The Anseo.net Newsletter features my thoughts on the Irish Primary Education System.
Read the full newsletter here
Back to school brought another perennial story – large class sizes. I spoke to Anton Savage who was covering for Pat Kenny about the subject. I gave the subject my own take and refused to use the term supersized classes.
As we came back to school, the scoping report into the heinous crimes committed by members of the Catholic clergy, and covered up by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church failed to make the majority of people think about sending their children into the buildings where children were sexually abused routinely less than a generation ago. I’m still baffled by the cognitive dissonance and the obsession that redress is all about money.
In fact, there seemed to be more calls for apologies from the textbook company, EDCO, than the church, because the textbook publisher had a chapter in their SPHE book, which lampooned a stereotype of an Irish family.
And one of the schools named in the scoping report, had a lovely article published as they are about to change to a co-ed Gaelcholaiste. There wasn’t a single mention of the abuse. Oh, and the school will remain under Catholic control.
David Quinn also wasted no time in pontificating why Irish people don’t want to lose Catholic schools despite the fact that priests sexually abused young children in many of them. I also tried musing on the reasons.
I was almost glad to see that the only other main story involving schools in Ireland was the constant stream of smartphone ban articles. If we could just do what we need to do with smartphones, this generation of young people might also be spared from looking at inappropriate and horrendous sex crimes in their youth.
Read all the other stories I found interesting
Here are some posts on X that caught my eye:
- An excellent critique of the Autism Strategy (from GymRobcom)
- Trina Golden’s Bí Cineálta Summary (from CatrionaGolden)
- The Inspectorate report on SEN in mainstream schools (from Education_Ire)
- This quiz extension for Google Slide looks good! (from quizizz)
- I was “caught” on camera (from JulietteGash)
- Trina summarises another circular, this time for SNA reviews (from CatrionaGolden)
