IPPN

Last Updated: Thursday, 31 January 2008 00:00

Good afternoon, colleagues and special guests.

Is onóir specíalta domsa beith anseo I gCill Áirne um tráthnóna, mar Uachtarán Líonra Phríomhoidí Bunscoile na h-Éireann. Don ocht gcéad phríomhoidí agus do na h-aíonna specíalta atá i láthair, fearaim fíorchaoin fáilte romhaibh go léir.

Tá tabhacht agus tionchar specíalta ag baint leis an gCómhdháil uathual seo. Tá se soileir go mbaineann sibhse spreagadh agus fuinneamh as bheith ag bualadh le chéile chun fadhbanna a phlé. Bain taitneamh agus tairbhe as seo, an ceathrú Cómhdháil déag IPPN.

Colleagues, I am privileged to preside over the largest gathering of Principals ever on this island, and, to our knowledge, the largest such gathering in all of Europe. This huge conference of 800 school leaders is without doubt the highlight of the school year. The lively discussion and debate will contribute immensely to your professional development and will re-energise and sustain you for the rest of this challenging school year.

Being a Biffo bestows one with a complete absence of modesty. Most people think they know what a Biffo is. However, as Con Houlihan, might put it, 'to call a man a bogman is to bestow a compliment and a title perhaps not earned.Thus, a BIFFO can mean many things, mostly complimentary…

For instance, Tom Parlon was a Big Important Farmer From Offaly. While in 1982, and apologies to my Kerry friends for this, but the 5 in a row evaporated because of that Beefy Incisive Forward From Offaly…
And by the way, there's no truth in the rumour that BIFFO means Big Increase In Funds For Offaly.

Anyway, I'm hoping I will be remembered as a Bright Intelligent Fellow From Offaly, which, as you all know, is what BIFFO really means anyway.

Patronage/Ethos
On a more serious note, the debate on school governance now needs to be taken to a new level. It is essential to make the distinction between governance and management. Tomorrow morning, Seán will discuss this in more detail.

School governance must first and foremost serve a child's educational needs. It can never be about having that child fit into a rigid system. This applies not just to the enrolment of children in new schools but in all existing schools. In that respect, we welcome the recent pilot project in relation to enrolment in 2 Dublin schools. I agree with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin when he said at an IPPN Conference in 2005: 'the primary 'ethos' of a school must be educational'.

State provision of education needs to be equitable. Since its foundation the Irish State has depended in the main upon the Churches to benevolently provide an educational infrastructure. In the Ireland of 2008, is it now time for the State to put this infrastructure in place? Maybe the role of Churches should be freed up to focus on supporting parents - in faith formation and liturgical preparation…. activities that mainly happen in schools?

Funding
Underfunding affects Primary Schools because we deliver frontline services.

From what you tell us in your surveys, 8 out of 10 of you are fundraising to meet daily running costs. You also tell us that, on average, government funding only covers 50% of your basic running costs. At the moment we have the farcical situation, whereby a child's education is funded to the tune of 96 cent per day, half the cost of a loaf of bread.
IPPN recommended at this very same Conference last year for an end to all fundraising for basics. Fundraising merely perpetuates the scandal of under-investment in our children.

In relation to funding, our mantra from now on must be "are we there yet?.. are we there yet?.. We intend to keep this issue up there 'in lights' until we achieve an acceptable level of funding.
It's high time School Principals stopped wasting time and energy collecting shopping tokens to provide a football or a computer that rightfully should be funded by the state. Forget the token gesture of the recent €15 Budget increase. This has already been gobbled up by increased fuel and water charges.

And please... Let us all stop talking about capitation grants. I want to talk instead about School Operating Costs. Principals and teachers must be freed to concentrate on teaching and learning first and foremost. We don't need the distraction of trying to stretch funding to cover basic running costs.

Ireland is not a third-world country. The Celtic Tiger is only having a 'Cat nap'!! We must move away from thinking more suited to war-time rationing.

As well as heat, light, cleaning, insurance, maintenance, .... A school needs to provide an array of resources for a modern and complex curriculum for which chalk and talk will no longer suffice and funding must cover all of these areas.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is an international organisation which compares policy experiences and seeks answers to common problems.

One major focus of the OECD is the level of investment in Education as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product - GDP. This is like you or I working out how much of our income we spend on our mortgage. So how do we compare with other countries?

SLIDE 1
This is the average of all 30 OECD countries: 6.2%

SLIDE 2
This is what Finland spends. They are at the top of the table at 8%

And where is Ireland?
Here:

SLIDE 3
4.6% .. languishing in the second division of OECD investment. Are we there yet??...you must be joking.

Further investment of around 5 billion is needed to bring us on a par with Finland.

We know that Minister Hanafin has committed to doubling the capitation grant by 2012. This is what we called for last year - Double it. This is what you told us was the shortfall when we surveyed you - Double it. I would like to acknowledge this commitment from the Minister and look forward to these increases BUT: We cannot wait till 2012. The children and the bills won't wait till then either.

Just how much would it cost to double the present funding that we get?
We work it out at about 70 million.

Now that might sound a lot but think of it this way... Every million euro allocated to Primary schools means 1.1 cent per child per day.

And a 70 million increase would add LESS than 1% to the overall National Education Budget

Not a lot when we hear of budget overruns in other areas.

IPPN has explored, with various government departments, the issue of VAT exemptions and charitable status for schools. We have requested that the payment of Capitation grants be made at the beginning of each school year. Water charges are now a mandatory tax on schools. Minister Gormley was willing to defy Brussels on light bulbs, but when it came to school water charges, you know what?....he dried up. Are we there yet, no way !!! Put simply, we cannot pay bills with money we do not have.

We are trying to get clarity around the real day-to-day costs incurred by primary schools. We assumed that there was some sort of scientific basis for the system the state uses to fund schools.

Guess what? There isn't. No one knows.....not even Eddie Hobbs.

That's why IPPN has decided to do research to obtain this scientific evidence.

We have engaged the expertise of a recognised international expert on school finances, Jim Spinks, a Principal Teacher and Research Fellow of Melbourne University who will do an in-depth analysis of 60 schools across the educational spectrum. This research will deliver irrefutable evidence on what funding is necessary in order for schools to achieve optimum outcomes.

This is the right thing to do, and there is never a wrong time to do the right thing.

We will need schools to work with us on this project.

We also invite the DES and the Dept. of Finance to become involved, because if we can ALL get to the stage of understanding the real costs of providing teaching and learning, then maybe we could also get away from the ... is it 13 or 15 different grant headings? We might even be able to abolish all grants in their present form and replace them with One Single September payment set at a rate which ensures that all schools can remain solvent for the entire school year.

Despite huge financial restrictions, most of you are overcoming enormous challenges in Special Education, the integration of newcomer and Traveller children and the implementation of a revised curriculum.

IPPN has had many successful discussions with the National Parents Council [Primary]. We are delighted that NPC want to work with us on this. We are developing a survey for parents on funding and water charges to gauge their views. We hope that the combined voices of Principals and parents will make Government sit up and take notice. Encourage your parent body to complete this short two minute survey on

www.educationopinion.ie

A letter for distribution to parents will be circulated to all principals early next week. Yes, we appreciate this is extra work but the benefits far outweigh this and the long term potential could be huge.

Are we there yet? Clearly not, but like Iarnrod Eireann we intend getting there.

Recruitment and Retention
Recruitment and retention is an issue I want to address briefly.

More and more schools have had to re-advertise the post of Principal because of zero applications.

Now, how has this situation come about whereby a once much sought-after and respected position in society has fallen to the level where few people want the job?

Clearly, financial reward is a factor.

Recruitment and retention issues apply particularly to Teaching Principals.

Many of you suffer the ignominy of having your role valued at less that that of a Deputy Principal in a larger school. This seems to be predicated on the assumption that leading and managing a small school is somehow less onerous than being a Deputy Principal in a larger school- an assumption that is blatant nonsense. On the contrary the legal accountabilities of a Principal are the same in all schools regardless of size because the law does not differentiate between large and small schools. The recent Benchmarking has, regrettably, ensured that the differential between Principals and Deputy Principals has narrowed even further and this will only exacerbate the recruitment and retention crisis. Our system should attract Principals from the ranks of Deputies in droves as it does in other jurisdictions. It doesn't…and wont because Benchmarking did not address this contentious anomaly.

IPPN welcomed the pilot programme in 2006 for clustering for release days. This is a pragmatic and cost neutral initiative but when will 20 such clusters become 200… or more…

For very small schools one release day per week should be the target. Schools have shown that they can operate such clusters successfully. Lets ensure a fully-qualified substitute is available to that cluster on a permanent basis to ensure uniformity and continuity of delivery. . In the interim, we propose that all Teaching Principals should be able to avail of 40 release days per year, regardless of school size.

There are many advantages still to be explored for smaller schools to get together locally and co-operate. In our recent survey you told us that skilled secretarial help was essential to your effectiveness as a school leader. I urge you to look closely at your neighbours and explore the possibilities of clustering. Look at combining release-day requirements, secretarial and caretaking needs.

Other radical and fresh options can make a real difference for the Teaching Principal. Children in the class of the Teaching Principal are at a significant disadvantage. Over 80% of you say that your pupils are missing out on quality teaching time. Your dual role of managing the school and teaching your class at the same time is unsustainable - for you and the children you teach.

The allocation of teaching duties in the school is one area clearly marked as your responsibility. Consult. Consider the educational needs of your children. Consider the requests of other teachers and make decisions accordingly with BOM support. Allocate your own class allowing for the workload implications of your dual role. I say to the DES, when the next opportunity arises to reduce class size, please prioritise the class of the teaching principal.

In his 2006 publication Quality Leadership <=> Quality Learning, Professor Michael Fullan recommended a 5-7 year contract for Principals with an appropriately attractive pay scale. In the current climate, you might say that that recommendation is as fanciful as Mayo winning an All Ireland.

But the time has come to progress Fullan's recommendations in relation to a fixed term Principals' Contract of 7 years. Over half of you supported this in our conference survey. This would enable teachers to opt into the leadership role for a set period of time. Principals would be able to step back, retaining relative seniority and a proportion of their Principals salary and pension on a pro rata basis.. YES, there are details to be worked out and YES there are challenges to the system to embrace this idea. But if we always do what we've always done, then we will always get what we are getting now -which is zero applications!

Our legal advisor Dave Ruddy, will elaborate on this on Saturday morning.

We continue to be drip fed more duties and responsibilities daily without anyone, anywhere tying these down within a job-description or contract. We must have a modern contract. We deserve a modern contract and as employees , are legally entitled to a principal's contract and a job description… one that is do-able and that clearly states expectations.

Curriculum
Maeve, my neighbour's child has just turned 4 and is starting in Junior Infants next September. At her birthday party last Saturday, it came up in the conversation that she will graduate from 6th class in 2016.Her parents are already worried about which secondary school she might go to... or be able to get in to.
What is the best start in life a school can give Maeve? How well does the curriculum prepare her?
As Minister Hanafin said in Berlin recently, curricula need to focus on encouraging curiosity, and providing the skills for self learning. Does our curriculum do that?

Sophisticated media and technology influences are already at work on Maeve - more sophisticated than anything our schools have available. The pervasive presence of drugs and alcohol are so much more influential than our schools healthy eating policy. The factors that allow bullying to develop are endemic in today's society. Childhood depression is obvious in our classrooms. Our pre conference survey has thrown up shocking evidence of increased emotional disturbance, violent behaviour and family trauma among our children. For these reasons a rebalancing of both curriculum design and delivery is an imperative. The Curriculum, rather than reflecting the needs of yesterday must prepare Maeve for the challenges of to-morrow.

Is our curriculum too content driven, attempting to cover 11 different areas with varying degrees of success.[Quote Survey] Is there any reason why SPHE, a subject central to the personal development of the child, is only given 30 min per week?

Have Principals enough discretion in prioritising subject areas according to the needs of their school? In Finland the emphasis is on TRUSTING Principals and their teachers to do exactly that, and look where Finland is today.

Children are increasingly born into and growing up with technology. There is little technology-based curriculum in our schools and very little technology, due mainly to static levels of investment in ICT since 2002.

Remember, Maeve is the digital native while we, the primary educators, are digital immigrants. We MUST move away from a content-driven, chalk-and-talk-and-books curriculum ,to a scenario where we provide children with technology tools and what we teach them is how to find information and knowledge themselves? And, more importantly, we must teach them clever ways to think critically, to solve problems and to interact positively with others. In short, we must teach our children HOW to learn, not what to learn. Technology can handle the data and information so let us concentrate on equipping our children for life.

Finally, I want to thank you personally for the great support you have given to IPPN in 2007.

IPPN is nothing more than the collective voice of all of us. IPPN exists to support each other in our work, to learn new and better ways to do this work and to challenge ourselves and others to do things better. Challenging means speaking out. It also means not being afraid to speak out. Challenging means thinking in fresh ways and not being afraid of the change this might mean. So far, I have been heartened by your enthusiasm for this sort of open thinking and dialogue.

Your voice was heard loudly and clearly in 2007 on water charges through IPPN. It focussed minds to address this issue. The voice of príomhoidí na nGaelscoileanna was also to be heard as they found themselves in challenging times, having established a clear school policy on language and then having a very different policy statement imposed on them. Tacaimídne in IPPN libhse a phríomhoidí na nGaelscoileanna agus sibh I mbun cinnireachta scoile agus ceannródaíochta teanga.

Whether it's water charges, funding for basics, performance management, Benchmarking or curriculum- IPPN will be there for you in 2008!

ends