In my opinion: The stark reality of life in schools shorn of key personnel [Independent.ie]
- Published: 28 April 2010
In March 2009 the Government, in an urgent and dramatic response to a serious budget deficit, introduced a moratorium on filling vacancies across the public sector. In the education sector the moratorium was implemented through a ban on filling any vacancy that occurred in the middle management structures.
The provision of middle management services in schools is dependent on a post of responsibility system. In this system teachers are granted additional allowances for undertaking a specified range of duties in addition to their teaching duties.
In Voluntary Secondary schools the typical duties assigned to posts of responsibility holders include that of year head, examination secretary, programme co-ordinator, special needs co-ordinator and health and safety co-ordinator.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Staff only: My life in a gangsters' paradise -- as a teacher [Independent.ie]
- Published: 28 April 2010
With all the antipathy and criticism being levelled at teachers and the public sector from the press and the Government, it's as if they think we're all gangsters.
I think this might be a good time to write my story -- the story of a guy who became a teacher and got in too deep.
This my story, told in the manner of the classic mob film Goodfellas.
It was during the last Irish economic depression of 1844-1996 and there weren't many opportunities.
I'd got me a degree and some of the wise guys in my old school gave me a few part-time hours.
Before I knew it, I was a made man with the untouchables in the NUI giving me a HDip by ancient ritual.
This involved me drinking lukewarm tea and eating vol-au-vents.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Life is cool for these teens at the school with no rules . . . [Independent.ie]
- Published: 28 April 2010
It is one of the most radical ventures in Irish education. In the building of an old vocational college in Trim, Co Meath, Liz Lavery runs a school where there are virtually no rules.
The students play a role in the choice of the teachers. Before they can take a job, new teachers are interviewed by the pupils.
Rather than being told what they have to learn, pupils choose what they want to study, based on their own interests. They make decisions on school policy and attend staff meetings. There is no code of discipline.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Local lad Jack could face 64km round-trip to school [Independent.ie]
- Published: 28 April 2010
IF Jack McCabe doesn't get into his local second-level school in Gorey, he could face a 64km daily round-trip, or being sent as a boarder to Dublin.
Jack lives only 8km away from the north Wexford town, but is low on the priority list for admission to its community school.
Gorey Community School is the only second-level school in the area. The schools in Enniscorthy are 22km away and the next closest is in Arklow, 32km away.
The family live in Ballyoughter, south of Gorey, so a trek to Arklow would mean passing Gorey every day en route to a school in Co Wicklow. "It doesn't make sense at all," said his father Robert McCabe.
"My wife works in Gorey, I go the other direction, so it would mean putting a 12-year-old on a train to Arklow every morning."
Full Story: www.independent.ie
School is right to be sceptical [Independent.ie]
- Published: 28 April 2010
AT first, a school's rejection of extra classrooms looks crazy, an offer from the Government that it couldn't and shouldn't refuse. Upon closer examination, the decision of the board of Gorey Community School looks like a reasoned response to a number of government failings in education: poor planning and many broken promises, together with a sincere conviction that the biggest school in the country should not be required to grow even bigger. What is needed is not more prefabs or even "permanent classrooms", but another school in the area.
Another school has indeed been promised, for September 2012, and the minister says the expansion plan for the existing school is a temporary measure only.
However, in view of numerous delays in delivering promised improvements to schools throughout the country, people are entitled to be sceptical.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
