Section 29s bring out the fear in principals. If you aren’t in the know, a Section 29 case can be brought against a school when they refuse to enrol a child into their school and it is appealed by a parent. It can also be used when a child is being expelled. I’ll deal with … Read more
Obesity levels in Ireland are at a shocking level and schools are being asked to fix it. Some quarters are even blaming schools for the obesity epidemic because we “only” do one hour of PE per week. Experts claim that doubling the amount of PE would “solve” the crisis, which is nonsense, of course. The … Read more
How many times have I heard someone on the radio say, “they should really be teaching this in schools,” when referring to their own pet project, whether that’s cooking, meditation, tackling obesity, knitting, or whatever? The trouble is since the “new” curriculum was published in 1999, lots of different initiatives and schemes have sneaked into … Read more
Much like mainstream schools, there are a few different types of special schools that have different methodologies. Taking religion out of the argument (for once) I don’t understand why there are more than one type of special school model out there. Between Abacus, Scoil Sinéad, Saplings, The Red Door, to name a few, there is … Read more
Being honest, this idea isn’t really as controversial as it used to be. I remember about a decade ago, the then CEO of the IPPN, Seán Cottrell, suggested that primary schools should do this and there was absolute uproar. I imagine if Pauric Clerkin said it today, he’d be met with a lot of support. … Read more
Have you ever wondered what happens when the Department of Education has a meeting with all education partners? I always did and wondered what it would look like. When I was invited to represent a body regarding a new Department of Education initiative, I could see exactly why the education system is so messy. I … Read more
For those of you unfamiliar with primary schools, you might be surprised to know that the Department of Education is not responsible for what happens in any of their schools. You may be further surprised to note that patron bodies also have no responsibility either. Every single primary school in the country is its own … Read more
Even though Bus Eireann run the school bus service, and employ their drivers, decide on routes, make their policies, and pretty much do everything else, fit done reason, schools have to employ and manage bus escorts. Nobody gets paid to fulfil this role and it seems to be a waste of time and resources when … Read more
When the Special Needs Assistant scheme was first introduced, there was a good deal of flexibility in what an SNA could do with a child. The recession came and arbitrary decisions were made to constrain what an SNA could and couldn’t do for the purposes of saving money rather than actually helping children with additional … Read more
Junior Infant classes can be a bit of a mix with children ranging from very young 4 year olds to very old 5 year olds and the difference between them is easy to spot, in general. There’s also a very odd leap between pre-school and primary school in loads of ways – never mind the … Read more