Pledge to schools on unspent money [Independent.ie]
- Published: 21 January 2011
Schools in Northern Ireland will have access to unspent money from the past and in future, the Education Minister has guaranteed.
There had been uncertainty in schools across Northern Ireland because the Treasury removed millions of pounds of underspend which some head teachers roll over to fill posts such as classroom assistants the following year.
Education Minister Caitriona Ruane met Finance Minister Sammy Wilson to discuss the matter.
A Department of Education statement said: "Both ministers agreed that schools must continue to have access in the future to surpluses which they accumulated through sound financial management.
"The ministers guaranteed to put in place arrangements to ensure that this was the case and that both past and future savings would be honoured."
Earlier this week Ms Ruane wrote to schools warning them to avoid unnecessary expenditure until the matter was resolved.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) warned that axing the end-year funding will cause redundancies this year. But Ms Ruane intends to shift £41 million from the building budget to pay instead for services and staffing.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Old school teaching better for retaining knowledge [Independent.ie]
- Published: 21 January 2011
Old-fashioned teaching exercises like reciting times tables and verb conjugations are better than trendy new teaching methods, a study suggests.
Researchers believe that reciting facts shortly after learning them is better than many new-style educational methods.
The "simple recall" seems to cement the knowledge "in memory" so it is more permanently embedded for use later.
Many modern teachers rely heavily on learning techniques like concept or mind mapping to help students retain the most from the texts they read, the study said.
This involves drawing elaborate diagrams to represent relationship between words, ideas and tasks.
But two experiments, carried out by Dr Jeffrey Karpicke at Purdue University, Indiana, concluded that this was less effective than constant informal testing and reciting.
Dr Karpicke asked around 100 college students to recall in writing, in no particular order, as much as they could from what they had just read from science material.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Fears for integrity of Irish exam as students get preview [Independent.ie]
- Published: 21 January 2011
STUDENTS have been given a detailed preview of exactly what to expect in an oral Irish exam in 15 months' time, after exam chiefs ignored the advice of experts.
Now a row has broken out over whether or not plans to change the oral Irish test next year will lead to a 'dumbing down' of the subject in the Leaving Certificate.
The change will come into effect in 2012 when the marks for the oral increase from 25pc to 40pc of the total of 600 marks for the subject.
As part of the change, students will be asked to give a description in Irish of a series of pictures on a page.
The advice from the experts was that the page should be given to the students only a few minutes before the test so that their ability would be really tested.
But this advice has been ignored. Instead, 20 pages with pictures have been made available to schools -- a year and three months before the test.
One of these pages will be selected by the examiner and the student will be asked to give a description of it in four minutes for a maximum of 80 marks.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Higher maths proposal for teacher training courses [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 20 January 2011
HIGHER Leaving Certificate maths results could be a prerequisite for embarking on teacher training courses, if proposals from the profession’s regulator body are adopted.
The suggestion from the Teaching Council that the entry level maths requirements should be raised is part of a draft policy it has circulated on teacher education."The council believes the time is now right for a thorough and fresh look at teacher education so as to ensure that tomorrow’s teachers are competent to meet the challenges that they face and are life-long learners, continually adapting over the course of their careers to enable them to support students’ learning," says the draft policy on the continuum of teacher education.
In line with reforms proposed by Education Minister Mary Coughlan, the council believes there should be greater focus on literacy and numeracy in initial teacher education and throughout teachers’ professional development.
It proposes a review of the entry requirements and selection procedures for teacher training degrees, including the possible use of aptitude tests and interviews, considering the significance of relevant experience and the standard of academic achievement needed.
"Having regard to the latter in particular, the council considers that the entry level maths requirement should be raised," it states.
For entry to the three-year bachelor of education (B Ed) degree held by most primary teachers, most colleges require school leavers to have a D3 or higher grade in ordinary or higher level Leaving Certificate maths. Applicants must also have at least a C in higher level Irish and, in English, they need at least either an ordinary level C or higher level D.
Full Story: www.examiner.ie
Parents sentenced for not sending daughter to school [IrishTimes]
- Published: 20 January 2011
THE PARENTS of a 15-year-old girl have been each sentenced to 21 days in jail for failing to send her to school.
However, the judge at Tullamore District Court suspended the sentence on condition that the parents did not appear before him again.
The girl attended for only 15 days in the last two years, the court was told.
In spite of a number of warnings from the court and the intervention of social workers, the girl’s parents claimed that they have been unable to get her to go to school.
The court heard that the father claimed he tried everything to get the girl to go to school.
“You can’t pull a child down the street and throw her into school,” he said.
“All I can do is talk to the child and advise her that she has to be in school.”
Solicitor for the parents Donal Farrelly said the parents were in physical ill-health and there were other difficulties outlined in a report given to the judge.
“Short of physical violence, he wasn’t sure what other effort he could make,” said Mr Farrelly,
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
