Cuts

RTÉ Prime Time: David

I'm interested in hearing from teachers and parents about the realities they face following the various cuts and embargos that have been imposed over the past year.

What is it like trying to teach and learn in an Irish primary or post-primary school today? Are our children being failed by the system? What has been the fallout from losing language support teachers and special needs assistants? Are schools running on a skeleton staff? Is it still possible to attain the same level of education as it was during the boom or are we looking towards a crisis?

I'd appreciate all of your views and they are purely for research.

You can email me david.lawless@rte.ie or PM me in confidence.

TheDriver

Oh you are going to have the floodgates open up here.
Well for a start, trying having both ORd and Higher level together in a junior cert class, its a nightmare trying to teach one level for an exam, never mind both.
Try have so many in the classroom that they have to go find chairs/stools and tables to be able to take their lesson properly.
try seeing 3 of your colleagues leave the school due to cutbacks and can't offer the same level of numbers
Try having so many transition years in a computer class that they have to share computers.
Unless your child has a reportable condition, their SNA will be taken off them unlike before where all support was given.

All this at a time when the same govt is eroding away our pay and conditions. No more posts so who exactly in the school is going to do the work of a retired postholder. Its becoming a very difficult job with only an average NETT wage....

Alessandra

Make sure to post this on www.educationposts.ie, they will defintely have something to say on the matter!

pathway33

Make sure to post on the leaving cert forum here too as leaving cert students will definitely have a lot to say about the quality of teaching.

implausible

The cuts in the PTR have resulted in bigger class sizes, OL, HL and FL can be in one class and many schools have had to drop subjects.

One of the biggest problems faced by teachers at the moment is the embargo on Posts of Responsiblity. The management structure of our schools is being eroded. Our wages have been cut, prompting many retirements and most of these retirees are post-holders. My own school hasn't had detention for months due to the person retiring, one year was left without a yearhead and there is no-one to co-ordinate evening classes (thus depriving the wider community). This is one example from one school.

How on earth can schools run and pupils thrive in a system that is breaking down?

Teachers are expected to cover over the cracks and if they do, they are undermining the only promotional system available to us. Unlike other bodies such as the HSE, the promotional system for teachers is simple - ordinary teacher, special duties teacher, assistant principal, vice-principal and principal. If the special duties and APs are scrapped, what motivation is then left for the ambitious hardworking teacher? The opportunities to get a vice-principalship or principalship are so rare as to be non-existent. The Govt love to mention performance-related pay, but yet they are destroying the only reward system for performance, especially in VEC schools where seniority isn't such a big factor in promotion.

And as for the cuts..... We were lucky this year to be able to find the money to run TY and LCA. I teach in a DEIS school, where our parents can't afford the 'voluntary' contributions common in other schools and we have a big uptake for LCA. Without these programmes, the kids that the Govt are trying to keep in school are out on the streets....often literally. Without SNA help, special needs students willl fall throught the cracks. Surely, it is cheaper now to invest in our youth than in state benefits and possibly prison places further down the road. Anyone can see that the presnet cuts are short-sighted and downright reckless.

You need motivated teachers and students to run a good efficient education system. It's time the Govt stopped battering us all with sticks and instead tried the carrot approach. Look at where the real cuts should be made.

byhookorbycrook

ooh..where do I start?We were due to get a new teacher, had carried the extra numbers for a year, to be told ,tough,keep all
the extra children, but split them between all the current teachers.

NO grant for any kind of equipment for learning support ,where are we supposed to get funds for the essential items we need to help our most vunerable children?

The revised curriculum has a strand on aquatics ,no funds for a bus or coach ,again,parents have to shell out.

J.R.

It is the weaker less able pupils who will suffer with present cutbacks. Average - above average pupils will survive and manage but less able, vulnerable pupils will fall through the cracks, many eventually dropping out of the system due to inability and lack of resources to assist them.

SPECIAL CLASSES:
If one were to compare the number of special classes in primary schools today compared to some years ago (even go back to the mid 80's during the last recession) and one will instantly notice that the number has dropped dramatically. Has the country become more intelligent??? Have the problems encountered by pupils attending special classes all been rectified???......no...simply the criteria for entry to a special class has been raised.....result is less special class pupils in less special classes.....but the figures look good on paper.....giving the impression that matters have drastically improved.

ACCESS TO AN S.N.A.
At present the need for a pupil to have a S.N.A. is based on their care needs. If the pupil is struggling to keep up in class, cannot concentrate, is disruptive, has difficulty with writing, taking down written material from board, cannot interact with other pupils, throws tantrums etc. these are not taken into account......reply is....that's the teachers job & resource teachers job. However, the other 30+ pupils in the class suffer while the teacher devotes so much time & energy to cater for this pupils needs.

Rather than called the person a Special Needs Assistant the title should be changed to Classroom Assistant. Similar to the resource teacher allocation model one Classroom Assistant could be allocated to a school for each 80 pupils......240 pupils = 3 Classroom Assistants etc.

This system would immediately do away with the present Quango system where large sums are paid to man offices and pay SENO's to review each school each year. The onus could lie with the school principal on where best to use the Classroom Assistants to cater for the needs of the neediest pupils and the Classroom Assistant would not dread each review or fearing that if a SEN pupil leaves their position is gone with them.

SEVERE EMOTIONAL & BEHAVIOUR PROBLEMS
Pupils suffering from the above find it extremely difficult to access their entitlement of 5 hours resource teaching per week due to a catch 22 situation.

In order to be able to access these hours a pupil must be under the care of a Child Psychologist or Child Psychiatrist. Neither is available to schools under the DES. These can only be accessed through HSE. When the pupil is referred to HSE the reply is that 'we only deal with children’s mental health issues......not behaviour problems. Outside of the HSE there is nowhere else for schools to access Child Psychologist or Child Psychiatrist that will take the case on and offer help and assistance for the pupil. Catch 22!!!!!

PUPIL TEACHER RATIO:
Somebody would seriously need to explain to Batt how the PTR works. When last raised by him his reply was along the lines..sure what's one extra pupil in a class!!!!!

loveroflight

A happy but somewhat frustrated Maths Teacher here.
About the lack of qualified Maths Teachers!!!
I’m one of only two qualified Maths Teachers in my school. About 10 other teachers of varying degrees teach Maths in my school, including a H dip student who has no maths in her degree.
I work really hard, get great appreciation from my students and their parents and I love my job.
So what is my problem!!!
Other than the student and parents’ appreciation of the extra work needed to maintain being a good maths teacher, there is nothing else. Promotions in school are given to those who are interested in management, record-keeping, sports. The school system has no incentive to be good at teaching your subject in the class room.
This is the system that has been set up over years by the unions and the school authorities. It mostly suits those who are not particularly dedicated to improving their teaching methods and giving their best in the classroom.
Over the years, if good teaching is not promoted by some form of incentive, surely it becomes less about teaching and more about managing!!!! And surely that isn’t the best outcome for the students.

TheDriver

J.R. wrote: »

PUPIL TEACHER RATIO:
Somebody would seriously need to explain to Batt how the PTR works. When last raised by him his reply was along the lines..sure what's one extra pupil in a class!!!!!

Batt Needs to realise he needs to get a builder out to extend my classroom! All week we have people going on about Maths teaching and quality of it etc yet I have 32 (yes 32) 5th years doing Higher Level with me and its jammers. Can't give as much tests as I would like because its takes so long to correct them, can't go around the room as much because a) its physically not possible and b) not enough time for each child's questions.

What is really going to happen is grinds are going to take off because a) quality of teaching can't be maintained with such classroom pressures and b) our wages are being decimated so much.

gaeilgegrinds1

How about trying to teach Irish to 28 1st years, 5 have special needs, three different levels...impossible.

Also, classes not getting covered to save money is really dangerous, someone will get hurt. We are working far harder for far less and the supports that used to be there are no longer. Am not happy!

spurious

I have a 'mixed ability'* JC class of 20 where all but 4 of them are on IEPs - everything from Borderline General Learning Disabilities, Dyspraxia, Mild General Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, ADHD and a complete inability to read, plus a couple of mis-placed and bewildered foreign kids. One class a week a colleague comes in and takes about 5 of them out of the room.

I have both levels in the class, some kids with serious behavioural problems and to cap it all, I get paid less than I was being paid 5 years ago for the pleasure of filling out endless bloody forms and redoing lesson plans and amended schemes of work and assessments and utter garbage that will never be read by anyone, but apparently 'must' be done.

I remember about ten years ago going on an exchange to a school in Sheffield and pitying them for all the ancillary crap they were being made do and here we are, once again slavishly following the big island, never never NEVER learning from their mistakes.

* the latest 'idea'