Social, Personal and Health Education

Aim: Making choices for health and wellbeing

SPHE is part of the curriculum for all students in primary school and in junior cycle. The NCCA is currently in the process of developing the SPHE curriculum framework for senior cycle. The work on the SPHE framework is well advanced. It is proposed that it will be a 90 hour course offered over two years.

SPHE is presented as a curriculum framework that allows flexibility in the planning of the curriculum and is not examined externally. Individual schools are encouraged to use the flexible nature of the framework to plan SPHE in their unique setting, choosing learning outcomes which are of interest to and important for their students.

In 2005 there was a consultation on the draft curriculum framework which included consulting young people. The report on the consultation was published in 2006.