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If I were the Minister for Education...
How many times have you said to yourself, “If I were the Minister for Education…?” Well I do! Rather than grumble to myself, I decided to podcast my thoughts on ways I’d change the primary education system in Ireland.
Featured Episode: Thank you, Racists
The long awaited IPPN report on their Roadmap to Sustainability was released at their annual conference in Killarney, Co. Kerry last week. I finally managed to delve into its 130+ pages and see what thoughts I might have as I read through it. Overall it’s a good report but there was one glaring omission, which...
In part 2 of this exploration of the Finnish Education System, I discover just what it is that sets them apart from Ireland.
I fulfilled an educational ambition to visit Finland and learn about what’s known as the “Finnish Miracle” – that is, how did Finland become the best education system in the world. Over the next two weeks, I’m going to share what I discovered and why I think Ireland could easily be the best in the...
In Part 1, we explored why Father Sheehy did nothing wrong when he preached from the altar and why what he did is no better than what isn’t taught in Irish primary schools – i.e. what I call sin by omission. Join me in Part 2 where I talk about why the Catholic Church still...
Recently a sermon from a Catholic priest was live-streamed and recorded from a church in Listowel and it went viral. The sermon was from a priest called Father Sheehy and in his sermon, he decried same sex relationships, contraception, trans rights among other things that fall under, for want of a better term, the terms...
In the final part of this episode, we reach the end of the debacle where the partners agree to “pause” the process. I almost finish reading the INTO response before I can’t take any more spin and give up and wish the whole thing was all a dream.
In Part 2 of this episode, we look at the latecomers to the opposition to the AON debacle and wonder why it took them so long.
This is the story of one week in the education system, not an average week, but one which demonstrates the contempt that representative bodies have for teachers, school staff and children. In this part, we learn a little bit about the Assessment of Need debacle and why parents and school staff joined together to try...
This rather innocent looking Information Note landed in principals’ inboxes not more than a couple of hours ago. However, its sole job is to land more work on the desks of schools. Because the HSE can’t do their job properly with Assessment of Need, a court order decided that to address the mess-up, a certain...
This week there was an article in the Irish Times featuring two people that recently stepped away from principalship. In this week’s episode I look at the evidence and analyse why so many principals are handing in the keys of the building and who is ultimately responsible.