Like apostles, they will spread the good news. Over the next couple of years, 40 trainers, appointed Statewide, will go out and liaise with primary-school teachers, instructing them in the joys and strengths of the new curriculum.

During a total of six in-service days this year, the trainers, all primary teachers themselves, will use the 23 colourful manuals launched in Dublin Castle by Micheal Martin, Minister for Education and Science, last week. In time, each of these books will become a teacher's bible. Coming to a school near you, they will wave each glossy manual and aim to inspire.

Each manual is broken down into sections with lesson guidelines and examples, extensive teacher guidelines and content break-down. There are clear and precise objectives laid out as well as a section on the relationship between the aims and objectives of the curriculum and classroom practice.

As Martin said: "A great degree of choice is offered in all curriculum areas, thereby offering flexibility within a clear structure to enable teachers and schools plan for different needs and circumstances."

Aine Lawlor, national co-ordinator of the primary curriculum support programme, and her assistant co-ordinator, Padraig O Duibhir, are spear-heading this training. Some of the new teaching methodologies and lesson techniques have already been implemented in many schools, she says.

"We will be building on what schools are already doing. In all cases we will be affirming people in their strengths in their own schools and helping them to adapt to the revised curriculum. In certain areas there will be significant change.

"It's a change of emphasis, mainly a change in methodology, where the emphasis is on helping children to be more active in their own learning."

Classrooms of children sitting quietly in serried rows will be a thing of the past. Lawlor says this need not frighten or worry teachers, whom have already instigated new techniques. The growing emphasis is on child-centred, active learning - and this is what the revised primary curriculum is about.

The teaching of Irish is a prime example. "For a language to be taught properly, children have to see it as a living language. We would be encouraging teachers that they would use Irish informally so that children experience it in real-life conversations."

Still apprehensive? "Change always does create a certain amount of fear" - especially when it involves 21,000 teachers nationally - "but it is going to be phased over a two- to three-year period." There are 23 books "to absorb", she says; teachers, she hopes, will "dip in wherever they feel they can and try out new areas". Lawlor, who is on secondment from her post as principal of Scoil Nano Nagle in Bawnogue, Clondalkin, Dublin, believes there is "huge excitement" among teachers about the new curriculum. Appointed as national co-ordinator in July 1998, she says the most exciting aspect of the curriculum for herself as a parent is the further opening of the whole field of education to the child.

Since she started teaching herself in 1969, she has seen "wonderful developments in teaching, especially in the last decade. This is not a sudden change. We have been making wonderful strides in schools."

The training will be organised by the 20-plus education centres dotted around the State. These centres will cluster and involve the schools in training. The introductory phase 1 of the in-service will involve a total of three days of training (one school-based planning day and two in-training days). "By the end of January we would hope to have all the schools covered." In the introductory phase, trainers will be "giving a flavour of the whole curriculum", dipping into subject manuals and using examples to illustrate the new methodology. In February, phase 2 will get under way, concentrating on English for the majority of schools and on the Irish curriculum for gaelscoileanna and schools in the Gaeltacht. Schools will close for a further three days. This phase is expected to be completed by the end of the school year.

The education-centre network will make all the arrangements regarding the local delivery of courses and will provide schools with local planning details from the end of this month.

The programme of in-career development for teachers is expected to span a three- to four-year period. The 40 trainers have all been seconded from their teaching posts for this school year. According to Martin, "Support for every area of the curriculum will be offered on a phased basis over the coming years prior to the implementation of each area in school."

Those working in the support programme will also, the Minister said, "liaise with relevant representative groups in the organisation of activities for parents and school management".

The primary curriculum support programme, headed by Aine Lawlor, is based at the Dublin West Education Centre, located at 7 St Brigid's Road, Clondalkin, Dublin 22.