What is Northern Ireland’s 10-point plan to ‘transform’ education?

A new ‘strategy for educational excellence’ promises to ‘transform’ teaching and learning in Northern Irish schools – so what does it say?

14th March 2025, 2:30pm

Henry Hepburn

This week, Northern Ireland’s education minister, Paul Givan, launched a “strategy for education excellence”.

TransformED promises to “transform” teaching and learning in Northern Ireland, and puts forward a 10-point plan.

Here are the 10 priorities it sets out:

1. Curriculum

The Northern Ireland curriculum will be redesigned to “ensure every child enjoys an ambitious and knowledge-rich curriculum that develops their learning in a well-sequenced and explicit manner”.

2. Advice and resources

Classroom teachers will be supported by “greater investment in high-quality curriculum advice and
resources”.

3. Professional learning

“Sustained investment” is planned in order to provide a “coherent approach” to professional learning that “supports teachers throughout their career”.

England: Curriculum and assessment review areas to be ‘combed back’
Scotland: Is a new ‘Scottish Baccalaureate’ key to realising Hayward reforms?
Wales: What Wales must do to address its attainment gap

4. Literacy and numeracy

“We will introduce new literacy and numeracy strategies informed by evidence and based on international best practice,” a TransformED document states.

5. Data

A new system of attainment measures for the end-of-key-stage assessment will “set high standards for all children and provide reliable system-level performance measures”.

6. Qualifications

“We will review the qualifications landscape to ensure availability of high-quality qualifications that are up to date, portable and fit for purpose to support progression to a higher level of learning, training or into employment,” the TransformED plan states.

7. Improvement

A new school-improvement policy will lead to a “framework to support excellence and an improved model of external support for schools”.

8. Disadvantage

A more “integrated approach to tackling educational disadvantage” will be built on “evidence-based interventions within schools, families and communities”.