Curriculum Aim and Objectives
Aim of the Northern Ireland Curriculum
The Northern Ireland Curriculum aims to empower young people to achieve their potential and to make informed and responsible decisions throughout their lives.
Objectives
The Northern Ireland Curriculum should provide learning opportunities for each young person to develop as:
- an individual
to achieve personal fulfilment and individual well-being through living a successful life - a contributor to society
to be concerned for the well-being of others as well as themselves, in their own society and beyond it - a contributor to the economy and the environment
to appreciate how employment will impact on the economic choices they make and how they, in turn, impact individually and collectively on the environment.
Key elements
There are key elements relating to each curriculum objective which can be highlighted throughout various subjects across the curriculum.
Developing as an individual
Personal understanding
Mutual understanding
Personal health
Moral character
Spiritual awareness
Developing as a contributor to society
Citizenship
Cultural understanding
Media awareness
Ethical awareness
Developing as a contributor to the economy and the environment
Employability
Economic awareness
Education for sustainable development
See the 2002 study from the National Foundation for Educational Research Is the Curriculum Working? to read about how pupils experienced the previous curriculum as disconnected and separate. The key elements seek to address this by signalling how similar concepts and concerns cross subject boundaries.