Context/background Coláiste Feirste is an all-ability co-educational post-primary school for 11 - 19 year old pupils which teaches the full curriculum through the Irish language using the full immersion method. As part of our school development planning for 2012-15 we identified as high priorities pupil language and literacy levels, teaching practices and methodologies in the classroom and the development of staff capacity in these areas. Language acquisition and the development of literacy skills occur in every subject on the curriculum of Coláiste Feirste. Each subject area has an action plan to integrate language learning with content learning. This happens naturally in the context of immersion education but it is the experience of Coláiste Feirste that it also must be planned for specifically in each subject through a variety of learning strategies and opportunities. As Coláiste Feirste is the only stand-alone post-primary school teaching through full IM immersion in the north of Ireland, there is a lack of understanding and expertise in this area and much of the staff capacity and teaching methods have been developed without external support. We have recently formed a relationship with the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST) in the south of Ireland in relation to language planning through content in subject areas. We intend to organise further workshops and planning days with PDST on this issue. In addition St Mary’s University College, a local third level institution, have developed a Masters course in Irish-medium immersion education for teachers in post-primary IM. Some of our teachers are pursuing this course. We hope that this will generate further professional discussion and expertise. One aspect of this MA course is Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and we would like to use this strategy as part of our Literacy Development Plan. In 2013/14 we are looking at language development planning within subjects and are sharing practice both within the school and with colleagues in the south of Ireland. This plan is at an early stage but we intend to focus on language planning in several subjects in 2014/15 in order to implement the learning points from this year’s work. We will then monitor, evaluate and review the impact of the plan on pupils’ learning and language development. In 2015/16 we will then plan for a focus on language development in other subjects. We believe that the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) will be an important element in our overall development plan for effective language learning through the school curriculum. Objectives As part of our school development plan, and as a result of the lack of experience, expertise and understanding of Irish-medium immersion education at post-primary level at a regional level, we would like to access such experience and expertise of language learning in immersion and bilingual contexts at a European level. We believe that the first step in this plan is for 4 teachers to attend the Playing CLIL training course from 26th October to 1st November 2014 in Gran Canaria. We intend that these teachers will enhance their understanding of how CLIL works, network with and learn from other teachers working in bilingual contexts and develop resources and activities to be used in Coláiste Feirste. Impact The competences and experiences acquired by these teachers will be integrated into our overall school development plan for developing pupils’ language and literacy skills in Irish through teaching the subject content in the full curriculum. They will practise the resources and activities with pupils in their own subject area, they will gather evidence and evaluate the impact on pupil learning and they will share their conclusions with the whole teaching staff. We will then review the project with staff and adapt our school development plan in this area accordingly for Year 2 of the project. This may also entail other staff accessing European mobility and cooperation activities. The longterm benefits to the school will be increased staff capacity to take forward our school development plan on language and literacy, the sharing and further improvement of practice in the classroom and the increased language skills of pupils to access the curriculum. In addition there will be wider benefits for the Irish-medium sector in the region as we disseminate our experience with other stakeholders, in particular our feeder primary schools.