I’ve been banging on about Droichead for the past decade and recently published a podcast series. I asked teachers to share their experiences, both positive and negative. Lorraine Dillon is a second level teacher who kindly offered to write an article to share her experience. If teaching were a prison, then I’m a Lifer. I … Read more
Somehow, I missed this announcement last week even so it contains 80 actions and sub actions to be completed before the end of 2018. I had a quick look through it. The trouble with these documents is that they are exceptionally waffle-ridden and really difficult to read. Themes, subthemes, actions, subactions, etc. etc. It would … Read more
The INTO, like many organisations, was formed in a time before the advent of technology. In order to ensure large organisations like them could make decisions on behalf of their members, a number of layers needed to be established so that leadership could ensure the message of its members could be heard. For example, the … Read more
Every January I try to predict what’s going to happen in primary education for the rest of the year and what the big issues and big stories will be. I’ll focus on a number of areas of interest to me. Please add your own guesses by commenting at the bottom of this post. For me, … Read more
Droichead 2.0 arrived today and the INTO almost immediately lifted the directive against cooperation. It’s obvious that the INTO aren’t knee-jerking in their reaction. They have known about this for months. It raises the question about the involvement of the INTO in the Teaching Council. I don’t believe unions have any place in the Teaching … Read more
Every year, I try to predict what the big stories will be in primary education in Ireland. 2016, for me, will be best remembered by being forgotten. It was a very disappointing year on all fronts with very little happening – almost as if someone had hit the pause button on the sector. Nothing seemed to happen … Read more
The Action Plan for Education was published today by Minister Richard Bruton. The government aims for Ireland to have the best education and training system in Europe by 2026. Given that the government has spent the last 10 years tearing the education system apart through budgetary cuts, I’m not entirely sure how they are going … Read more
The INTO congress was on this week. You might have missed it because you probably didn’t hear much about it in the media. This was probably because it was a massive success on all fronts. One could almost hear Katherine Donnelly’s disappointment that she couldn’t use words like “whinging.” Sometimes, we have to look at … Read more
Around 96% of Irish primary schools are under the patronage of a religious body, with around 92-93% of schools under the the Catholic Church. This means that anyone who does not identify themselves as Catholic has very little chance of getting into a school that fully respects their religious identity. There is little appetite for … Read more
As most people know, there are a number of parents in Ireland who have been in the media lately claiming that they cannot enrol their children in their local school as they do not have a Baptismal Certificate. However, in the vast majority of schools, this is not the case. The Catholic church claim that most … Read more