Many people wouldn’t realise that there is only one insurance company in Ireland that covers schools. It’s called Allianz. They used to be known as Church and General. This might explain why. However, in the post church-run world of school insurance, you might be surprised to learn that schools do not all pay the same … Read more
Think back to your own primary school experience and ask yourself: do you ever remember your teacher being hit by a pupil? The likely answer is that it absolutely never happened. Now ask yourself if one of your colleagues was struck by a child in the last few years. Violence (physical and verbal) towards adults … Read more
How does one start an article on such an emotive topic? The best advice is usually to stick to the facts, but as with anything relating to religion, facts are not necessarily the most important thing. However, whatever way one wants to colour it, the Catholic Church stood by idly while hundreds of their clergy … Read more
There’s not too many jobs out there where a manager would work for free. However, that’s exactly what principals do every day. Despite a principal having to manage all the staff in the school, that’s the teachers, SNAs, caretakers, secretaries, bus escorts and anyone else, (s)he only gets paid for the teachers. There are circumstances … Read more
When it comes to some of the bigger grants given to schools for emergency work or summer works schemes, it’s local companies that should be considered to do the jobs. There are some good reasons for this – supporting the local economy and also taking pride in the work. When a school is granted money … Read more
Consultations are a fashionable way for governments to pretend they are listening to everyone’s opinions before going ahead with their original plans. The consultation on Pluralism in Education was such an example. The population were given one of 4 options to decide on how best to solve the problem of the so-called Baptism Barrier. Before … Read more
It’s rare that a week goes by without a new circular being produced by the Department of Education. There were 85 released in 2018, 83 in 2017, and 84 in 2016 and 2015. This equates to about 2.5 per week. As I’m writing this in early 2019, despite a promise of a slow down from … Read more
During the recession, it was decided that we had far too many Teacher Training Colleges and it was time to amalgamate them. Hibernia College was exempt as a private entity but the others were all fair game and were absorbed into various universities. One such amalgamation was in DCU where the old St. Patrick’s College … Read more
People often give out about teachers’ working hours. We’ve heard it all – half days and long holidays, blah blah blah. Everyone that is a teacher or loves a teacher knows that the hours we have with the children tell about half the story. There’s not a lot of point in me talking about all … Read more
Becoming a principal can turn out to be a decision one might regret, as nothing can really prepare you for it. The idealist in you believes the advertisement that you will be a leader of learner, and in some ways, that’s sometimes true. However, the vast majority of the time, you end up filling in … Read more