Catholic schools to promote multiculturalism
- Published: 18 June 2005
CHILDREN of more than 100 different nationalities are being taught in primary schools in the Dublin Diocese, it was revealed yesterday.
Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin said he had initiated a dialogue with the leaders of other faiths in the capital to ensure the needs of all children in Catholic schools are attended to.
As he launched a new intercultural web resource for teachers, Archbishop Martin said he had begun the dialogue to ensure children are never the objects of discrimination or marginalisation.
"We have the possibility of leading the way, rather than waiting to react to tensions should they occur," he said. "What happens in schools will help other initiatives within Irish society."
Crosscare, the social services arm of the Dublin Diocese, developed their new web resource, Celebrating Difference, in association with the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO).
The free resource is the first of its kind in the country.
Aimed at highlighting and celebrating intercultural differences in Ireland today, the web resource is designed to help primary school teachers encourage children's curiosity and create a desire to explore our similarities and differences.
Teachers and pupils from St Patrick's in Drumcondra have been using the resource on a pilot basis.
The website started out over 10 years ago as a highly successful teachers' resource pack, which concentrated on Travellers and has now been further developed to include "new Irish" minorities.
Pat Brady, programme manager of the Crosscare project, said the website could prove essential for teachers.
"Special emphasis has been put on Ireland's new minorities, without losing sight of our own indigenous minority, Travellers," he said. "The new site represented years of preparatory work by its three co-authors, Ms Sile Nunan, president of the INTO, and teachers Michael O'Reilly and Brendan Hyland."
Archbishop Martin also launched the new upgraded website for
Crosscare, which will give wide ranging information on the agency's 14
work programmes in the Dublin Diocese, including its ongoing work in
community education, drugs awareness, teen counselling and poverty.
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School Heads seek bigger pay rise
- Published: 18 June 2005
Head teachers' unions say their members deserve a bigger pay rise than teachers to reflect greater responsibilities, and ongoing recruitment problems.
Both the National Association of Head Teachers and now the Secondary Heads' Association want a differential rise.
Their submissions go to the independent pay body for England and Wales, which makes recommendations to ministers.
Heads are also said to be vulnerable to losing their jobs as a result of their school's performance.
'Right calibre'
The Secondary Heads Association (SHA) said this may be after an adverse Ofsted inspection, "or even in anticipation of a potentially adverse inspection".
The School Teachers' Review Body is considering pay changes to take effect after the current two-year agreement ends in September 2006. It is due to report in the autumn.
The SHA's general secretary, John Dunford, said evidence indicated that the recruitment of heads, deputies and assistant heads in sufficient numbers and of the right calibre was still difficult.
"SHA is therefore firmly of the opinion that it is time once again - after a gap of several years - for school leaders to be awarded a differentially higher percentage increase than that applying to the majority of classroom teachers."
He declined to put a figure on this.
Salary range
But in the speech he prepared for his union's annual conference, in March, he said salaries of £150,000 should be commonplace for heads of the most challenging schools and £120,000 should not be exceptional in the larger extended and community schools.
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David Hart |
The current pay scale has eight salary ranges for head teachers, depending mainly on the size of the school.
The top range is from £64,581 to £93,297 from next September across most of England and Wales.
The National Association of Head Teachers, in its submission last month, also argued that there was a strong case for a differential pay award between school leaders - heads, deputy heads and assistant heads - and classroom teachers.
Its general secretary, David Hart, indicated it would be seeking 10% more spread over another two-year agreement.
"Pay differentials between school leaders and the rest of the teaching profession have been shot to pieces," Mr Hart said.
"Their salaries no longer reflect the very significant responsibilities they carry.
"The vast majority of classroom teachers have benefited from performance related salary movements. Our members are in grave danger of falling behind."
Special Needs Audit 'is adequate'
- Published: 16 June 2005
 Minister said not closing special schools would cause chaos |
The pledge was to undertake a national audit of special schools to get better information on provision in each area.
Campaigners have pointed out that an audit had already begun in 2004 - but only of schools for a small number of children with the most severe problems.
During Commons education questions, Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said there was no need to extend this.
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ELECTION PLEDGE  We will undertake a national audit of special school provision to give better comparative information to local authorities, head teachers and school governors as they plan future special needs provision to meet their local needs  Labour Party, Schools forward not back |
The new audit was a result of that work and covered the "relatively small" number of children whose severe difficulties were the hardest to provide for.
"The first stage is to map where that provision is so that local authorities can work together more closely and find suitable places ... for those children," she said.
She rejected fresh Conservative calls for a moratorium on the closure of special schools until there had been a full survey of the system.
'Chaos'
Ms Hughes said a moratorium would create "complete gridlock" in the system. "It would create chaos and great uncertainty for parents. It would create difficulties for local authorities who are trying to go through a process of reorganising and improving schools," she told MPs.
Where there had been closures there had "almost always" been mergers, opening of new schools or extension of existing schools.
Shadow education secretary David Cameron said afterwards: "We now have it on the record - the audit that Lord Adonis said last week was underway is limited and opaque.
"It will not cover all special schools for those with learning disabilities and it will not cover any schools for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties.
"It is opaque because we still don't have the terms of reference, who will carry out the review or how parents will be consulted.
"We are absolutely clear: the audit should cover all special schools, should listen to parents, should look at the bias in the law and it should be open in its details and remit."
Strategy
Labour's manifesto document, Schools forward not back, said Children with special educational needs were entitled to as good an education as everyone else.
For some that would be in mainstream school with appropriate support, for others in special schools.
"It is not for national government to dictate the proper pattern of provision from the centre, but it is essential that provision is adequate in each locality," it said.
It added: "We will undertake a national audit of special school provision to give better comparative information to local authorities, head teachers and school governors as they plan future special needs provision to meet their local needs."
In the government's strategy document, Removing barriers to learning, published in February 2004, it undertook to review provision for "low incidence" special needs - affecting "a small number of children" with "extremely severe and complex needs".
The "outline timetable" indicated that would be done in 2004.
Yellow Buses would save pupils
- Published: 15 June 2005
US-style yellow school buses should be introduced across England to improve pupil safety and ease traffic congestion, an education charity says.
The Sutton Trust says a service costing taxpayers £124m a year would reduce the 40 deaths and 900 serious injuries caused annually by the school run.
This would also allow poorer families more choice of where to send children and help tackle truancy, it adds.
In the US 54% of pupils are said to use such buses, compared with 6% in the UK.
Driver savings
The trust estimates that yellow buses - going from pick-up points near homes - would save primary school parents around £350m a year in time wasted and driving costs.
Society would benefit by £100m, through better punctuality at work, more efficient communication and a cleaner environment.
 The school run 'creates 2.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide' |
These churn out 2.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, adding to health problems such as asthma, it adds.
Trust chairman Sir Peter Lampl said: "Nearly 20% of traffic on the UK's roads during the morning rush hour is on the school run, and this is increasing.
"It leads directly to as many as 40 deaths and 900 serious injuries each year, and contributes more than two million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually to the atmosphere.
"And the lack of adequate school transport has a social cost too, because it restricts the school choices of families, particularly those in disadvantaged circumstances."
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From the Hollywood sign to the Statue of Liberty, few images of America are more iconic  US yellow school buses |
The law states that children under the age of eight are entitled to free transport only if they live more than two miles from the nearest "suitable school". For older pupils, the distance is three miles.
Charging for yellow buses would have a "negative effect on usage", the trust's report claims.
It recommends that all children eligible for free school meals should be eligible for free transport.
In the US, yellow buses were "easily identifiable", while each child had an allocated seat.
They delivered directly from a pick-up point near home, helping to reduce truancy, the report said. Staggered start times cut rush-hour road congestion.
Yellow buses have been tested in some parts of the UK, including an £18.7m scheme in West Yorkshire.
There, one bus cut 25,000 car journeys a year in the Hebden Bridge area.
During the last parliament, ministers proposed a bill allowing local education authorities to charge for all school travel - strictly on people's ability to pay, "with an expectation that this would be no more than an average daily bus fare".
But this legislation was not passed before the general election.
O'Reilly hits out at school inspections report ban
- Published: 10 June 2005
THE Information Commissioner, Emily O'Reilly, has called for inspection reports on all schools and nursing homes to be made routinely available to the public.
Ms O'Reilly, who oversees implementation of the Freedom of Information Act (FoI), argued that the ready availability of such information was justified on the grounds of public interest.
Speaking at the launch of her annual report in Dublin yesterday, Ms O'Reilly welcomed the fact that the Health Service Executive (and previously various health boards) was now routinely releasing reports relating to inspections of nursing homes.
Ms O'Reilly disagreed with a recent Supreme Court judgment which overturned her decision to grant the release of an inspector's report on a school in Dublin - Scoil Choilm in Crumlin.
Contrary to the court's findings, Ms O'Reilly said the information contained in such reports could not be used to compile "crude league tables".
"They don't talk about the academic achievements of students. They are exactly the type of reports which teacher unions are saying should be released," she remarked.
Ms O'Reilly said it remained open for Education Minister Mary Hanafin to release such school reports "if she so wishes".
She blamed the controversial imposition of fees on requests and appeals - which was introduced by the Government in 2003 - as the primary cause of a 32% decline in the number of FoI applications last year.
Requests relating to records held by education and health authorities accounted for the vast majority of the 12,597 requests made under the FoI Act in 2004.
Requests for personal information under the legislation (which are free of charge) now account for three times the number of non-personal requests.
Applications from journalists fell from 13% of the total in 2003 to just 7% last year.
The number of applications to the Information Commissioner for review of a refusal to release documents, which cost €150 each, fell 61% to 434 cases last year. An initial appeal to a public body for a review of its decision costs €75.
Ms O'Reilly said she upheld the decision of the public body in 93% of all cases reviewed in 2004.
However, the Information Commissioner expressed regret that she had to issue six notifications to heads of public bodies last year to remind them of her powers to seize documents that were not being made available.
In particular, she criticised the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, for obstructing her office in obtaining records relating to the organ retention inquiry.
Ms O'Reilly also expressed concern at the "unhealthy fall" in the number of FoI requests to "key" Government departments including the Taoiseach's office and finance.
She repeated her call for a review of FoI legislation and fees and expressed concern that the high level of charges to her office impacted negatively on the effectiveness of providing information to the public.
Fine Gael TD Fergus O'Dowd, who has accessed records of nursing homes under the FoI Act, said it was now imperative that such reports be made publicly available. He pointed out that 33 nursing homes had adverse findings made against them last year following health inspections.
"The Health and Safety Executive cannot hide behind Freedom of Information anymore."
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