Union leaders claim programme for new teachers waters down existing help [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 23 July 2010
REVISED supports for new teachers have been described by a union leader as watering down existing help to save Government funding.
Tánaiste and Education Minister Mary Coughlan revealed details of an induction programme for newly qualified primary and second level teachers from the next school year, aimed at helping them overcome challenges and problems and to adjust to the classroom dynamic. It will give them 20 hours of professional support and further development in out-of-school settings, beginning for all new primary teachers in September and as soon as possible in the new school year for newly-qualified second level teachers.
Full Story: www.irishexaminer.com
Student teacher training courses ‘dysfunctional’ [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 23 July 2010
RESEARCHERS have backed calls for major reforms of training for student teachers who spend just 17 weeks in classrooms before beginning their careers.
Dr Andy Burke of the Educational Research Centre at St Patrick’s College in Dublin claims in an academic journal article that most teacher preparation programmes are dysfunctional in some respects. He focuses on the Bachelor of Education (BEd) degrees at the two larger teacher training colleges, St Patrick’s College and Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, from which most of the annual 1,000 BEd students graduate.
Full Story: www.irishexaminer.com
Students and parents to have say in education [Independent.ie]
- Published: 23 July 2010
Parents and students will have a say in the running of their schools with a new inspection process being planned for September.
The new questionnaires allow students and parents the opportunity to let the Department of Education know their views on everything from bullying, to how the school is run, to teaching and learning.
Between 20 and 30 questions, available in English, Irish, Polish, Lithuanian and some other languages, are planned and will be used as part of the Whole School Evaluation (WSE) process.
Parents and pupils will be asked to tick boxes ranging from "strongly agree" to "not sure" in response to questions such as "the school deals well with bullying" or "teaching is good in the school".
Education Minister Mary Coughlan said yesterday the questionnaires would add to the robustness of the evaluation process.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Principal positions left vacant due to workload [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 23 July 2010
SCHOOLS are being forced to advertise for a new principal up to four times because of the dearth of interest in the job among teachers.
The Irish Primary Principals’ Network said this situation has already faced three schools it is aware of this year, with more than a dozen more seeking suitable applicants on three occasions.
The organisation’s EducationPosts.ie website has taken ads for 161 principal jobs since January, but the number of schools re-posting the jobs has risen by more than half in the past two months alone.
Minister must review autism schools [finegael.org]
- Published: 22 July 2010
Minister Coughlan’s failure to carry out an independent review into schools specialising in providing Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) tuition to children with autism before pushing through proposals for a transition to special school status is regrettable, but can still be put right according to Fine Gael Education Spokesman, Fergus O’Dowd TD.
Eleven Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) schools which were in a pilot scheme for years were given just three weeks to vote on proposals that would see them transition to special schools, despite confusion and concern as to what the future would hold if the schools did not sign up to the Department’s proposals.
“It is simply not good enough for the Education Minister to railroad these schools into a decision of such massive importance.
Full Story: www.finegael.org
