The Irish Transition Year programme is unique in Europe. The Transition Year Programme (TYP) is an optional year, offered to students after the Junior cycle, but before the Senior Cycle, of their second-level education. It was first introduced in 1973 in an attempt to deal with the following factors: • The need to encourage personal and social development • The right of all students to a six-year post-primary education • The fact that Irish children leave second level school at a younger age than their European counterparts • The failure rate at third level • Employment prospects at that time1 The programme became available to all schools in 1994. Transition Year(TY) is an optional programme – schools do not have to offer it, and pupils are not obliged to take it. In the year 2006 the TYP was taken by 71.3% of the total number of Irish second level schools and by 46.7% of students. There is no set curriculum during this year and unlike the other second level programmes there is no examination.The programme itself varies from school to school. Each school has the autonomy to chose and design their own timetable and programme in order to cater for the needs of their own students. This must be done in accordance with the TY guidelines and will vary depending on each school’s resources. The TY programme must strive to offer a widely varied yet balanced curriculum.2 The Transition Year Guidelines state that the aims of the TY are: • Education for maturity with the emphasis on personal development including social awareness and increased social competence. • The promotion of general, technical and academic skills with an emphasis on interdisciplinary and self-directed learning. • Education through experience of adult and working life as a basis for personal development and maturity. TY therefore is designed to provide “a bridge to enable students to make the transition from Junior to Senior cycle1. A pilot study was completed in April 2007 by Lally. The title of her study was ‘An investigation into what is being taught in Transition Year Science’3. This study led to a new one being developed. This study examines how teachers are using the opportunity of an open curriculum in TY to teach science, their teaching methods, what resources they are using and their educational philosophy.

Three questionnaires were developed for this new study. The main questionnaire was divided into three sections: All sections of the questionnaire used Dichotomous questions, Filter/Contingency questions, open ended questions and Likert scale statements as discussed in Bell4. Two more questionnaires were developed in addition to the main one. If the respondent in the main questionnaire had ever used a ‘TY Science’ resource from the University of Limerick or resources from PharmaChemical Ireland they were directed to complete a further questionnaire on the resource that they had used. Initially a pilot questionnaire was sent out to TY Science teachers in ten randomly selected schools in the country. In light of this pilot, the questionnaires were revised and sent out nationally to all schools offering the TYP (514). 88 schools responded (17.12%). The findings of these questionnaires were analysed using the package SPSS 16.0.

Findings showed that 63% of the teachers were teaching material from the Leaving Certificate courses (senior cycle), contrary to the philosophy of the TYP. Over 25% of students are not experiencing all three sciences in the TYP, yet teachers do believe in the programme and feel that taking it improves the uptake of science subjects to senior cycle. Our conclusions are that teachers do not know what to teach during this year and are reverting to what they do know – the Leaving Certificate Science syllabi against the recommendations of the TY guidelines. Teachers do believe in the TYP and the promotional effects it can have on attitudes towards science, but they are also not aware of the TY science resources that are there to help them, and therefore are not utilising them