This year’s IPPN annual conference was more than a little bit political with no less than seven politicians taking to the stage over the two days. Every year I give a summary of what I got up to. I try to spend a good bit of time in the Expo and miss out on some … Read more
In the news this week, is a Gaelscoil under a multi-denominational patron body (Foras na Gaeilge) with an Catholic ethos where over two-thirds of the children have opted-out of religious instruction classes because they do not subscribe to that religion and the school have decided to segregate the children based on their parents’ belief systems for … Read more
The Irish Independent published, what they called, a definitive league table of the best schools in Ireland, based on 7 years of data. It was based on the percentage of students that went on to third level from secondary school. Schools where close to 100% of their students went on to third level over the 7 years, were … Read more
We got sent a really good summary of the Department of Education’s paper on School Autonomy. Also with many teachers, the author of the summary is very worried about many of the proposals. The Department is asking for submissions as part of a consultation (where have we heard that before?) Personally, I see this as … Read more
The IPPN conference is coming next week. The conference has seen a change in that the minister for education is going to be at the official opening of the conference rather than the morning after, which seems to be aimed at launching the various political parties’ education election manifestos. We’re also going to have to put … Read more
It looks like Community National Schools are back in the news this week and it’s all fairly damning again. I think they really need to answer their critics and either defend what they are doing or deny all the allegations being made against them. Sources: http://www.educatetogether.ie/media/national-news/community-national-schools http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/is-this-the-answer-to-the-school-patronage-debate-1.2496735
Every week, ClassDojo run a Twitter chat on a Wednesday evening. After a nice winter break, they were back this week with some new year’s resolutions. As usual, I try to answer the questions that are raised each week. Q1 What personal goals would you like to achieve in 2016? Prioritize them? This question hasn’t much … Read more
The INTO ballot is very odd. It’s about 6 years too late and only focuses on the problems that we had back then rather than all the problems they’ve allowed to happen since.
Between 96% and 98% of Irish primary schools are denominational in patronage, which means that one or two particular religions are taught as truth as part of the school day. There is a lot of focus in the media about Catholic schools and non-baptised children. I believe this is very unhelpful as it pitches Catholic schools … Read more
For all you ClassDojo users out there, the people behind ClassDojo are coming to Dublin on the 16th January. They’ll be taking over the Long Hall bar in Dublin from 5pm and there’s going to be loads of goodies and fellow ClassDojo folk to meet. If you’re interested in going along, here is a link to … Read more