Like a beautiful ship, the newly revised curriculum has been launched - and Lucy Fallon-Byrne will remain aboard for the moment.

"It's the begining of a long journey," says the woman whose brief was "to co-ordinate and manage the production of the primary school curriculum".

She was present to help push it out on to the choppy waters of primary education at Dublin Castle last week. "We have brought the project to this point. We would be very much involved in having a key role in forming the inservice that the teachers will need." The in-career development unit and the support service will be involved in this.

"There is a huge range of strands that are continuing," she adds, listing the development of early childhood education and the production of assessment materials for use in the implementation of the new curriculum as examples. "We feel that this is the beginning of a process rather than an end."

The NCCA is involved, she says, in the preparation of guidelines for parents as to how they might more effectively help their children in the home and in school. Also, it is working on the preparation of guidelines for those with special educational needs - guidelines which will further support the use of technology to improve learning and the preparation of a curriculum for those schools that are doing trials on teaching a modern language in senior classes.

The involvement of all the different representative groups means teachers, parents, training colleges, the Department and school managers were all "involved in a direct and very meaningful way. They are very proud of it - everybody feels a sense of ownership. It's a mammoth feat," Fallon-Byrne says.

Her own decision to leave her role as principal of Harold Girls' School in Glasthule, Co Dublin, was a difficult one, she says. "As a principal you are involved in people's everyday lives, you have so many, many creative things in a school that are so exciting," she says.

However, "the chance of seeing the picture at a national level" proved too tempting; finally, after much procrastination, she became assistant chief executive of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment with responsibility for primary education four years ago.

"It's an integrated curriculum," she says. "And we have shown much more clearly how you can implement integration."

She points proudly to the colour-coded manuals that will be sent to every primary teacher in the State. "They look beautiful," she says. With attractive pictures taken by Clare-based photographer Christy McNamara, the books are a source of pride to all the committee members who have worked on the formation of the curriculum - almost 160 individuals have worked on a range of committees during its creation and development.

Fallon-Byrne gives praise, in particular, to the education officers on each committee.

It is planned that the manuals will become a resource, a source of instruction and even of inspiration for teachers.

"I would have spent, like many teachers, time going to shops in London or Paris looking for materials to help me in the classroom," says Fallon-Byrne, who reckons teachers will appreciate these books greatly. The curriculum documents will be delivered to teachers on school days from now until next Monday, between 9.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m.

Each teacher will get the books in a sturdy file box to facilitate storage and display. They include an introduction, 11 curriculum statements and 11 teacher guidelines.

As to the curriculum itself, she says: "The most exciting aspect for us is there is a very clear link between philosophy and guidelines."

Albert O Ceallaigh, chief executive officer of the NCCA, stresses that "we are not throwing out the 1971 curriculum at all . . . the development of the curriculum is evolutionary rather than revolutionary."

Much of the content of the 1971 curriculum has been "revised and updated to take account of changes in Irish society and in education, in particular, in the last 25 years," he says.

"The whole approach has been based on a partnership of all the interests - teachers in particular played a very important role on our specialist committees."

Dr Caroline Hussey, chairwoman of the NCCA (which is now a statutory body under the terms of the Education Act 1998), says the council will continue to contribute to the improvement of the quality of the education provided in primary and post-primary schools.