process in your service. These templates are based on the core principle of Aistear that play is central to the children’s learning.

This pack is comprised of the following contents:

Curriculum Planning & Assessment Toolkit Guide

• The Role of the Adult
• A Guide to Completing the Templates: Medium Term Curriculum Planning, Short Term Curriculum Planning,Long Term Curriculum Planning
• Short Term Sample Plan (Daily Routine)
• Daily Routine (Preschool) Template
• Curriculum Planning Resource Library
• Medium Term Curriculum Plan Template
• Medium Term Curriculum Plan Sample
• Short Term Curriculum Plan Template
• Short Term Curriculum Plan Sample (Aistear)
• Long term Curriculum Plan Template (Síolta)
• Suggested Materials Checklist – Babies
• Suggested Materials Checklist – Toddler
• Suggested Materials Checklist – Preschool
• Aistear Learning Record

DES Template for Inspections (Audit)

Curriculum Statement

Job Description Template for Service Curriculum Officer