Here's a quick introduction to the course — about a minute and a half on what it covers and how it works. It's worth a watch before you begin.
LCW arrived in Irish post-primary schools in September 2026 under the Senior Cycle Redevelopment, so it is new to everyone who teaches it. This first lesson gives you a working map of the specification so everything that follows has somewhere solid to stand.
You will be able to name the two modules, the four strands, the four Applied Learning Tasks, the experiential learning cycle, and the 60/40 assessment shape. You will also open your Professional Learning Portfolio, the through-line of this course. It is a text workspace built into this platform: you write, save and submit entries directly here, your tutor adds commentary on the pieces you submit, and you download the compiled portfolio when you finish.
By the end of today you will have your first Professional Learning Portfolio entry: a plain-language map of the LCW architecture in your own words. Later lessons introduce each additional portfolio artefact (a baseline confidence audit, a portfolio plan, a placement plan, a two-year year plan and more) at the point you need it, so there is nothing else to prepare now.
Work through this slideshow at your own pace.
Treat the specification as a map you return to across the whole course, not a document to memorise in one sitting.
Watch this presentation for the context behind the specification: where LCW comes from, what carries over from LCVP, what is genuinely new, and how the subject sits in a student's timetable. This is the framing you will draw on when colleagues, students and parents start asking what LCW actually is.
Why LCW, and Why Now
How this runs: everything you need for this task is in the table below, so it works on its own without anything having to load. The full Coding Ireland LCW student course is also linked from the activity panel if you want to browse more widely afterwards, but that is optional.
Below is one representative lesson from each of the four strands, with its Participating activity named. Read across the four rows to see how the architecture you mapped earlier plays out at lesson level, then answer the three questions and keep your notes.
| Strand | Sample lesson | Participating activity | ALT the strand builds toward |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 Understanding Myself (Fifth Year) | Clarifying what I value | A values card-sort: students choose and rank what matters most to them | ALT 1: Personal Statement |
| 1.2 Understanding my Progression Opportunities (Fifth Year) | Mapping my routes | Students investigate three real routes (an apprenticeship, a PLC course, a degree) using current published entry information | ALT 2: Career Progression Plan |
| 2.1 Appreciating my Community (Sixth Year) | Reading my community | Students map the assets and needs of their local community on a shared wall | ALT 3: Reflection on the Collaborative Problem-Solving Task |
| 2.2 Engaging with the Workplace (Sixth Year) | The work-experience placement | Students complete a placement day and gather feedback from the workplace | ALT 4: Plan Responding to Workplace Feedback |
Hold these three questions in mind and jot a quick note against each:
- Looking across the four rows, where does each ALT sit, and which single ALT carries a collaborative input?
- Which strand contains the work-experience placement lesson?
- Pick one row and describe in a sentence how its Participating activity connects to the ALT that strand is building toward.
These notes are the reference sequencing you will return to when you build your own two-year year arc later in this module. You can deliver LCW with your own materials; this is one worked example of how the architecture can be sequenced.
Write a short, plain-language map of the LCW architecture in your own words, then name the one element you most want to understand better. This is the reference you will return to throughout the course, so write it for the version of you who needs a quick reminder in November.
Submit this entry for tutor feedback. A Coding Ireland tutor will review it and add feedback to your Professional Learning Portfolio; you will be notified by email and can return to read it.
Quick reference (open if you need a prompt)
Use this if you need a prompt. The point is to write the architecture in your own words, not to memorise exact titles.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Module 1: Me and my Future | Strand 1.1 Understanding Myself; Strand 1.2 Understanding my Progression Opportunities |
| Module 2: Community and Work | Strand 2.1 Appreciating my Community; Strand 2.2 Engaging with the Workplace |
| The four ALTs | ALT 1 Personal Statement; ALT 2 Career Progression Plan; ALT 3 Reflection on the Collaborative Problem-Solving Task; ALT 4 Plan Responding to Workplace Feedback |
| Assessment | 60% Portfolio in Action plus 40% written exam, common level only, 4-point scale (Distinction / Merit / Pass / Not Achieved) |
Now sketch one lesson on the experiential learning cycle. This is a
private first draft for your own planning, not a tutor-reviewed submission, so treat it as a place to try the cycle out on paper.
Name a Participating activity, the Reflecting prompt you would use afterwards, and the Applying move that closes the lesson. Your Applying move does not have to be a portfolio entry: it could be a discussion commitment, a named next step, or a practical task.
Worked micro-examples (open for models to deviate from)
Use whichever is closest to your topic as a model, then swap in your own activity. A few lines for each phase is plenty.
| Phase | Strand 1.1 (values) | Strand 1.2 (progression) | Strand 2.1 (community) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Participating | Students complete a values card-sort, choosing and ranking what matters to them | Students explore three real progression routes (an apprenticeship, a PLC course, a degree) using current published entry information | Students map the assets and needs of their local community on a shared wall |
| Reflecting | Written prompt: what did this tell you about what you value, and what surprised you? | Prompt: which route fits the values you named earlier, and what would you still need to find out? | Prompt: which one community need feels most solvable by a student group, and why? |
| Applying | Students name one upcoming choice this might change and add it to their Digital Portfolio | Each student drafts one SMARTER goal toward their preferred route | The group commits to one problem to take into the Collaborative Problem-Solving Task |
You now hold a working map of LCW. Three ideas run through the whole course, and each points to where it gets built out next:
| Framework / Principle | Why it matters for your teaching | Classroom application |
|---|---|---|
| Two modules, four strands, four ALTs — the core architecture, with one Applied Learning Task as the spine of each strand | Every other detail in the spec hangs off this skeleton; learn it first and LCW stops feeling overwhelming | Anchor each lesson to its strand and the ALT that strand builds toward. For instance, a values-clarification lesson in Strand 1.1 should visibly connect to the Personal Statement, even though students will not write it for another term. You will use this anchor directly when you build your two-year year arc in Module 3 |
| Experiential learning cycle — Participating, Reflecting, Applying, the engine the spec names (drawing on Kolb) | Reflecting is usually the first phase to get squeezed when a lesson runs long, yet it produces the portfolio entries that matter most | In your first week of planning, write the Reflecting and Applying prompts before you design the Participating activity, so they cannot be dropped under time pressure. Module 2 builds a full lesson around exactly when and why Reflecting gets skipped |
| 60/40 assessment on the 4-point scale — 60% Portfolio in Action AAC plus 40% written exam, common level only, graded Distinction / Merit / Pass / Not Achieved | It is graded with a written paper, so positioning LCW as a coursework-only subject undersells what students sign up for | In your first Fifth Year lesson, tell students plainly that every reflection they add to the Digital Portfolio is potential evidence for an SEC-set brief they will respond to in Sixth Year. Return to that point each time a new ALT begins so the portfolio stays live material rather than private journalling. Module 3 turns this into applied grading practice |
You also opened your Professional Learning Portfolio, the through-line that compiles into your implementation plan by the end of the course. Come back to this skeleton whenever a later lesson asks you to plan against it.
That was the first lesson of Teaching Leaving Certificate Life, Community and Work
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