With another year of cutbacks, teaching jobs are scarce again this year.  Last year, it was reported that over 1,000 qualified teachers were unemployed.  With very few jobs available this year due to the clearing of the panels and the fact that there’s hundreds more teachers just qualified, there’s going to be a lot of people looking for substitute work.

Both the IPPN (Irish Primary Principals Network) and the INTO (Irish National Teachers Organisation) provide some good tools to get substitute work.  The IPPN provides a text-a-sub service where teachers can sign up to do work in their locality and when a principal needs a sub, it will automatically send them information about the school.  The teacher then rings up the school to offer to work whatever time is needed.  The INTO leave the onus of the principals to ring teachers in an equally useful service.  Teachers can sign up each fortnight to show their availability.  A principal looking for a substitute can search for teachers within a certain radius of their area then ring the teachers within that range.

Many teachers have received short and long term work from sites like these but what do they do when they get there?  Most schools are little kingdoms of their own, with their own culture, rules and ways of doing things. However, all schools have many things in common and a new site has been developed by a substitute teacher to help teachers settle into their subbing role quickly.

The web site, Subkit, gives a wonderfully sensible guide to being a substitute teacher in Ireland.  It advises teachers about how to start looking for work then gives sound advice when (or if) work is acquired.  My favourite piece of advice given was to take any work offered.  You just don’t know where one day of subbing could lead.

Subkit also aims to bring substitute teachers together to share resources and give each other support.  When there’s a perception out there that teachers have it easy with our permanent jobs and massive pensions, it’s nice to be able to chat to another teacher who will be empathetic and knows that a teacher’s life is not as easy as the media would like to have us believe.

Subkit is in its infancy right now but is well worth a look.  There’s a growing collection of resources for the substitute teacher and if you want you can share you’re own too.  Subkit can be found at:  http://subkit.drupalgardens.com

This month, our guest author is Helen Bullock who runs the blog, Anseo a Mhúinteoir.  Helen is a recent graduate of Hibernia College and writes regularly about her thoughts on being a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) in uncertain times in Ireland.  A big thanks to Helen for writing this special article for Anseo.net

Starting Hibernia in early 2009 made me feel like a junior infant again. Being a crowed lecture hall with 350 other nervous faces was over whelming but that is nothing compared to the welcoming speech that was to come. Like any speech designed to inspire, it left me and many others elated and raring to go. Eighteen months later and that feeling had long gone and I don’t even remember when it disappeared.

I’m a Newly Qualified Teacher facing into the bailout to beat all bailouts; a recession the likes my generation have never seen before and the very real prospect that finding so much as a temporary contract job is minuscule. I applied for the post grad when times were different, the word recession wasn’t in my lexicon but it wasn’t long before it reared its ugly head. I had all these plans about how I was going to be a wonderful teacher and basically change the world, one classroom at a time. I may have been a wee bit naive. I thought I’d walk right into a job straight after my exams.

In the real world I’m a substitute teacher.

Being the substitute teacher is no picnic, not knowing what each day will bring causes some issues but with practice I’m getting better at organising my time. And I’m kept going by thinking of all the experience I’m gaining from all these schools I get to visit. I’m lucky enough to gain an insight into different schools and how they deal with issues and problems that arise. I already feel like I have a wealth of knowledge from my months of subbing in a massive variety of schools. This experience will stand to me when I get a “real” job. I’m like a sponge soaking up skills and knowledge needed for all classes and age groups.

It may not be a picnic but I really do enjoy it. The days I get a call to go to school, no matter where it is, it’s as though the sun just came out. I race around my tiny flat finding all my favourite subbing books and folders to get to school on time. My parents laugh at me and keep saying they wish I got ready for school that fast when I was in school instead of always trying to “pull a sickie”. When I come home I feel like a child again, trying and failing to tell all my “school news” and being over excited about my day. Ok, I’m more like a junior infant who still loves school!

To make matters worse I’m just as bad when it comes to planning for school. I get an odd enjoyment out of picking out lessons for classes, getting resources and planning my school day. I’m fairly sure that drives people mad but once I have fun…I often wonder if I’ll still enjoy that when I’m no longer a Newly Qualified Teacher?

But for now being a sub isn’t so bad. It’s not a perfect life nor is it one I would choose for myself if I had an option but it’s better than being stuck in the office job I hated or working in the shop. I’d choose life as a naive newly qualified teacher dreaming about getting a class of my own any day compared to the days when I was dreaming of doing a post grad in primary teaching. And there are certainly some days when I hate to admit I’m glad I don’t have to get up, those freezing days when everything is covered in ice. It’s always nice to be wrapped up warm inside looking out then and being thankful that I’m not on yard duty!

Helen Bullock is a newly qualified teacher.  She graduated in 2010 from Hibernia College and regularly writes about her experiences on her popular blog, Anseo a Mhúinteoir.  Helen is also an active Twitter and Facebook user and can be reached under the Twitter username: @anseoamhuinteoir

The Desk at the top of the classroom! (and organisational settings for you to think about!)

I am busy this year giving course to student teachers in one of my favourite areas, English Teaching Methodologies. I am really enjoying capturing the minds of the student teachers before they enter the school system. For once, the students become full fledged teachers, it seems to me as if they get swept up into the system and they start to accept things the way they are in the classroom. (more…)

Well, it is official..I.am.shocked. and in denial! I cannot believe the summer hols are over and we are back and I am somehow convincing my mind that I have done a week and I can go back to the summer holidays now for another week. How long does it take for you to adjust after the holidays?
To all the teachers out there who are taking new classes for the first time, hope it went really well. If you have not implemented the Golden Time system, then make yourself do it next week! Not just Golden Time or not just the Golden Rules but the whole system! Make your classroom into a Golden, Jenny Mosely type of place!
Would love to hear peoples ideas on how they manage behaviour and reward goodness in their own classrooms!
Enjoy the month of Jenny Mosely rewards and check out her website at www.circletime.co.uk

I am fascinated by the amount of “International” and “Special” days there are in the world or even in one day! Let me share with you an important day coming up that you might be able to discuss with your class or even work on a lesson or two!

On May 29th, there is an “International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers” The U.N. was organised at the close of World War II in the hope of preventing another World War.

UN peacekeeping has been developed to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for lasting peace since the first mission was established in May 1948. There have been a total of 63 UN peacekeeping operations. Currently, more than 100,000 military and civilian personnel serve in 20 UN peace operations worldwide.

Some ideas for this could be to

1. Organise a National Class or school “Peace Day”.

2. Look at your class, which countries do your class represent? Draw flags of that country and write a simple greeting in that language on it!

3. Locate some other flags and information of other flags from different countries.

4. Look at the flag of the U.N. It shows how the earth might look from the North Pole. You can see every continent except Antartica. The leaves around the map are olive branches, ancient symbols of peace.

5. Have an International Food Day, everyone is to bring something typical of their homeland or their ancestors’ homeland.

6. Have a big class debate- What would happen if ( in 100 years time) if there was only one nation-and it was called THE WORLD- List 3 good things and 3 bad things.

Some ideas to get you going, you could get mileage out of this theme if you wanted! So, just in case you need a filler or an emergency lesson plan- think PEACE!

For those of you who might be new to the concept of a school trip, here are some good and practical words of wisdom! they might come in useful for the more experienced teachers too! (Main image from Scoil Treasa Naofa) (more…)

Robert Mager is one of the Gurus of instructional design, and his 1962 book, Preparing Objectives for Programmed Instruction, influenced school  for years. Mager discussed using specific, measurable objectives that both guide designers/teachers during planning of lessons and aid students in the learning process. Mager also endorsed allowing the students to know and understand their learning objectives.

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