IPPN

Published: 02 April 2012

The 2012 Deputy Principals’ Conference is scheduled to take place in Citywest Hotel, on Thursday evening the 10th and Friday the 11th of May.

This year’s conference has a tremendous line up of speakers and facilitators. The conference theme is - Two heads are better than one - Giorraíonn Beirt Bóthar. 

We are delighted to inform you that we have brought back Contender Charlie; who performed at our Principals’ Conference this January. The Contender Charlie session received the highest satisfaction rating ever given to an IPPN guest speaker.  Please ask any Principal you know who attended this session to hear more. See further information and web link below.

In addition, we have 6 workshops taking place at three different times; allowing all Deputy Principals to access three workshops. This is an increase from two workshops last year. They include;

Practical whole-school implementation of the National Literacy Strategy - Gene Mehigan, Colaiste Mhuire, Marino
Putting a strategy in place to improve numeracy throughout the school - Patsy Stafford
English Language Comprehension - Building Bridges - Dr Martin Gleeson
Stress Management – Karen Belshaw
Dealing with Challenging Relationships – Joe O’Connell
School Self Evaluation – Deirdre Mathews, DES Inspectorate

Regretfully, the Department of Education have recently stated that due to financial constraint, they are no longer in a position to provide substitute cover for Teaching Principals and Deputy Principals to attend conferences during school time.

IPPN believes that this is a very short sighted policy given the pivotal role played by Principals and their Deputies leading and managing our primary schools. The only concession that the DES have agreed to is; that on this occasion the Board of Management of each school has the discretion to authorise the Deputy Principal to attend the conference in May.

What this means is that any Deputy Principal wishing to attend IPPN’s 2012 Deputy Principals’ Conference must request permission from the Board of Management / Chairperson (in the event of the BoM not meeting before then).  If permission is given then internal arrangements need to be put in place to cover the Deputy Principal’s responsibilities. Alternatively the BoM has the option of hiring a substitute teacher for the day.

IPPN recommends that Principals should support their Deputies to be able to access this one and a half day professional development conference; which will benefit the whole school.

Application and registration for this event are available online on www.ippn.ie.  A full timetable can also be downloaded from the site.

Is sinne le meas

Seán Cottrell      Gerry Murphy