Secondary school holidays

Tapes

Do ye think secondary school kids in this country get too long a summer holiday? I think Ireland has the longest school summer holidays in europe, also alot of countrys in europe have school half day on saturday.

January

Was unsure whether to put this in Junior or Leaving Cert... hope it's ok here...

delta_bravo

No I think it is a perfectly adequate length of time. Saturday school is a non runner. No real clear benefits to it.

vamos!

Nope! I think the holidays are well needed. I have worked in countries with 6 week holidays and I actually find Ireland to be the most productive system. Pupils and teachers are expected to work hard when they are there and get plenty of time to recharge!

Chilli Con Kearney

Tapes, can you reference a link/proof that Ireland has the longest hoildays in Europe please? I often hear this yet have seen little evidence to prove it.

I was in Spain recently and a tour guide explained to me that they have almost identical holidays to ours here. Perhaps we are not as out of kilter as some would like us to believe.

gaeilgebeo

[QUOTE=Tapes;71757119]Do ye think secondary school kids in this country get too long a summer holiday? I think Ireland has the longest school summer holidays in europe, also alot of countrys in europe have school half day on saturday.[/QUOTE]

No.
The holidays are needed by both teachers and pupils.
I assume from your post that you are not a teacher because if you were, you would understand why the holidays are needed.

rainbowtrout

Tapes wrote: »

Do ye think secondary school kids in this country get too long a summer holiday? I think Ireland has the longest school summer holidays in europe, also alot of countrys in europe have school half day on saturday.

While you haven't provided a link to back up that statement, you have also neglected to mention that in many European countries the school day is shorter than it is in Ireland. A typical school day in Germany might start at 7.30-8.00 but is over by 1pm. If they got rid of their half day Saturday school and added a class on to each day in the week it would probably be quite similar to the Irish school day.

Also many European children don't start school until they are 6 or even 7. I remember there was a Irish-German girl in my class in primary school in the 80s and her family moved to Germany for a year or two when she was about 8. When she returned she told us that the kids in her German primary school were amazed that she could speak German, English and Irish and had already done 4 years of school.

sNarah

As a general rule, Western EU countries (that's the ones I know) run as following:

Classes from 8.20 to 3.50 with Wednesday afternoon off (12.50 finish).
Most holidays as in Ireland but classes continue until the end of June rather than the end of May.

This is certainly the case in Belgium, Holland, France.

School begins when the children are 3, kindergarden year 1, 2 and 3.

Elementary starts at 6 and runs for 6 years, secondary from 12 to 18.

(as a general rule, I could be corrected on this for other countries).

Being a teacher myself here, I definitely that the kids have less schooldays than the system in Belgium, as a lot a days are missed too, both at primary and secondary level, e.g. sports days, volunteering, drama, sports etc. We were never allowed to miss any classes because we were part of a schoolteam, for instance, I played volleybal in school comps, training and matches were all after hours. So even when the actual taught hours may be somewhat similar, I find Irish students get a lot of exemptions and free days during the academic year too.

Student here. Finished secondary school in 2009 and I can say for definite, no. School isn't all teenagers do, but if school was 6 days a week it might become all they do. I think there's a real view out there that students have it incredibly easy, sitting around with their friends during school and then dossing every other minute of the day. That's not true, secondary school is actually hard work, and even for student's like me who didn't do much work, it's still incredibly stressful.

Having interests and hobbies is really important. I was quite a lazy student but even I felt really stressed out through secondary school, and with homework and study too it was really difficult to make time for other things. A lot of the hardest working students I knew ended up with great grades but no skills other than academic work. Whether it's playing an instrument, taking part in sports, learning to cook, getting a job, exploring non-school literature etc., it's important for students to not feel confined to purely academic work.

Holidays are there for reasons, for both students and teachers. Students can take the time to accomplish non academic achievements, experience new things, travel, explore their other interests, work, learn life skills etc. IMO that's very important, and I don't know what it's like in other countries but I definitely think that teenagers in this country are being given more and more reasons to stay confined to schoolwork and hanging out drinking. Adding another day of school to the week or shortening summer holidays would be such a reason.

Lord TSC

It strikes me sometimes (and only sometimes; don't want to make too big a sweeping generalisation) that the ones who complain about school hours not being long enough are parents who consider schools to be more like babysitting facilities rather than places of education. Strikes me that some parents would rather schools be on seven days a week, 9 till 5, so they don't actually have to deal with some of the responsibities of being parents....

jonseyblub

I'm going to throw a spanner in the works here. I reckon the holidays we have are fine for all of the reasons stated above. However I feel that a lot of our cpd should be done at this time too. Insevices should be done outside school time. I know it's nice to get away for a day during term time every so often but 2 or 3 days during the summer wouldn't kill us either. It would also be done at a time when we aren't stressed or have to worry about preparing work to leave for students etc

mikemac

The children are needed to work on the farm, those bales won't stack themselves

Well not anymore but I suppose if you went way back for several decades or maybe more, it might have been a partial reason for the current schedule

vallo

I wish teachers could be a bit more open about discussing potential improvements in the services we offer. I happen to agree that the summer holidays for secondary schools are needlessly long. If teachers were on staff to supervise state exams in each other's schools that would represent a huge saving to the country. If Ireland was a greenfield site and we were setting up an education system from scratch, I doubt very much that we would pay teachers for 3 months of the summer and then pay exam invigilators and correctors to do exam related work at the same time.
I don't expect things to change any time soon, and I certainly don't want to see new entrants landed with extra duties while the teachers with permanent positions retain their status quo, but perhaps here amongst ourselves we could admit that we are all nicely relaxed and unwound after a month of being off in the summer and that while almost three months is nice to have it certainly isn't necessary.

gaeilgebeo

vallo wrote: »

I wish teachers could be a bit more open about discussing potential improvements in the services we offer. I happen to agree that the summer holidays for secondary schools are needlessly long. If teachers were on staff to supervise state exams in each other's schools that would represent a huge saving to the country. If Ireland was a greenfield site and we were setting up an education system from scratch, I doubt very much that we would pay teachers for 3 months of the summer and then pay exam invigilators and correctors to do exam related work at the same time.
I don't expect things to change any time soon, and I certainly don't want to see new entrants landed with extra duties while the teachers with permanent positions retain their status quo, but perhaps here amongst ourselves we could admit that we are all nicely relaxed and unwound after a month of being off in the summer and that while almost three months is nice to have it certainly isn't necessary.

I agree with your points on exam supervision.
Even if every teacher gave up a week to supervise it would save thousands.
I would question the quality of corrections if teachers were "forced" to do it.
As for holidays, I certainly would need more than a month. You may be nicely relaxed and unwound after a month, I however, am completely burnt out by June.
I don't know if I could give 100% of myself, stay behind to give extra classes, do extra curricular activities etc... if it weren't for the holidays which I need to recharge the batteries.

The Fifth Horseman

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Second level teachers teach in the classroom for 12 per cent longer than the OECD average and in the latest OECD study were found to clock up the third highest number of hours out of the 19 EU countries.

[/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]In 2010 two independent studies by private sector firms (one by Millward Brown Lansdowne Research, the other by Behaviour & Attitudes Market Research) showed that on average second teachers work over 46 hours per week.
[/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Yes, I am a Teacher. [/FONT] I work very hard in a job that demands more and more of me every year.

By early June I am compleatly emotionally exhausted in a way that people working outside Teaching rarely understand. I read a recent newspaper report that said that teaching involved as much mental complexity as a brain surgeon during an operation. Come June I can well believe it!:eek:

vallo

gaeilgebeo wrote: »

I would question the quality of corrections if teachers were "forced" to do it.

Come to think of it, it would be the one time when a teacher's work was measurable. You know the way that exam transcripts get randomly re-checked. If all teachers did a few papers, then their work quality could be monitored. And if all teachers had to do it, it would be done in a week or two rather than the mammoth 5 week (or so?) task that teachers currently take on and get paid for.

gaeilgebeo wrote: »

As for holidays, I certainly would need more than a month. You may be nicely relaxed and unwound after a month, I however, am completely burnt out by June.
I don't know if I could give 100% of myself, stay behind to give extra classes, do extra curricular activities etc... if it weren't for the holidays which I need to recharge the batteries.

Yes, I can safely say that I am fully recharged after a month. I'm not saying we should only have a month (the students need more than that too of course) but I think that 2 months is tonnes to be honest.

The Fifth Horseman wrote: »

By early June I am compleatly emotionally exhausted in a way that people working outside Teaching rarely understand. I read a recent newspaper report that said that teaching involved as much mental complexity as a brain surgeon during an operation. Come June I can well believe it!:eek:

I agree that teaching is exhausting in a way that other jobs arent. I know that from experience. But the day of classroom contact - the really draining part- is short. I also think that jobs like social worker, nursing, gardai are also similarly draining, but they don't get the holidays we get. And I doubt very much that brain surgeons get more than 4 months paid holidays a year.

gaeilgebeo

vallo wrote: »

Come to think of it, it would be the one time when a teacher's work was measurable. You know the way that exam transcripts get randomly re-checked. If all teachers did a few papers, then their work quality could be monitored. And if all teachers had to do it, it would be done in a week or two rather than the mammoth 5 week (or so?) task that teachers currently take on and get paid for.

Yes, I can safely say that I am fully recharged after a month. I'm not saying we should only have a month (the students need more than that too of course) but I think that 2 months is tonnes to be honest.


I agree that teaching is exhausting in a way that other jobs arent. I know that from experience. But the day of classroom contact - the really draining part- is short. I also think that jobs like social worker, nursing, gardai are also similarly draining, but they don't get the holidays we get. And I doubt very much that brain surgeons get more than 4 months paid holidays a year.

Do you think that if teachers are "forced" to correct for free that they will care about their corrections being monitored? I don't think so.
I correct every year and it is a huge undertaking.
I could see teachers resenting it if they had to do it for free.

As for being fully recharged after a month off, good for you. Most other teachers would disagree. Give teaching another couple of years and see how you feel then.

mrboswell

Tapes wrote: »

Do ye think secondary school kids in this country get too long a summer holiday? I think Ireland has the longest school summer holidays in europe, also alot of countrys in europe have school half day on saturday.

No. I'm sure it does seem long to those who get 21 days holidays. However, aside from the set school holidays I don't have the luxury of booking a day off here and there. I have to take my holidays when the schools are closed meaning if I want to holiday abroad then I will have to go at peak times, at peak cost.

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

It strikes me sometimes (and only sometimes; don't want to make too big a sweeping generalisation) that the ones who complain about school hours not being long enough are parents who consider schools to be more like babysitting facilities rather than places of education. Strikes me that some parents would rather schools be on seven days a week, 9 till 5, so they don't actually have to deal with some of the responsibities of being parents....

Agreed to some extent. A lot of parents view school holidays as an increase in child care costs etc. It is true that child care is expensive in Ireland but that is an issue that is for the government to sort out and shouldn't be a stick for people to beat teachers with.

vallo wrote: »

I wish teachers could be a bit more open about discussing potential improvements in the services we offer. I happen to agree that the summer holidays for secondary schools are needlessly long. If teachers were on staff to supervise state exams in each other's schools that would represent a huge saving to the country. If Ireland was a greenfield site and we were setting up an education system from scratch, I doubt very much that we would pay teachers for 3 months of the summer and then pay exam invigilators and correctors to do exam related work at the same time.
I don't expect things to change any time soon, and I certainly don't want to see new entrants landed with extra duties while the teachers with permanent positions retain their status quo, but perhaps here amongst ourselves we could admit that we are all nicely relaxed and unwound after a month of being off in the summer and that while almost three months is nice to have it certainly isn't necessary.

I can't comment on how hard you work or how much of a holiday you feel you need but I based on what I do in my school I feel that I deserve the holidays. For example, this week I am doing 6 hours every day doing extra revision with exam classes. Of course I don't have to do it, but I want to. During the summer I will also be around to help get the school ready for the following year. Again because I want to.
So in short I believe that I work hard during term inside the classroom and with extra curricular as well as during the holidays. I need more than one month of a holiday.

The Fifth Horseman wrote: »

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Second level teachers teach in the classroom for 12 per cent longer than the OECD average and in the latest OECD study were found to clock up the third highest number of hours out of the 19 EU countries.

[/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]In 2010 two independent studies by private sector firms (one by Millward Brown Lansdowne Research, the other by Behaviour & Attitudes Market Research) showed that on average second teachers work over 46 hours per week.
[/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Yes, I am a Teacher. [/FONT] I work very hard in a job that demands more and more of me every year.

By early June I am compleatly emotionally exhausted in a way that people working outside Teaching rarely understand. I read a recent newspaper report that said that teaching involved as much mental complexity as a brain surgeon during an operation. Come June I can well believe it!:eek:

Agreed that it is getting harder every year. If the 33 hours don't prove to be productive (as I suspect they will not be meaning that they are not to the benefit of students) and there is a call for more then I will probably stop doing extracurricular.

vallo wrote: »

Come to think of it, it would be the one time when a teacher's work was measurable. You know the way that exam transcripts get randomly re-checked. If all teachers did a few papers, then their work quality could be monitored. And if all teachers had to do it, it would be done in a week or two rather than the mammoth 5 week (or so?) task that teachers currently take on and get paid for.

I agree that teaching is exhausting in a way that other jobs arent. I know that from experience. But the day of classroom contact - the really draining part- is short. I doubt very much that brain surgeons get more than 4 months paid holidays a year.

Corrections would not necessarily be one time when a teacher's work was measurable. For example in English (not one of my subjects!) two correctors could vary widely in how they would correct an essay - is one right and the other wrong?

I also doubt very much that brain surgeons get more than 4 months paid holidays a year but they could certainly afford 4 months abroad a year.
Maybe you be better off trying to convince the medical profession that they should take a pay cut

implausible

vallo wrote: »

Come to think of it, it would be the one time when a teacher's work was measurable. You know the way that exam transcripts get randomly re-checked. If all teachers did a few papers, then their work quality could be monitored. And if all teachers had to do it, it would be done in a week or two rather than the mammoth 5 week (or so?) task that teachers currently take on and get paid for.

Exams are for measuring students' work, not the teachers!

Marking can be torture, well-paid (in my case) torture, but torture nonetheless. Because I am well-paid, I give my all to the papers. If the elements of choice and payment were taken out of it, I would not give a flying f**k about the marks little Johnny got, let alone agree to remark or go back over questions. A recipe for resentment.

vallo

deemark wrote: »

Exams are for measuring students' work, not the teachers!

Marking can be torture, well-paid (in my case) torture, but torture nonetheless. Because I am well-paid, I give my all to the papers. If the elements of choice and payment were taken out of it, I would not give a flying f**k about the marks little Johnny got, let alone agree to remark or go back over questions. A recipe for resentment.

Obviously they are for measuring a student's work - that goes without saying.
If everyone did it it wouldn't be torture and it would be good for the profession as a whole in terms of everyone keeping up to date with curriculum and marking schemes. It wouldn't be the mammoth task for individuals that it is now. I haven't done it since I've had kids because it isn't worth it once I pay for childcare and I can't do a half-portion.

Whatever about the exam marking, I definitely think that teachers should consider taking on exam invigilating and support activities which would save the state a huge amount of money. I can't think of a viable argument against it. We would still be on holidays from late June to late August.

doc_17

jonseyblub wrote: »

I'm going to throw a spanner in the works here. I reckon the holidays we have are fine for all of the reasons stated above. However I feel that a lot of our cpd should be done at this time too. Insevices should be done outside school time. I know it's nice to get away for a day during term time every so often but 2 or 3 days during the summer wouldn't kill us either. It would also be done at a time when we aren't stressed or have to worry about preparing work to leave for students etc

Yes..totally agree. This would dramatically reduce the costs involved and lead to less disruption in schools.

Orals should also be done at Easter holidays and that's a further saving.

Exams should be supervised by all teachers at no extra costs (since not all teachers are needed this would be done on a rota).

Any teacher who examines orals won't have to supervise exams...

But I think correction of exams should be paid.

solerina

doc_17 wrote: »

Yes..totally agree. This would dramatically reduce the costs involved and lead to less disruption in schools.

Orals should also be done at Easter holidays and that's a further saving.

Exams should be supervised by all teachers at no extra costs (since not all teachers are needed this would be done on a rota).

Any teacher who examines orals won't have to supervise exams...

But I think correction of exams should be paid.

I totally agree with the point that orals should be done at Easter, it would give the students more time to realx and prepare and would stop the nuisance of them coming and going from class, my LC class was totally disrupted for the two weeks before mid term with all the oral preparataion etc...also many teachers will not examine orals because they are leaving their own students in the lurch, this would be less of a problem in the easter holidays.....I cant understand why we pay the teacher to teach/pay them again if the examine orals and then pay a third time for someone to supervise their classes when they are out examining....total waste of money IMO Do them at easter and you cut our the third expense !!

Redr

vallo wrote: »

I wish teachers could be a bit more open about discussing potential improvements in the services we offer. I happen to agree that the summer holidays for secondary schools are needlessly long. If teachers were on staff to supervise state exams in each other's schools that would represent a huge saving to the country. If Ireland was a greenfield site and we were setting up an education system from scratch, I doubt very much that we would pay teachers for 3 months of the summer and then pay exam invigilators and correctors to do exam related work at the same time.
I don't expect things to change any time soon, and I certainly don't want to see new entrants landed with extra duties while the teachers with permanent positions retain their status quo, but perhaps here amongst ourselves we could admit that we are all nicely relaxed and unwound after a month of being off in the summer and that while almost three months is nice to have it certainly isn't necessary.

Teachers are not paid for being off all summer - we are paid for a set amount of teaching hours that's spread over the course of the year. So if teachers were to supervise exams that would be seen as additional work. Incidentally, many teachers would not be capable of supervising LC/JC exams - remember what happened a couple of years ago? It's serious business. I'm not disputing the length of the holidays etc. but with regards to secondary teaching the sitting and marking of the exams takes from the beginning to June to, say, 10 August. All these things would have to be taken into account.

So anyone suggesting shorter holidays - make suggestions for taking the above factors into account too!

Pwpane

Redr wrote: »

Teachers are not paid for being off all summer - we are paid for a set amount of teaching hours that's spread over the course of the year. So if teachers were to supervise exams that would be seen as additional work.

This has always been the way since the start of teaching. The pay was set for the hours worked and has continued as such.

How can teachers forget this???

Of course it would save money if the exams were supervised and corrected by teachers for no extra pay. It would save the same amount of money if this work was done by any other members of the public for no extra pay either - University lecturers, inspectors, TDs, college students, unemployed graduates. Great experience for PGDE students. WPP anyone?

Why don't the SEC supervise and correct the exams? Surely that's their job? Or is it that they do, by hiring qualified people to do it? If teachers, who have completed their paid work, apply for these positions then where's the problem?

Maybe teachers think they're being paid too much for the job they already have.

2011abc

vallo wrote: »

I definitely think that teachers should consider taking on exam invigilating and support activities which would save the state a huge amount of money. I can't think of a viable argument against it. We would still be on holidays from late June to late August.

Im sorry but right now I cant think of another way to phrase this ..."Are you on drugs!?"Late August is a thing of the past for all intents and purposes already with our six free days ('extra hour')To be honest 'saving the state a huge amount of money ' is the last thing on my mind .Staying sane would be far more important to me ,its NOT a huge amount of money anyway ...its a drop in the ocean of debt we're in ...tens of millions are all the savings that can be bled out of the educational system (at the expense of special needs kids etc )from a debt of tens of billions .I make that ballpark tenths of a percent (0.1%)

2011abc

jonseyblub wrote: »

I'm going to throw a spanner in the works here. I reckon the holidays we have are fine for all of the reasons stated above. However I feel that a lot of our cpd should be done at this time too. Insevices should be done outside school time. I know it's nice to get away for a day during term time every so often but 2 or 3 days during the summer wouldn't kill us either. It would also be done at a time when we aren't stressed or have to worry about preparing work to leave for students etc

Is it just me or are more and more of the threads on this site now populated by trolls?Considering the unmerciful treatment we are recieving HOW ON EARTH could any 'real' teacher invite more work upon themselves and their colleagues?

vallo

2011abc wrote: »

Is it just me or are more and more of the threads on this site now populated by trolls?Considering the unmerciful treatment we are recieving HOW ON EARTH could any 'real' teacher invite more work upon themselves and their colleagues?

Maybe not trolls, but teachers who are capable of thinking outside the box a little and coming up with constructive suggestions for saving the state money. Of course it is a small saving compared to what is needed overall, but does that mean we shouldn't do it?
Apart from being a teacher, I'm a citizen of a state that is in deep trouble in case you didn't notice. I think that everyone needs to make sacrifices for the good of the next generation. I don't see exam supervision as being an unsurmountable burden for teachers.
Posters with legitimate queries then get a barrage of "I don't know how hard you work...", "are you on drugs" and finally accused of trolling.
It saddens me that some teachers are so defensive.

rainbowtrout

vallo wrote: »

Maybe not trolls, but teachers who are capable of thinking outside the box a little and coming up with constructive suggestions for saving the state money. Of course it is a small saving compared to what is needed overall, but does that mean we shouldn't do it?
Apart from being a teacher, I'm a citizen of a state that is in deep trouble in case you didn't notice. I think that everyone needs to make sacrifices for the good of the next generation. I don't see exam supervision as being an unsurmountable burden for teachers.
Posters with legitimate queries then get a barrage of "I don't know how hard you work...", "are you on drugs" and finally accused of trolling.
It saddens me that some teachers are so defensive.

I disagree. On just about every forum on boards teachers (and other PS workers) are getting a bashing every single day and very much so for the last three years since the arse fell out of the economy. I've been on this site for 4 years and contribute to the T&L forum regularly and there have been plenty of threads on it over the last few years debating working conditions, unions, teaching council, unruly students, the exam system etc etc etc. Most have been constructive.

However I've noticed lately that most of the threads now posted in the teaching forum are also teacher bashing threads and it wouldn't be tolerated in any other forum. If you go to the Ladies Lounge and start slagging off women in one of the threads there you'll be told to GTFO fairly fast and it's the same in any other forum.

Teachers should be able to have at least one teacher friendly place to debate stuff or at the very least not have anti-teacher rhetoric rammed down their throats in every thread in the forum. That doesn't mean there can't be constructive criticism which there has been plenty of in the past. But frankly I'm sick of coming onto the forum now and just seeing anti-teacher/public sector sentiment backed up by very flimsy arguments/rabble rabble in every single thread. I don't think I'll be posting here much longer if it continues this way - it's turning into After Hours and there's already a forum for that kind of rabble rousing rubbish.

rainbowtrout

vallo wrote: »

Posters with legitimate queries then get a barrage of "I don't know how hard you work...", "are you on drugs" and finally accused of trolling.
It saddens me that some teachers are so defensive.

I don't think so. Many posters come on here proclaiming that we work short hours, are gone on the dot of 4 every day and don't work a minute more and everyone is on full hours and gets paid for the holidays and if you even try to tell them otherwise they don't want to listen or believe anything you say.

I'm well aware that there are teachers of that ilk but to be fair the fact that teachers log on to this forum in their spare time to debate teaching issues or to answer other people's queries, in my opinion, shows their interest in teaching.

jonseyblub

2011abc wrote: »

Is it just me or are more and more of the threads on this site now populated by trolls?Considering the unmerciful treatment we are recieving HOW ON EARTH could any 'real' teacher invite more work upon themselves and their colleagues?

Is it me or are you slightly overreacting?. I'm not inviting more work on our teaching profession. I'm suggesting that we do it at a different time. I also mentioned two or three days when we are relaxed and can actually take in what's been said to us instead of been stressed about leaving work, correcting work or whatever. It was a suggestion!!!

You harp on about other threads on the site slagging off teachers and that this section should be kept for teachers discussing how great we are etc and that it should be teacher friendly. But it seems to me every time somebody makes a suggestion that some of you don't agree with (teacher or not) they get flamed or be accused of not being a REAL TEACHER (Caps apparently are in) .

peanuthead

jonseyblub wrote: »

I'm going to throw a spanner in the works here. I reckon the holidays we have are fine for all of the reasons stated above. However I feel that a lot of our cpd should be done at this time too. Insevices should be done outside school time. I know it's nice to get away for a day during term time every so often but 2 or 3 days during the summer wouldn't kill us either. It would also be done at a time when we aren't stressed or have to worry about preparing work to leave for students etc

I agree with this statement, although all the in-services that I have ever done, maybe its just my subjects, have been on Saturdays and in the evenings.

implausible

peanuthead wrote: »

although all the in-services that I have ever done, maybe its just my subjects, have been on Saturdays and in the evenings.

I don't know why inservices were mentioned at all, as it's very obvious to me that a lot of them are now held outside of schooltime. I haven't had an inservice in over 2 years in my subject.

However, for essential things like curriculum change, which invariably involve a huge amount of extra work for the teachers involved, the foolproof way of ensuring that everyone gets the correct training is to have it during your timetabled working hours. How interested would anyone be in Project Maths if it involved several evenings a week and a few weekends? It's ok if you're single or have no ties, but for anyone with kids, it's a massive inconvenience and one which costs money, not only in childcare, but in expenses which are not adequately recompensed.

Fizzical

deemark wrote: »

I don't know why inservices were mentioned at all, as it's very obvious to me that a lot of them are now held outside of schooltime. I haven't had an inservice in over 2 years in my subject.

However, for essential things like curriculum change, which invariably involve a huge amount of extra work for the teachers involved, the foolproof way of ensuring that everyone gets the correct training is to have it during your timetabled working hours. How interested would anyone be in Project Maths if it involved several evenings a week and a few weekends? It's ok if you're single or have no ties, but for anyone with kids, it's a massive inconvenience and one which costs money, not only in childcare, but in expenses which are not adequately recompensed.

That's why the Teaching Council will want evidence of CPD in order to stay registered in the future. Once that's in, there will be no need to have inservice like for Project Maths in school hours because everyone will have to attend in their own time.

An example of Teaching Council hand-in-glove with the DES.

doc_17

Fizzical wrote: »

That's why the Teaching Council will want evidence of CPD in order to stay registered in the future. Once that's in, there will be no need to have inservice like for Project Maths in school hours because everyone will have to attend in their own time.

An example of Teaching Council hand-in-glove with the DES.

Nonsense..you can't single out one subject for cpd. All project maths inservice will be in school hours. The teaching council are a disgrace to our profession

byhookorbycrook

They can and will.

Teaching Council Policy on Continuing Professional Development
CPD-A right and a responsibility.
-A registered teacher should take all resaonable steps to maintain, develop and broaden the professional knowledge, skill and capabilities appropriate to his or her teaching. Provision for discrete time for CPD needs to be included in the normal schedule of a teacher's work, without interfering with the integrity of the school year. Such CPD should be based on teachers' identified needs within the school's learning community

The Council intends to work towards......renewal of registration with The Teaching Council will be subject to the receipt of satisfactory evidence in relation to engagement in CPD.

marknjb

By early June I am compleatly emotionally exhausted in a way that people working outside Teaching rarely understand. I read a recent newspaper report that said that teaching involved as much mental complexity as a brain surgeon during an operation. Come June I can well believe it!:eek:[/QUOTE]
would u be as emotionally exhausted as the nurse who has watched some child patient die from cancer in her care or the gaurd who has to call to a parents house to tell them their teenage son or daughter has been killed in a car crash or the fire man who has spent the night cutting out the bodies
all of whom wont get 3 months off to recover

vamos!

marknjb wrote: »

By early June I am compleatly emotionally exhausted in a way that people working outside Teaching rarely understand. I read a recent newspaper report that said that teaching involved as much mental complexity as a brain surgeon during an operation. Come June I can well believe it!:eek:

would u be as emotionally exhausted as the nurse who has watched some child patient die from cancer in her care or the gaurd who has to call to a parents house to tell them their teenage son or daughter has been killed in a car crash or the fire man who has spent the night cutting out the bodies
all of whom wont get 3 months off to recover[/QUOTE]

They are all valuable professions who are trained to do their jobs and who chose to enter said jobs. The exhaustion from teaching is different I would imagine but still very real. Unless you do the job, you dont know. Also, because of the nature of life teachers are also put in horrific and tragic situations where they have to explain the death of a young person to their peers. These situations are part and parcel, as is dealing with fragile children, sick children etc. You cannot compare professions across the board

TheDriver

I can never understand why Teacher haters come on this part of boards with the only purpose to give out about the profession. There are jobs I hate and would voice my opinion on them but I wouldn't go onto their boards section and give out on their threads. Its difficult as Teachers to discuss things when people who clearly don't understand the intricacies of the job are hogging it for personal gratification.

jonseyblub

TheDriver wrote: »

I can never understand why Teacher haters come on this part of boards with the only purpose to give out about the profession. There are jobs I hate and would voice my opinion on them but I wouldn't go onto their boards section and give out on their threads. Its difficult as Teachers to discuss things when people who clearly don't understand the intricacies of the job are hogging it for personal gratification.

While I agree with you, there is also a situation on the teacher threads where teachers who make constructive criticism are treated like pariah. If all we are going to do is constantly pat ourselves on the back and ignore some of the problems in the education system that are caused by us what's the point in having a discussion at all. There is a whole thread quite rightly slagging off pat kenny for the frontline programme last week for it's totally one sided view of teachers but surely we are doing e exact same here.

For the record I am a teacher with about 15 years experience who thinks that 95% of teachers are fully committed to their jobs and who work damn hard for the benefit of our students, but I'm also increasingly frustrated with the small section of that remaining 5% who are not stressed out, sick etc but are just bone lazy, incompetent and give the rest of us a seriously bad name. I would also love to be able to have an adult discussion about what can be done to solve this problem without being accused of all sorts of things.

rainbowtrout

jonseyblub wrote: »

While I agree with you, there is also a situation on the teacher threads where teachers who make constructive criticism are treated like pariah. If all we are going to do is constantly pat ourselves on the back and ignore some of the problems in the education system that are caused by us what's the point in having a discussion at all. There is a whole thread quite rightly slagging off pat kenny for the frontline programme last week for it's totally one sided view of teachers but surely we are doing e exact same here.

For the record I am a teacher with about 15 years experience who thinks that 95% of teachers are fully committed to their jobs and who work damn hard for the benefit of our students, but I'm also increasingly frustrated with the small section of that remaining 5% who are not stressed out, sick etc but are just bone lazy, incompetent and give the rest of us a seriously bad name. I would also love to be able to have an adult discussion about what can be done to solve this problem without being accused of all sorts of things.

That's a very valid point and I think most people here do agree with you, but from a few of your earlier posts it didn't seem like this is what you thought. It's not what I got from your posts anyway.

jonseyblub

rainbowtrout wrote: »

That's a very valid point and I think most people here do agree with you, but from a few of your earlier posts it didn't seem like this is what you thought. It's not what I got from your posts anyway.

I've only really been posting on Education part of boards in the last week and I've just read back on all the posts that I've written in both this thread and the frontline thread. I don't think there is one post I made that can be said to be anti-teacher or teacher bashing. I did make a suggestion (and that's all it is) that we could maybe do one or two days cpd during the summer when we are less stressed. In the frontline thread I repeated what you highlighted above and then had a constructive discussion with somebody who obviously wasn't a teacher but did make some decent points. While i didn't agree fully with him/her I think that's the whole point of a discussion and the whole point of boards.

Rainbowtrout you seem to take people up the wrong way a lot. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056196217&page=5
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056196217&page=8. You really should read the posts more carefully before commenting.

mrboswell

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

They can and will.

Teaching Council Policy on Continuing Professional Development
CPD-A right and a responsibility.
-A registered teacher should take all resaonable steps to maintain, develop and broaden the professional knowledge, skill and capabilities appropriate to his or her teaching. Provision for discrete time for CPD needs to be included in the normal schedule of a teacher's work, without interfering with the integrity of the school year. Such CPD should be based on teachers' identified needs within the school's learning community

The Council intends to work towards......renewal of registration with The Teaching Council will be subject to the receipt of satisfactory evidence in relation to engagement in CPD.

Key word there is REASONABLE. If it is genuinely reasonable then most will not have an issue.

Lets see how reasonable that waste of space teaching council will be.

doc_17

If the department go to the bother of organising worthwhile cpd for all teachers that increase the professional capacity of the individual teacher then fine...but if it's some sort of whitewash that is done for the sake of it then forget about it.

But if it's like anything the TC council do I won't be expecting anything brilliant

Ambersky

Could any of the controversy and other peoples problems with school holidays be anything to do with jealousy.:D Just a bit maybe.
Im an artist and I use the time to relax and continue to develop my own creative side. I dont feel in the least bit guilty for having long holidays or the need to answer or apologise for it.
I think this is great for children to have the experience of getting bored, trying to figure out what to do and having the time to use and develop their imaginations instead of always following someone elses timetable.
Like Einstein said Imagination is more important than knowledge.
School holidays dont have to be viewed as a waste of time.
What kind of society have we developed that people think their lives, their time, has to be constantly filled up with so called productivity.

mrboswell

Ambersky wrote: »

What kind of society have we developed that people think their lives, their time, has to be constantly filled up with so called productivity.

One that is up to its eyeballs in debt while still trying to pay our and other public servants wages.

I don't think may people would mind change that be genuinely beneficial.

evolving_doors

deemark wrote: »

How interested would anyone be in Project Maths if it involved several evenings a week and a few weekends? It's ok if you're single or have no ties, but for anyone with kids, it's a massive inconvenience and one which costs money, not only in childcare, but in expenses which are not adequately recompensed.

Project Maths has been run over the weekends and during holiday periods as well as the regular school/inservice times.

Extra courses can and have been run in Education Centres based on demand from teachers who may have missed some modules. In my experience I don't think anyone complained about being there at those times.

Ambersky

Mr Boss well says
One that is up to its eyeballs in debt while still trying to pay our and other public servants wages.

I don't think may people would mind change that be genuinely beneficial.

I think we need to look very carefully at the values we are proposing to pass onto children in this panic about the debt created by the banking sector and big private buisness .
There is some very interesting writing on the pressures put on childhood by corporate and buisness pressures , not all of it "genuinely beneficial!.
In fact it seems the needs of buisness seem to run contrary to the production of well rounded well educated children.

Heres an example
Fromhttp://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/490/65/

Turning Schools into Businesses: Instead of investing as much as possible in education, the new emphasis is to educate as many children as possible for the least investment. School funding cuts, combined with pressures from business groups, have led to an emphasis on productivity, cost-effectiveness and performance evaluation in schools. Education systems have been restructured so that centralised bureaucracies establish the goals of education, core curricula, and resource allocation, while school boards and principals are left to manage schools on reduced budgets.

Making Schools Accountable: School boards and principals are held accountable through regimes of standardised testing. To ensure that the standardised tests are taken seriously, even though they have little educational value, educational authorities have attached various rewards and punishments to performance in them. Attaching these ‘high stakes’ to test results is also a way to ensure that schools teach to the curriculum. Standardised testing stresses students, demoralised teachers, and reduces education to little more than memory work.
Business Campaigns: Businesses have campaigned to get the changes discussed above into schools, particularly the business model with its devolution of responsibility, outcomes-focused accountability, standardised testing, and narrowed curriculum. They have formed powerful overlapping and interconnected business coalitions and advocacy front groups and promoted an atmosphere of crisis to achieve school ‘reforms’.

Made to Order: The renewed emphasis in schools on long hours, discipline, rewards and punishments results employer demands for graduates with a good attitude, a strong work ethic, honesty, loyalty, dependability, trustworthiness and obedience. The rhetoric of international competitiveness has been used to promote these changes but they are turning schools into places of training rather than education.

mrboswell

It is unfortunate but the education system is run as a business.

Many governments see financial input into the education system as an investment that should reap significant rewards in the recoup of taxes. The cost of educating the population has to be repaid and it is a significant cost.

With regards to schools as places of training rather than education well lets be honest, a nation of philosophers and thinkers wouldn't exactly pump up the state bank balance.

Maybe thats where the private schools will come to the fore - pay extra and your children can be 'educated' as opposed to 'trained'.

The reality is that the cost of education is so high that must have multiple purposes.

implausible

Armelodie wrote: »

Project Maths has been run over the weekends and during holiday periods as well as the regular school/inservice times.

Extra courses can and have been run in Education Centres based on demand from teachers who may have missed some modules. In my experience I don't think anyone complained about being there at those times.

Apologies, I must have got it arseways - I thought the essentials were being taught during term-time inservice and it was only extra classes that were being delivered outside of school hours.

mrboswell wrote: »

It is unfortunate but the education system is run as a business.

Many governments see financial input into the education system as an investment that should reap significant rewards in the recoup of taxes. The cost of educating the population has to be repaid and it is a significant cost.

With regards to schools as places of training rather than education well lets be honest, a nation of philosophers and thinkers wouldn't exactly pump up the state bank balance.

Maybe thats where the private schools will come to the fore - pay extra and your children can be 'educated' as opposed to 'trained'.

The reality is that the cost of education is so high that must have multiple purposes.

But it's so shortsighted - LCA and Youthreach have the effect of keeping students in school longer, off the streets longer, off the dole longer and often out of prison longer. The Govt. has the statistics of prison inmates to hand and can see the overwhelming percentage who have not completed secondary education, but they would prefer to pay prison accommodation than invest in the programmes that keep people out of them!

Fizzical

mrboswell wrote: »

With regards to schools as places of training rather than education well lets be honest, a nation of philosophers and thinkers wouldn't exactly pump up the state bank balance.

I don't think any business people would agree with you. What section of the community have been crying out for entrepreneurs, for people that can be flexible, have initiative, have ideas, have multiple careers - ie people who can think?

And I think that the mess the country is in at the moment could be easily put down to a complete lack of philosophy on the part of the government.

mrboswell

deemark wrote: »

Apologies, I must have got it arseways - I thought the essentials were being taught during term-time inservice and it was only extra classes that were being delivered outside of school hours.

But it's so shortsighted - LCA and Youthreach have the effect of keeping students in school longer, off the streets longer, off the dole longer and often out of prison longer. The Govt. has the statistics of prison inmates to hand and can see the overwhelming percentage who have not completed secondary education, but they would prefer to pay prison accommodation than invest in the programmes that keep people out of them!

As far as I was aware it is all during term-time and only extra outside of school hours for those who felt they needed more information on delivering the syllabus (and in my experience it is still not enough).

Totally agree with you there. Something like 35K a year for a prisoner. They should have to work some of their debt to the state but thats another matter for another day!

Fizzical wrote: »

I don't think any business people would agree with you. What section of the community have been crying out for entrepreneurs, for people that can be flexible, have initiative, have ideas, have multiple careers - ie people who can think?

And I think that the mess the country is in at the moment could be easily put down to a complete lack of philosophy on the part of the government.

Really? Well I worked for a while in Finglas and and I heard a shocking statistic recently (not so sure how true it is) that there is up to 60% unemployment there at the moment. Having been to that social welfare office office in the past I have seen first hand some of these philosophers and thinkers who have no intention of working and I don't think any business people coming running to snap them up. Nothing against anyone in a working class area, but the reality is that as a nation right now we need more people to pay taxes then be creative. Also unemployment has a double effect of not imputing any tax in the economy as well as taking out social welfare. There needs to be more incentive to come off social welfare - that in itself would stir creative juices.

We also have to consider who are the members of the NCCA - the people who set the curriculum, as appointed by the minister..... we lets see:
"The council is a representative structure, the membership of which is determined by the Minister for Education and Skills. The 25 members are appointed by the Minister and come from organisations representing teachers, school managers, parents, employers, trade unions, early childhood education, Irish language interests and third-level education. Other members include representatives of the Department of Education and Skills, the State Examinations Commission and a nominee of the Minister."

All of the above are groups with vested interests that are ultimately put in place by the minister to set a curriculum that will achieve good results internationally, provide students with a test of their knowledge, please the unions, parents and of course IBEC while preparing students to become higher earners so they can pay higher taxes. Notice how there are no artists, philosophers, thinkers etc on the council?

You are right that government has been calling for people that can think but have not provided an education system that is capable of producing such citizens en mass. What they are calling for is a distant idea that is very costly, the cost of which they are currently unwilling and unable to provide.


Anyway this is all moving away for the holidays so I suppose we should get back to the title of the post.