So Batt O’Keefe has finally cracked…albeit useless for primary schools.  For some reason, he has decided to allow substitute cover for second level school but not for primary schools… yet.  According to RTE, Batt O’Keefe is willing to listen to sensible suggestions from primary level regarding sub cover.  So how about acknowledging publicly that he made a cock-up when describing our Monday and Friday sick days and giving us sub cover when we are sick?  I reckon there’ll be some announcement on Friday, just before our big march, rowing back on one or two issues.  Is it true in Cork that there’s an expression, “cute hoor”? I wonder what sort of “hoor” Batt is.

I encountered Interactive Whiteboards for the first time when I trained to be a teacher in 2002.  A year or so before, the Welsh government had given every school in Wales an Interactive Whiteboard, (with full training), and every teacher was able to use it.  The Interactive Whiteboard usually resided in a computer room or in some cases, each classroom had one equipped.  Teachers designed work for themselves and each other and they seemlessly integrated with their school plan.  By the time I got to Wales, although children were happy to use the Interactive Whiteboard, the novelty had completely worn off. Read rest of story…

The Constructing Narratives is a photocopiable teacher and student resource. It is an upper level and is suitable for 5th and 6th Class. The book is part of a 3 book series – there are lower, middle and upper levels available to cover the whole primary level. There are full lesson plans and photocopiable pages for the child to keep in their Creative Writing Folder or Copybook.

This publication contains your long term plan for one genre, the narrative genre and it does a pretty good job of covering this. There are 7 sections based on the different components of the writing process, character, dialogue, genres&setting, planning, drafting, revising and presenting. Read rest of story…

Just a small announcement… Anseo.net is releasing its first full educational software called: “Bhí Ocras Orm”.  It’s an Interactive Story with 6 games.  We’ll be releasing it on December 6th after the big march in Dublin. (Also…shhh… it’s free!)

Jolly Phonics is a British produced synthetic phonics scheme.  Therefore, sometimes the pronunciation of certain sounds is different to how they are pronounced in Ireland, e.g. “u”, “aw” and even “a”.  Kat2 checked it out…

You have to adapt JP to suit the Irish accent as it is written to reflect ‘British received pronunciation’ (I think that’s the correct term.) Read rest of story…

Good evening to all on this wet and horrid night. I am writing this from the comforts of my bed!I am getting stuck into the Sunday Times, which is my preferred choice of reading on a Sunday. Today though, I am not so happy with this paper. The front page is dominated by the scandal of the “unqualified and unvetted” sub teacher. What? I cannot believe they are only hearing about this now! This was why the Teaching Council was established 2 years ago. They were meant to regulate, vet and improve teaching as a profession. To this date, I cannot name one thing they have done for us apart from look for our votes.. However, I am open to anyone from the Teaching Council putting me straight. You know the email, drop me a mail! Read rest of story…

JP was designed to be used as a systematic synthetic phonics programme.
This system is incompatible with teaching children to memorise sight words and in fact is incompatible with requiring the children to guess words using picture, context or initial sound.

For this reason I no longer use ‘reading scheme books’ and when I do use readers they are a series of decodable readers (Jelly and Bean). Read rest of story…

Learning times tables using the counting stick method!

The teacher begins by holding a counting stick. You may already have one in the school, if not you should get it from most educational supplies companies. You will also need small cards with the answers to the times tables written on. Read rest of story…

Dear all

This week I hope to be less controversial! I hope you have all had a really good week and that some of you got a chance to get down to Tullamore to shout for the childrens’ rights!
If not, how about slotting the following date into your diary? On the 6th December, there will be a massive Rally for teachers, parents and children in Dublin? This one will be really important so check out www.into.ie for details or contact your local Union Branch. Read rest of story…