IPPN

Planning / Development Day

Following repeated requests for information from the DES, it has just been confirmed that BoMs may close schools for one day during the 2008/09 academic year to facilitate school planning and curriculum development. We hope this information will be helpful in calendar planning. It has also been announced that the School Development Planning (SDP) initiative and the Primary Currriculum Support Programe (PCSP) will be merged into one service. Details of the nature of the new service are not known at this point.

Mental Health Survey

There is strong consensus that positive mental health and emotional well-being are vital to children's learning. IPPN is taking part in an international project which aims to provide practical support to schools. This project aims to help prevent mental health problems and emotional difficulties in children. The first step is to gather information from different countries about the extent to which this is a problem in schools, what resources are currently available and what initiatives would be welcomed by Principals.

Through our participation in the International Confederation of Principals (ICP), IPPN will provide high quality multimedia resources for teachers and parents interested in the promotion of positive mental health and emotional well-being. These resources will be free to all IPPN members, but we need your help.

It will take less than 10 minutes to complete the short 'opinion' survey? No specific data is required. This survey is essential research for the team engaged in developing resources. All survey information is held in confidence and your school and staff cannot be identified in the overall findings. The survey focuses on three areas:

1. The emotional & mental health issues facing your school community
2. How you see these issues affecting teaching and learning
3. What professional development and resources would be most supportive and useful to you and your staff in addressing these issues.

To complete the survey Click here and scroll to the bottom of each page for the 'next' button. The Deadline for survey completion is 30th May 2008.

We greatly appreciate your assistance. Thank you in advance for your input.

Le mór-bhuíochas,

Seán Cottrell, Virginia O'Mahony