Parents urged to join postcard protest over ABA schools [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 20 July 2010
PARENTS of children with autism are being encouraged to join a postcard campaign to protest plans to transform the country’s 13 ABA schools for children with autism into special schools using a range of different teaching methods.
Tish Durkin, who is a mother of a child with autism, has ordered some 10,000 postcards in the shape of a stop sign.
Her plan is for people from all over the country to send the cards to Education Minister Mary Coughlan with duplicates going to the senders’ local TDs.
The department is proposing to change the 13 ABA schools, which have up to 300 pupils on their roll, into a mixed model, whereby other teaching methods, such as PECS and TEACCH, are used along with ABA. Such methods are already used in the ABA pilot projects but ABA would not remain as the guiding philosophy.
Full Story: www.irishexaminer.com
Revolutionary maths project imperilled by tight resources [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 20 July 2010
LEAVING Certificate examiners are already marking the answer books of 1,800 students who sat the first papers last month in a revolutionary method of teaching maths.
Policy makers are talking up the way Project Maths will bring an unseen level of interest in the subject among teenagers, with a plan to double the proportion of school-leavers taking higher-level maths in the Leaving Certificate from the record low of about one-in-six of recent years.
But the revelation that efforts to improve access in primary schools to support for children who have real difficulties have been less than successful should provide a sharp reality bite for those who think all will soon be fixed in terms of future generations’ interests in all things mathematical.
Full Story: www.irishexaminer.com
Finn Valley school childrens' safety is "paramount" [donegalonsunday.com]
- Published: 19 July 2010
During this week's meeting of Stranorlar Electoral Area, Councillor Frank McBrearty highlighted issues with the roadway leading to the new Finn Valley College and the road next to Murlog National school in Lifford.
He told members that it "was a known fact" Donegal County Council was "struggling financially" and if they were not in a position to construct a new footpath leading to the new school then the Department of Education, through Tánaiste Mary Coughlan, should fund the work.
He said she should give a commitment to the school to fund the project if the council fails to do so and he said he would raise the issue at full council level.
Full Story: www.donegalonsunday.com
High number of unqualified primary school teachers halved [Independent.ie]
- Published: 19 July 2010
THE number of unqualified teachers in primary schools has halved in two years in the drive to regulate standards in the classroom.
The Department of Education has been enforcing a harder line to ensure that all pupils are taught by a properly qualified person.
Parents' and teachers' union leaders pressed for an end to a practice of using unqualified personnel that had become embedded in the system.
The use of unqualified staff was decried as damaging children's education and teacher quality has been identified in research as a major factor in educational outcomes.
A decade ago, as many as 1,600 primary school classes were taught by unqualified staff on a regular basis.
Unqualified staff are more of an issue in primary schools than at second level, largely because of a long-term shortage of qualified primary teachers.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Parents press on with plans for Gaelscoil [IrishTimes]
- Published: 18 July 2010
A GROUP of parents in Ratoath, Co Meath, are pressing ahead with plans to establish a Gaelscoil in the town despite receiving no funding or recognition from the Department of Education and Science.
No Gaelscoil has received recognition since 2008, and the department has rejected all seven applications for recognition to commence made by Gaelscoileanna this year.
Gaelscoil Rath Tó plans to open in September and currently has 11 students registered to enter a junior infants class.
Some 30 students had been registered for this class before the department confirmed it would not grant the school recognition.
The school still has over 30 students registered for entry for every year from 2011 to 2014.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
