Five-star plan encourages children to get into sport [belfasttelegraph.co.uk]
- Published: 07 March 2011
Children from a south Belfast primary school experienced a taste of things to come in the London 2012 Olympic Games last week— but all from a disabled view point.
Chris Holmes, multiple gold medal-winning Paralympian swimmer and Director of Paralympic Integration for the London 2012 Paralympic Games, dropped into St Ita’s Primary School, last Thursday to see Newtownabbey’s paralympic gold medallist, Michael McKillop, deliver a presentation to allow the pupils to gain a deeper insight into the forthcoming games from a disabled perspective — all of this as part of the nationwide ‘Five-Star Disability Sports Challenge’ education project.
Holmes said: “As a former athlete, I know how important it is to support local grassroots disability sport.
“The Five-Star Disability Sports Challenge is not only key to helping us achieve our vision of inspiring young people to take up sport, but it will also help us change the public’s attitude towards disability. I am very excited about this programme, and how it will help more people get involved with London 2012.”
Michael McKillop, who won his gold medal in the 800m at the Beijing Paralympic Games in 2008, delivered the presentation part of the day along with Aubrey Bingham and Elaine Reid from Disability Sports NI, who are managing the project.
Full Story: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk
Prefabs get axe as free pre-school year stays [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 07 March 2011
THE free pre-school year will be maintained, the renting of prefabs will be phased out and the way Irish is taught will be reformed, according to education commitments outlined in the Programme for Government.
Published yesterday, the Fine Gael/Labour document commits to:
* A full review of funding for third-level education and the development of a funding mechanism that will not deter access
* Greater autonomy for school principals and boards. Schools will be required to draw up five-year development plans
* Reform of maths and science teaching at second level, including making science a compulsory Junior Cert subject by 2014. A bonus points system for maths will be introduced
* A new system of self-evaluation will be introduced, requiring all schools to evaluate their own performance year-on-year and publish information across a wide range of criteria
* The integration of ICT in teaching and investment in broadband
Full Story: www.examiner.ie
My Fair Lady – Latest TMS Production [INTO.ie]
- Published: 07 March 2011
Preparations are well under way for The Teachers' Musical Society 2011 production of My Fair Lady, from 5th to 9th April. Following on from a very busy 10th anniversary year which included Beauty and the Beast and a concert entitled Ten Out of Ten, the society is delighted to take on the challenge of this well know Lerner and Lowe classic.
Read More ...
One-in-five struggle to fit into clothes for Communion [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 05 March 2011
IT’S a huge day in any child’s life. But First Communion has suddenly become an even bigger event for all the wrong reasons.
??Soaring levels of childhood obesity in Ireland mean one-in-five children can no longer fit into regular-sized Holy Communion outfits.
Irish retailers say eight and nine-year-olds are now so fat they have had to stock hundreds of extra made-to-order oversized dresses and trousers.
Some eight-year-old girls have ballooned so much, that they have no choice but to don enormous dresses with a 48" chest-size for their First Communion.
And increasing numbers of worryingly-obese boys of the same age are wearing trousers with waists up to 38" for their big day.
Doris Healy, who runs Communion costume retailers, The Sisters, in Tallaght in west Dublin, said 20% of her sales are now made up of oversized outfits.
"I’ve been running this business for 23 years and I’m alarmed at the size of the children now. Certainly 10 years ago everyone could fit into regular-sized outfits and it was very rare to see a child who was obese.
"But things have changed dramatically since then. A few years ago I started to notice that we were having big problems, because girls were coming in and we just didn’t have dresses big enough for them to fit into. The same was the case for boys. We didn’t have big enough trousers for them.
Full Story: www.examiner.ie
45,000 teachers slip vetting net [Independent.ie]
- Published: 04 March 2011
AS many as 45,000 teachers could escape garda vetting on their suitability to work with children because of a loopohle that gives them the right to refuse the checks.
Current legislation allows older primary and secondary school teachers to avoid the process -- despite plans to start vetting them later this year.
A total of 25,000 newer teachers who registered with the Teaching Council since 2006 have already been checked for any previous convictions or prosecutions.
However, no checks have been conducted on teachers who were automatically registered with the council when it was formally established that year.
The council said a lack of resources has delayed the roll-out of vetting to these older teachers until now.
Under the garda vetting procedures, details of all convictions and prosecutions are disclosed to the school -- with any crimes or allegations relating to child protection being of paramount importance as they would almost certainly preclude someone from working with children.
Sources confirmed that as long as the older teachers pay their annual registration fee of €90 to the council and remain in their existing school they can avoid vetting.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
