RPT Hours

Haven't been told the allocation in our school yet. Honestly I do believe it depends from school to school. Some principals are great and look after their staff as best they can with regard to hours. Others as you said keep staff on low hours to make timetabling easier, neglecting to think that part time hours do not offer great career prospects in the long run.

There is something definitely wrong with the system when 11 hours is seen as a good contract.

Sorry to hear about your situation vamos. However, it seems unusual from a couple of perspectives:

1) No principal is able to offer anything to their RPTs yet because the redeployment scheme is ongoing. The received wisdom here is that if this is your first year on RPT, you have no rights and could be displaced. Those on their own hours with 2 or 3 years completed are regarded by the unions as having rights but the Dept disagrees. That said, the Dept didn't try to displace those people last year which suggests they don't fancy testing the position legally.
2) My understanding is that principals are still waiting for news on the appeals they submitted to their initial allocation. If you know different, please tell us.
3) It must depend on your subjects and their status in the school (compulsory, combinations, options...) If you're a Spanish teacher and there are 19 hours of Spanish next year, you are entitled to those hours surely. However, if they're reducing the number of class groups in English and the guidance counsellor is also an English teacher, that's where a problem might arise.

I'm always eager to hear other people's wisdom...very little talk about this so far this spring. What's going on?

Our allocation is down by 4.5 teacher equivalents for next year, our principal told us today, he has submitted appeals but that his current information....we have 6 people who are now very worried !!

gaeilgebeo: You say there have been five retirements since September but to quote you 'we are still losing nearly the same number of non-permanent teachers'. I don't mean to be pedantic, but that's not really clear.

Are you saying that you're down 10 teachers next year - the five retirements and five more. Or that five retired, were replaced and their replacements' jobs are now in doubt - in other words potentially down 5 teachers?

Either way, it seems to me that people are probably being excessively pessimistic here. The initial allocations were bad this year, particularly for DEIS schools or schools that up to now have had significant amounts of language support etc... But it seems to me that the initial allocations are bad every year one way or another and that any decent principal urges people not to worry until the results of the appeals come in. The Government has promised to phase in the cuts to the legacy DEIS posts as much as possible and to help schools worst affected. Let's give them a chance. I very much doubt that any school of 540 pupils will be down five teachers in September.

linguist wrote: »

gaeilgebeo: You say there have been five retirements since September but to quote you 'we are still losing nearly the same number of non-permanent teachers'. I don't mean to be pedantic, but that's not really clear.

Are you saying that you're down 10 teachers next year - the five retirements and five more. Or that five retired, were replaced and their replacements' jobs are now in doubt - in other words potentially down 5 teachers?

Either way, it seems to me that people are probably being excessively pessimistic here. The initial allocations were bad this year, particularly for DEIS schools or schools that up to now have had significant amounts of language support etc... But it seems to me that the initial allocations are bad every year one way or another and that any decent principal urges people not to worry until the results of the appeals come in. The Government has promised to phase in the cuts to the legacy DEIS posts as much as possible and to help schools worst affected. Let's give them a chance. I very much doubt that any school of 540 pupils will be down five teachers in September.

We had 5 teachers retire since September.
We are still losing nearly the same number(nearly 5) of non permanent teachers. Is this clearer for you?

Yes we are down 4.2 teachers for September. We have over 540 students at the minute. 114 are leaving in 2 weeks. We have 84 first years at the minute. The number of incoming first years is even lower again. This all affects teacher allocation.
Our numbers have fallen.
There have been cut backs.
Some of our retirements have not been replaced.
We have cut 2 subjects from Leaving Cert.
We have made another subject at Junior Cert non-compulsory.
We are cutting a leaving cert programme next year.
Do you think schools of 540 are exempt from these cutbacks?

I do not appreciate your insinuation that I am being "excessively pessimistic" and that you "doubt" what I have said is true.

You have every right to be optimistic about the job situation and "give them a chance", but don't dismiss the advice or opinions of others.

lestat21 wrote: »

Jeez whatever way you look at it, this can't be good for schools or the profession. I know teachers have been speculating what subjects they will have to teach nxt year. Some people think they could be thrown into classes they are not qualified to teach. Simply because they are permanent or CID and the allocation suggests qualified teachers might be in short supply for some subjects. I understand how career guidance and learning support are been catered for in my school but in the schools opinion it doesn't account for the very low allocation. Someone suggested the dept has put the decimal point in the wrong place

Thanks for your reply gaeilgebeo, I never considered how the retirement of post holders would affect the allocation. Any word on posts of responsibility been filled next year??

I know for a fact that the school population is going to stay the same or rise slightly next year, but this school still stands to lose approx 10 teachers.. Is there anyone here working in a schools which has seen a dramatic rise in student numbers? How does your allocation reflect this?

Our A Posts so far have not been filled due to the moratorium. The deputy principal is the 6th year year head!

Cutting two subjects from the Leaving Cert really affected the part-timers hours too.

The allocation for an academic year is always based on the previous years first year intake.

linguist wrote: »

gaeilgebeo: I did not mean to cause personal offence by what I wrote. I apologise for how it came across to you, however frankly the need for the query I raised has been well borne out by the extra information you've provided. I referred to people being pessimistic...there's more than you in this discussion.

The currency in any conversation of this type is whole time equivalents not the number of actual people in the staffroom. Obviously the decline in enrollment you've outlined and the timetabling decisions stemming from it have been serious. I think you know well that no school that is stable on 540 should be down 4.6 teachers once the final allocation is in. That's what I meant, and your subsequent posts make it clear that there are many other factors at play.

What I think is important is that people are precise and responsible in the information they share here since this is a worrying time for many.

So for a school that is stable on 540, you don't think they could lose teachers as a result of cutbacks?

Obviously yes - and they will by virtue of the change to guidance which would cost them 0.7 of a teacher for starters.

Anyway, I clarified my position that I didn't mean to cause you offence. You appear set on taking a selective and rather strange interpretation of what I'm saying. If you'd like an argument here, you can have it with someone else. That's not why I'm here.