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Our Culture
Teaching and learning at St.David’s Holy Faith Secondary school is of paramount importance. There is a strong culture of collaboration, reflection and development of teaching methodologies within the school. The school will continue to seek out opportunities to ensure that we maintain a culture of academic excellence.
A Blended Approach
In St David's, we've adopted a blended approach to teaching and learning. In addition to the face to face classroom setting, school policy dictates that every teacher will create an online learning platform for each of their classes. Both teachers and students make extensive use of Google Classroom and its associated applications to share notes, submit work, set digital projects and to collaborate.
Saint David’s is an award winning digital school of excellence (Digital Schools award winner 2023). This blended learning approach is further strengthened by our schools digital strategy. As per Department of Education and Skills guidelines, the school issues an annual digital strategy plan. St. David’s Holy Faith Secondary school has a dedicated staff digital strategy team that sets a target for each academic year. The strategy is developed in collaboration with all staff via surveys and aims to positively impact student learning (The graphic below outlines our digital strategy journey to date).
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In addition to our blended approach to teaching and learning there is a huge emphasis on in classroom teaching and learning and the development of this. From 2024 onwards, three of our SSE teams are rooted in the ongoing development of teaching and learning:
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Student learner autonomy and empowerment
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Teacher Collaboration
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Active based methodologies
These teams meet on a regular basis to implement actions that ultimately create a highly effective standard of teaching and learning within the school.
St.David’s currently provides study skills workshops for all students of 3rd and 6th year via an external study skills company. St.David’s also provides subject specific study skills and techniques via our interactive study skills handbook. This is available to all students. Each year, we host a study skills week to make students aware of various subject specific study techniques. Additionally, all first years will engage in a study skills workshop that is facilitated by our TY student learning team.
Study skills
The team, consisting of teachers from various subject departments, meets on a regular basis to discuss various aspects and areas of development in teaching and learning. The team has previously reviewed our approach to subject department planning and was responsible for the introduction of a newly designed subject department portfolio and curriculum plan layout to ensure they meet the standards set out by the NCCA. The team has issued guidelines to all subject departments on ensuring that curriculum plans contain methodologies that allow for the inclusion of students with additional learning needs and differentiation for all.The team is currently reviewing our homework policy which will be updated to reflect the changing landscape of our approach to teaching and learning. The new policy will be published at the beginning of the next academic year.
Study skills and academic tracking
The aim of the staff STEM team is to ensure the continuous development of extra-curricular STEM opportunities for staff and students through three main pillars: Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. These opportunities will be provided through extra-curricular clubs and through national and international competitions. St.David’s currently provides an array of opportunities for students of STEM to explore their interests in these areas through clubs such as Lego club, F1 for schools, Sci-Fest and the Stripe Young Scientist. The STEM team is currently developing more opportunities in these areas. Since the introduction of this team in 2024 we have seen greater levels of participation and success in areas such as the Stripe Young Scientist competition. In May 2025, St.David’s were the national champions of the F1 for schools competition and participated on the global stage in Singapore for the world finals.
STEM Team
Open Classroom Initiative
This initiative was formally introduced in 2024 and there is a high level of participation among staff. The initiative provides an opportunity for senior management and teachers to visit each other's classrooms and witness the high standard of teaching and learning that is taking place in colleagues' classes. Most importantly, it creates a space for teachers to engage in professional conversation and reflection on their teaching and to allow teachers to experience a wide range of methodologies and approaches to teaching and learning within the school. All participants are provided with a template that will help them to decide on what areas of teaching and learning they would like to focus on during their observation.
School Self Evaluation
