Week 2: The National School System and Educational Shifts within Ireland and the Union

Focus topic: Educational advancements in Ireland (Post-Act of Union)

Topics to continue to focus on this week:

The Stanley Letter – The management of school buildings, textbooks, school grants, and the inspection system.
The encouragement of joint applications from religious denominations – what does this mean for Catholics’ education?
Why there was a mistrust of the education system by Catholics? What was education like previously – the British government used education to convert Catholics to Protestantism?

Lesson Plan:

Learning Intentions	Success Criteria	Learning Outcomes
Analyse and compare primary resources to understand the impact of the National School System. Examine socio-economic factors influencing educational reforms in Ireland. Understand the role of education shaping Irish identity and society.	Students will engage in a group analysis of primary sources. Students will answer comparative questions, demonstrating an understanding of how education reflected broader societal trends. Students will participate in discussions about how the curriculum changes impacted gender roles.	To promote understanding of the present through the development of a historical perspective on issues of contemporary importance. Engage with a primary source related to the National School System To develop a range of research skills essential for the study of history

As we continue exploring education in 19^th-century Ireland under the Union, we can further our engagement with sources like The Stanley Letter, which is easily accessible online.

Using this as a source and comparing it once again with school reports, the pay of teachers, and school attendance, we can further delve into how education shaped Irish society. By introducing a source from a different school, our students have the opportunity to compare and contrast education across time and locations in Ireland. These documents provide insight into administrative duties, educational reforms, and social conditions of the time, highlighting the influence of national and local factors on schools.

Queries from Commissioners of Education — Figure 3: ED_01_029_010_0005
Image courtesy of the National Archives of Ireland

Commissioners of Education Queries — Fig 4: ED_01_029_010_006
Image Courtesy of the National Archives of Ireland

This document is a school report with queries from the Superintendent of National Schools of Ireland in 1842. This source is particularly fascinating for students to examine and analyse, and it deals with different questions dealing with religion, the pay of teachers and the dynamics of students. We can learn a lot about the social context of this school just from this one report. This report can provide insight for students into administrative duties, educational reforms and the social conditions of teachers and students. Using two different sources from two different periods, students can analyse how the national schools had changed over time whilst considering the events happening simultaneously in Ireland.

From this report, we can tell students several different things; the first screenshot is a question to the faculty about the students’ religion. As students will know from the previous lesson, they will understand the divide between the Catholic and Protestant populations, and through these weeks, students will understand and discuss the reactions to multi-denominational national schools.

The second page of the report is extremely beneficial and one that I believe students will have fun analysing and reading. We can tell from this source that it is an all-girls, multi-denominational school containing 330 registered students. We can also see that they do not have any books and two teachers and their respective ages. We can also analyse the attempts at creating an equal denominational school. By asking the teachers if they had contacted the clergymen for each local parish and their answers provided, we can tell a lot about the area from which this is.

We can once again ask our students to analyse these sources in pairs:

In these pairs, students can use their sources from this week and the previous week. They should act as school inspectors and evaluate the quality of education in these two schools. They should be able to identify various parts, such as;

Comparison of attendance and engagement of pupils – explain their differences concerning the cultural context.
- Teachers and the role of management – how did the government monitor education through these reports – what does each report say about the respective schools?
- Funding and Resources – Perhaps the students can suggest improvements to educational resources in each school and what would be possible for the time. And evaluate the schools’ current funding.
- Curriculum – students can discuss the subjects offered in the previous sources and assess the educational priorities of students. Are some subjects more necessary than others?

Directions for their task as School inspectors:
Analysis: Students will analyse the sources from 1842 and 1882 to find patterns, changes, and elements affecting how the schools operated and produced their results.

Report Writing: Students will create an inspection report with suggestions for enhancements based on their findings. They have the option of comparing the two institutions or concentrating on how education has changed over time.

Presentation: Have the students present their reports to the class as if they were presenting to a school board or the government commission with their proposed improvements.

Assessment	Inclusion Considerations	Planned Progression of the lesson
Formative Assessment: Monitor students’ engagement during group discussions, check for understanding through questioning, and assess the inspection report for historical analysis and quality of recommendations. Summative Assessment: Evaluate the written report and oral presentations using criteria such as historical accuracy, analytical depth, creativity, and clarity.	Dyslexia: Provide printed copies of the sources with dyslexia-friendly fonts and spacing. Allow use of text-to-speech software. Break tasks into smaller segments and offer clear, step-by-step instructions. Additional Support: Use differentiated materials, such as simplified versions of the sources or scaffolding questions to guide analysis.	Introduction: Begin with a recap of education history in Ireland, including pre- and post-Union contexts. Primary Source Analysis: Guide students through analysing the 1842 and 1882 sources, prompting discussion on the key differences. Creative Task: Facilitate the “Historical School Inspection Report” activity, then move to presentations. Plenary: Reflect on how educational changes mirrored societal and political shifts.
Linkages:	Resources Used:	Prior Knowledge:
Literacy: Writing the inspection report and delivering oral presentations improve reading, writing, and speaking skills. Numeracy: Analysing attendance data and fees involves interpreting numbers and calculating differences. Digital Skills: Use online tools for research, report writing, and presentations (e.g., Microsoft Word, PowerPoint).	Primary Sources: Documents from the 1842 and 1882 schools. Secondary Sources: History textbooks or articles on 19th-century education in Ireland. Visual Aids: Projector for displaying primary sources and facilitating group analysis.	Students should have a basic understanding of Ireland’s social and political history under the Union. Familiarity with the broader changes in education during the 19th century. Previous exposure to primary source analysis skills.