Finnish Education in Ireland: What Primary Schools Can Learn

Ireland's redeveloped Primary Curriculum Framework, its DEIS equity supports and the Educate Together ethos are already moving in directions Finnish schools have practised for decades. Here is how the two systems compare, and what Irish primary schools might take from Finland's approach to teaching.

Ireland's own curriculum reform is already moving in a Finnish direction

Ireland introduced its first ever Primary Curriculum Framework in March 2023, developed by the NCCA. It redevelops the primary curriculum around five broad areas: Language, Wellbeing, Arts Education, Social and Environmental Education, and STEM, organised across Stage 1 to Stage 4 from junior infants to sixth class. The redeveloped mathematics curriculum began rolling out from the 2024/25 school year, with other subject specifications following.

This shift, broader curriculum areas, an explicit Wellbeing strand, more integrated STEM, echoes features that have shaped the Finnish national curriculum for decades: fewer isolated subjects, more cross-cutting competencies, and wellbeing treated as core learning rather than an add-on. Irish policymakers are not copying Finland, but the direction of travel will feel familiar to anyone who knows how Finnish schools are structured.

Class sizes and DEIS: Ireland's equity ambitions

Ireland's average primary class size fell to 22.5 pupils in 2023/24, its lowest level in two decades, yet this remains above the EU average of 19 and above typical Nordic ratios. The current Programme for Government commits to bringing class sizes down to 19, a target Finland and other Nordic systems reached long ago through sustained investment in teacher numbers and consistently small classes.

On equity, Ireland's DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) programme covers roughly a quarter of primary and post-primary schools, funding smaller classes, extra staff and supports such as breakfast and homework clubs in areas of concentrated disadvantage. This is a different mechanism to Finland's approach, which builds equity into every school through national funding formulas rather than a targeted overlay, but the underlying goal, making outcomes less dependent on where a child is born, is shared by both systems.

Educate Together, HEI Schools and Ireland's appetite for a different model

Ireland already has homegrown alternatives to the traditional classroom model. Educate Together runs child-centred, democratically organised primary schools built around its "no child an outsider" ethos, with real parallels to the Finnish emphasis on pupil wellbeing and teacher-led, inquiry-based learning. No dedicated Finnish-curriculum primary school currently operates in Ireland, but the appetite for a more child-centred, less test-driven model is clearly present in how Irish parents and educators discuss curriculum reform.

Elsewhere in Europe, organisations such as HEI Schools, a Finnish early-years concept developed with the University of Helsinki, and Eduten have expanded into dozens of countries by licensing Finnish materials, teacher training and pedagogy for local schools to adopt, rather than asking countries to replace their own curriculum. That is broadly the same route OPPI takes: schools keep their national curriculum, ethos and legal status while adopting Finnish teaching practice through staff training and affiliation, rather than opening standalone "Finnish schools".

What Irish primary schools could take from Finland

For an Irish school leader reading the redeveloped curriculum specifications, the most transferable ideas from Finland are less about subject content and more about classroom practice: phenomenon-based, cross-subject projects, high trust in teacher judgement, and formative, low-stakes assessment rather than frequent standardised testing.

None of this requires abandoning the Irish curriculum, DEIS supports or the Educate Together model already working well for many families. It is a question of pedagogy, how a lesson is planned and taught day to day, rather than what is on the timetable. Schools exploring this route typically start with teacher training and a phased affiliation rather than a wholesale curriculum change.

• Phenomenon-based, project-style learning that crosses subject boundaries
• Teacher autonomy paired with strong initial and ongoing training
• Assessment for learning rather than frequent standardised tests
• A whole-school focus on wellbeing built into the timetable, not bolted on

The direction of Ireland's own curriculum reform, broader skills, more wellbeing, less rote content, already points toward much of what Finnish schools have practised for decades.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading