IPPN

Published: 23 October 2018

By now, everyone is likely aware that IPPN’s number one priority is a minimum of one leadership and management day per week for teaching principals. Despite relentless and repeated efforts to convince TDs, Senators, senior officials and the minister of the importance of this critical investment in school leadership, despite the overwhelming evidence in our submissions and presentations to them, and despite grassroots lobbying by individual school leaders, Budget 2019 has proved to be a huge disappointment to school leaders.

An additional day for teaching principals - four for those with special classes, administrative deputies in 23 of over 130 special schools and expanding CSL coaching to deputy principals in DEIS schools – that’s the sum of the Budget’s provision for school leaders. This is in stark contrast to the minister’s recent comments that ‘investing in leadership is possibly the best bang for our buck we can get. We have started to put in place measures that show our commitment in this area.’ It is difficult to know how to react, other than with frustration. Rest assured, we will continue our drumbeat on behalf of all school leaders, so that a genuine ‘investment in leadership’ is prioritised next year.

Is sinne le meas

Pairic Clerkin & David Ruddy
IPPN CEO & IPPN President

This e-scéal contains useful information on the following:

• Planning Prompts
• Are you Storm Ready?
• Budget 2019 - DES & IPPN Response
• Professional Conversations - Staff Grievances
• Filling Acting Posts
• SNA Appointments – Quick Reference Guide
• Do you have a short-term vacancy in your school?
• Mathematics Leadership in Primary Schools – Research Project

Are you Storm Ready?
Storm Callum with strong winds and heavy rain is expected to hit our shores later tonight. Met Éireann has assigned it an orange status warning. Met.ie/warnings is providing up-to-date information on the status of the storm for your area.

Allianz Insurance has developed a checklist to help you prepare and protect your school against any bad weather event. The checklist includes suggested actions for both storms and flooding, as well as the actions to be taken in the event of property damage. It is advisable to bring this information to the attention of the Chairperson of your Board of Management and your caretaker.

Click here to download Allianz’s Checklist to prepare for bad weather

Budget 2019 - DES & IPPN Response
Budget 2019 was announced on Tuesday, 9 October 2018

Click here to read the main features announced for the Education Budget

Click here to read IPPN’s reaction to Education Budget 2019

Professional Conversations - Staff Grievances
It is always wise to raise issues of this nature, when there are no problems or conflict situations. Continuing our series of discussing 'What if' scenarios at staff meetings, the focus for this week is on staff grievances.

Scenario
What if a staff member comes to you to complain that another staff member has been undermining them and they are now feeling hugely stressed by this situation?

This will then form the topic for discussion and input from staff, as to what is expected of you as a school leader and what responsibility lies with the particular staff member in coming to a resolution. A number of considerations related to the conversation might be:

• Any National Procedures in operation as in Grievance Procedure for Staff
• Informal attempts to resolve issue prior to any engagement with a formal grievance procedure
• Adherence to procedures and not skipping any stage
• Knowledge and understanding of the procedures by staff and BoMPlan to communicate to all stakeholders if not already in place
  Reference to INTO Working Together publication/Teaching Council
• Code of Conduct/Any Restorative Practices already in place within school / A Dignity in the Workplace Policy in place or for development, as a considered response to the discussion.

In these types of situations, one’s rights as opposed to responsibilities can often become the focus. It is important to acknowledge that in any conflict, each of the parties have rights, but they also have responsibilities to engage with each other and the process to achieve an equitable outcome.

The Leadership Support Team is available to support and guide you in dealing with this area of staff relations and management, particularly where difficult conversations need to be facilitated.

Filling an Acting Post – DES Circular 63/2017
IPPN’s Professional Guidance Team has experienced an increase in the number of queries being received from our members on the options available to them in filling an Acting Post.

Before appointing a teacher to an Acting Post, the Board of Management must ensure that the acting post is warranted.

Acting Appointments may be either:

• Short-term – Absences less than one school year i.e. start during the school year and do not extend beyond the end of the school year
• Long-term – Absences that are a minimum period of one school year

How to fill short-term acting posts:
Acting Principal - The Deputy Principal should be promoted to fill an Acting Principal's post. If the Deputy Principal decides not to act, the Deputy Principal’s allowance could cease to be paid for the duration of the acting period. In this instance, the next most senior Assistant Principal I post holder is appointed. In schools without an Assistant Principal I, the most senior suitable Assistant Principal II may be appointed as acting Deputy Principal.

Acting Assistant Principal I – The most senior suitable Assistant Principal II post holder shall be promoted to fill an Acting Assistant Principal I post.

Acting Assistant Principal II - Filled by the promotion of the most senior suitable teacher within the staff.

How to fill long-term acting posts:
A Board of Management may fill long-term acting posts following the same steps as short-term acting posts in the schools.
It is a decision for each Board of Management to decide on the options to fill an acting post in the school which meets the leadership demands of the role and is considered to be in the best interests of the children. A Board may decide to fill these posts through internal competition.

Click here to view DES Circular 63/2017 - Leadership and management in primary schools

SNA Appointments
In response to member queries on SNA appointments, we have produced a quick reference guide for each of the stages of the appointment process and relevant circular references.

Read More

EducationPosts.ie
Do you have a short-term vacancy in your school?

There are two options to fill immediate or short-term vacancies in your school:

• TextaSub – a service available for immediate vacancies commencing within the next 7 days. There are currently 608 fully qualified primary school teachers subscribed to TextaSub.
• EducationPosts.ie – you can advertise short-term vacancies (less than 24 weeks) on EducationPosts.ie. Please select the Status of Post to be – ‘Substitute – less than 24 weeks’ and select your required commencement date. The minimum advertising time for this status of post is just 5 days. An email alert will be sent to all registered Job Seekers in your county who have selected that category of vacancy.

Should you have any queries in relation to this, please email info@educationposts.ie

Mathematics Leadership in Primary Schools – Research Project
Damien Burke is a Dublin-based school principal and associate IPPN member. As part of a doctoral programme at the Dublin City University Institute of Education, Damien is conducting research to examine how the teaching, learning and promotion of mathematics is being led within our primary schools. Principals, deputy principals and other senior school management can get involved in the project, by sharing their opinions and experiences on this important leadership challenge facing schools.

If you are interested in getting involved, or would simply like to learn more about this research, please contact Damien by email to damien.burke52@mail.dcu.ie, by phone to 01-8057717 or by visiting the project website - www.leadershipinmathematicsproject2018.wordpress.com