It’s hard to believe that 5 years have passed since Tomás Ó Ruairc has been at the helm of the Teaching Council. Its been a very eventful time for us in teacher world. When Tomás took over, the Teaching Council was in a very difficult position. The Teaching Council’s relevance was being questioned as it didn’t … Read more
It’s hard to believe that 5 years have passed since Tomás Ó Ruairc has been at the helm of the Teaching Council. Its been a very eventful time for us in teacher world. When Tomás took over, the Teaching Council was in a very difficult position. The Teaching Council’s relevance was being questioned as it didn’t … Read more
There was a lot of talk about Droichead on social media over the last couple of months and I thought it might be interesting to analyse the data. I searched the hashtag #droichead to see if there were any patterns on Twitter. To be honest, the strangest thing for me was that the hashtag wasn’t used as … Read more
With the overwhelming majority of teachers voting to not cooperate with Droichead in its current format, I wonder how the Teaching Council are going to pick up the pieces and try again. I thought I’d use the following analogy to help them out. CEPP was the first incarnation from the Teaching Council. It took the form … Read more
Yesterday, the INTO revealed the results of the ballot regarding non-cooperation with the Droichead scheme. Despite all the obstacles put in the way from the CEC of the INTO and all the propaganda from the Teaching Council, 91% of INTO members have voted in favour of the ballot, which means that Droichead cannot happen in … Read more
Right now, teachers are being asked to vote in a ballot as to whether to take part in Droichead or not. The ballot question is as follows: Do you agree to participate in industrial action, with effect from 1 July 2016, in the form of a directive to be issued by the Central Executive Committee on … Read more
I have been giving out about Droichead for quite some time so thought it might be a good idea to publish some suggestions as to how the Teaching Council might remedy their appalling handling of trying to introduce impose it on schools. Here are my ideas. Spend 2016-17 piloting different models for Teacher Induction. Publish an FAQ … Read more
In my opinion, the answer to the above question is the same. I know some people won’t agree with me, but I believe all three are a good idea in theory. Taking them in reverse: the Junior Cert is a ridiculously outdated examination that no longer has any purpose. It is simply a practice for … Read more
If you ask any principal in Ireland what the biggest threat to our education system is, it is likely that Droichead, the scheme where schools will be responsible for deciding whether a newly qualified teacher is fit to be a teacher, would be high on the list. While most principals feel the extra workload should not … Read more
The story of Droichead has been worthy of a film. It’s got a cast of characters, a big problem to be resolved, some bad guys, good guys and everything in between. If Droichead was to become a film, here’s my attempt at a script. Some meeting room somewhere. Inspectors: We don’t want to probate newly … Read more