Teaching in an Educate Together

phaze

Hi. I've been teaching in a 'normal' primary school for 9 years. Myself and my husband are moving back to our home area over the summer so I will soon be applying for jobs.

I'm wondering if anyone would be willing to share their views on teaching in an Educate Together school.

Thanks

Nools

its exactly the same as a "normal" school other than the whole religion thing! thats pretty much the main difference

ArthurDent

not a teacher but have 2 kids in an ET school and have been involved with school since its foundation and interviewed all but one of the teachers employed in our school and my take on the subject is:

In some ways Nools' commet about it being the same as every other school except for the religion is true - same curriculum, same (lack of)funding, same accomodation issues, but I'd like to think in other ways it's not true.

Certainly some of the experiences of our teachers would reflect that they do find differences - such as

Everyone on first name terms
Parental involvement - parents ARE more involved in the school , both on a day to day basis helping in classes etc to school management (Chair of BOM is nearly always a parent in the school) - as you can imagine this can have advantages and disadvantages - most schools seem to manage it well enough though.
Most ET schools have very active parents' associations
Covering the Ethical Curriciculum is a challenge - it is not easy to provide structured classes in it, it requires a lot of work . Most Irish trained teachers would not be too familiar with different faith/belief systems and the programme of work probably left up to individual teachers (or groups of teachers) to work through can be challenging and a bit intimidating - this is an area where parental involvement is great - nothing like hearing about Eid/Divali/Humanism etc straight from the horses (or mammy's/daddy's) mouth.
Some of our teachers have found it a huge relief not to have to teach a doctrinal based religious curriculum - especially if they themselves are not practising catholic/COI
In our school (only one I have a lot of experience of so don't know if this traslates to other schools) there is a freedom to explore many social issues in great depth - for example child labour was a focus of a lot of the work carried out this year and this can be done in a cross curricular way - sese, ethical curriculum, music, drama, art, geography, history.

our kids have a very acgtive students union (not a council and they can tell you why!:)) and they have been involved in some pretty deadly Amnesty projects.

On a practical level I've had teachers say to me - it's much easier in our staff room to have it known that you're living with your partner, or are gay or have a child and not be married (TBH I was gobsmacked that they thought that this was a big thing - I'd have imagined in this day and age none of these things would be that shocking) - but maybe I'm naive....

dannydiamond

phaze wrote: »

Hi. I've been teaching in a 'normal' primary school for 9 years. Myself and my husband are moving back to our home area over the summer so I will soon be applying for jobs.

I'm wondering if anyone would be willing to share their views on teaching in an Educate Together school.

Thanks

I am frankly disturbed by your overly pronounced use of 'normal' i have my kids in an ET school and am delighted with our choice.These schools are a breath of fresh air to the irish primary school system,but perhaps the tone of your original post leads me to believe you would perhaps be better suited in another school.Please correct me if you feel I am being overly harsh,but these are probably questions you should ask of yourself before making any decisions.

Edit to say I just read arthurs post and he hit the nail squarely for you.

popebenny16

the use of quote/inverted commas in the op suggests that she was not implying ET is not normal, rather that they are a relatively new method. I wouldnt read too much into it, and you know theres a time when attacking the post is in fact attacking the poster, who seems to want to work in the school.

Why are those who use ET schools, which I am all in favour of, seem to be so damnned precious?