New Junior Cycle English

implausible

I was surprised to see that there has been no thread started on this yet, but perhaps TUI English teachers are a minority on this forum.

I just wanted to share my experience of this inservice to see if others had the same and to warn teachers of Irish, Science and Business of what they may be up against.

I have never attended such a shambles of a day, intended to be professional training to implement a new course. The content was awful, with time-wasting exercises and no real answers to the questions we all had about implementation and assessment. It was more like a brush-up course than the roll-out of something new. Basically after 6 hours of practically useless training, we are expected to implement a new programme and sit quietly and politely until the NCCA/DES decides to tell us how we are going to assess it a few months into the course.

For those who may be unaware, from 2014, English is due to be assessed in three ways - orally in "Spring" of 2nd year, a collection of work due Christmas of 3rd year and a terminal exam, which will be corrected externally for a few years, before marking reverts to the school. The people who designed this course seem to have put no thought into the logistics of operating this. There has been no clarification on how the oral part is to be conducted, recording of it or what external moderation there will be. The collection of work is likewise, vague. Are we to spend months and months making students rewrite work until it's perfect or will there be a limited time to present a portfolio? And if the final exam (content and structure unknown) reverts to the school, we can wave goodbye to objectivity, fairness and June.

I was thoroughly depressed after the day and I hope now that TUI input and the ASTI action will give us some leeway on the implementation of this shambles. It is blatantly obvious to me that this isn't ready and RQ is rushing this through to meet his own deadline and agenda.

/rant over

Can anyone share their experiences?

teacherhead

implausible wrote: »

I was surprised to see that there has been no thread started on this yet, but perhaps TUI English teachers are a minority on this forum.

I just wanted to share my experience of this inservice to see if others had the same and to warn teachers of Irish, Science and Business of what they may be up against.

I have never attended such a shambles of a day, intended to be professional training to implement a new course. The content was awful, with time-wasting exercises and no real answers to the questions we all had about implementation and assessment. It was more like a brush-up course than the roll-out of something new. Basically after 6 hours of practically useless training, we are expected to implement a new programme and sit quietly and politely until the NCCA/DES decides to tell us how we are going to assess it a few months into the course.

For those who may be unaware, from 2014, English is due to be assessed in three ways - orally in "Spring" of 2nd year, a collection of work due Christmas of 3rd year and a terminal exam, which will be corrected externally for a few years, before marking reverts to the school. The people who designed this course seem to have put no thought into the logistics of operating this. There has been no clarification on how the oral part is to be conducted, recording of it or what external moderation there will be. The collection of work is likewise, vague. Are we to spend months and months making students rewrite work until it's perfect or will there be a limited time to present a portfolio? And if the final exam (content and structure unknown) reverts to the school, we can wave goodbye to objectivity, fairness and June.

I was thoroughly depressed after the day and I hope now that TUI input and the ASTI action will give us some leeway on the implementation of this shambles. It is blatantly obvious to me that this isn't ready and RQ is rushing this through to meet his own deadline and agenda.

/rant over

Can anyone share their experiences?

I was at the inservice for school leaders which was equally vague and unimpressive.

I have posted under the HR thread on this bit I think enough is enough until there is a proper plan and proper resources and training.

Heydeldel

I presume the oral part will be like the Speaking and Listening aspect of the English GCSEs?

Have they gotten as far as deciding what percentage of the grade will be awarded to oral work, exam and continuous assessment?

Icsics

This is why a NO vote is so important

implausible

Heydeldel wrote: »

I presume the oral part will be like the Speaking and Listening aspect of the English GCSEs?

Have they gotten as far as deciding what percentage of the grade will be awarded to oral work, exam and continuous assessment?

In as far as anything is certain with this, the terminal exam is 60% and the oral and collection of work 40%.

born2bwild

The Subject Specification for English is an incoherent and unworkable mess. I tried repeatedly to get sensible responses from the NCCA during the 'Consultation' (don't make me laugh) process; to no avail.

I will not be attending their in-service.

IrishEyes19

I'm dreading it. I'm currently doing the dip and learning the old course. It's annoying to say the least not to know what's going on.

acequion

This thread hasn't been active in a while.I had my inservice today and I really am just horrified by the whole thing. It was just as described by the OP on the first post above. Hours of doing silly exercises,breaking into groups,all this condescending malarky, yet nothing concrete on the assessment part.

Don't get me wrong.I have nothing against group work within a menu of methodologies and I'm all for new ideas,but this new course is total pie in the sky and way too much all at once. On the one hand, there is a big emphasis on oral assessment of oral expression,with very little forethought, firstly, on the workability of such in a class of 30 kids with diverse needs, and secondly on the workability of so much discussion with young teenagers whose level of maturity just is not up to it in many cases. Cue chaos and major discipline issues!

On the other hand,Ruari Quinn has cutely hung on to the academic component of the old JC,which will keep ambitious parents happy, by doubling and prescribing much of the content. For example,10 poems have to be studied in first year and a further 16 over the next two years.In addition to this, a hefty amount of prescribed fiction,drama,film studies etc will have to be covered with a Shakesperian play looking mandatory for all higher level candidates.So much for freedom and spontaneity!

If it wasn't so serious it would be funny. It will entail hours upon hours of extra work,yet we will still have the commitment of our other subject still in the old system,in addition to our senior classes preparing for the LC. An utterly excessive, burn out inducing workload.

We had a chance to stop this madness by refusing the HRA. Have no doubt but that we'll all get bitten in the ass by it! Sorry for this depressing rant on a Monday evening,but I feel totally overwhelmed and demoralised.:mad:

Alqua

English teacher told me that she looked up some of the suggested titles for novels and found the reading age of a lot of them was 8-10? That made me sad!

Icsics

Totally agree Acequion. I'm also appalled at the limited inservice for English teachers, think it may be 3 days now. Project maths teachers had 9 days & that is still exam assessed. All this talk of the 'toolkit' that will have all the answers is mad, no answers on when its being published. What about teachers who teach their own kids / relations, under the old system you couldn't even supervise them in an exam centre, seems now you'll be marking them.

teacherhead

The tactic seems to be to push English through without resistance until we are gone so far that nothing can be done about it.

English teachers coming back to us after the inservice are very downbeat about the whole thing. Nothing new they say, except for they'll be marking it.

acequion

Icsics wrote: »

Totally agree Acequion. I'm also appalled at the limited inservice for English teachers, think it may be 3 days now. Project maths teachers had 9 days & that is still exam assessed. All this talk of the 'toolkit' that will have all the answers is mad, no answers on when its being published. What about teachers who teach their own kids / relations, under the old system you couldn't even supervise them in an exam centre, seems now you'll be marking them.

Thanks icsics.But my gripe is not so much the lack of inservice,it's the imposition of the whole damn thing! It's way too much at the worst possible time and as usual there's a huge gulf between aspiration and implementation.

acequion

teacherhead wrote: »

The tactic seems to be to push English through without resistance until we are gone so far that nothing can be done about it.

English teachers coming back to us after the inservice are very downbeat about the whole thing. Nothing new they say, except for they'll be marking it.

Yes that's exactly the impression I got today. We were told that Quinn is just adamant that it go ahead next year.Once English is in that's the new framework up and running,so the other subjects have to follow suit.

I think it's extremely wrong to foist this upon a very demoralised workforce.How can they expect it to work? Quinn doesn't give a damn about students and even less about teachers. It's sickening.:mad:

teacherhead

acequion wrote: »

Yes that's exactly the impression I got today. We were told that Quinn is just adamant that it go ahead next year.Once English is in that's the new framework up and running,so the other subjects have to follow suit.

I think it's extremely wrong to foist this upon a very demoralised workforce.How can they expect it to work? Quinn doesn't give a damn about students and even less about teachers. It's sickening.:mad:

unions are balloting on this, hopefully teachers will wake up for once

acequion

teacherhead wrote: »

unions are balloting on this, hopefully teachers will wake up for once

Oh,I'd say the vast majority of teachers will go with the union recommendation,I've even heard HRA yes voters complaining about it. But what can we hope to achieve? Getting it pushed back a bit would be great. What are the chances of that?

PinkCat86

jeez sounds terrible

worseforwear

teacherhead wrote: »

unions are balloting on this, hopefully teachers will wake up for once

It's so important that teachers vote to block this thing, if it was only to give Donkey Quinn the kick in the arse that he's long been asking for. I believe he inserted the school based assessment element at the 11th hour without even the NCCA knowing about it. I know teacherhead that youre TUI, I'm not having a swipe at you but the ASTI cant afford to be hung out to dry again on this issue. I would like to know the TUI ballot before we vote. sorry but, "catch me twice", comes to mind.

teacherhead

worseforwear wrote: »

It's so important that teachers vote to block this thing, if it was only to give Donkey Quinn the kick in the arse that he's long been asking for. I believe he inserted the school based assessment element at the 11th hour without even the NCCA knowing about it. I know teacherhead that youre TUI, I'm not having a swipe at you but the ASTI cant afford to be hung out to dry again on this issue. I would like to know the TUI ballot before we vote. sorry but, "catch me twice", comes to mind.

Yea I'd imagine the asti folk are a bit on edge over it alright.

Only second level members can vote on this however so we can be sure all have a vested interest. When you boil it down theres nothing to lose and everything to gain from opposing this.

If we hold it off long enough Quinn might be put out to pasture and the next ministermight have some sense of reality.

I wouldn't trust the union leadership on either asti or TUI to get the best deal without severe pressure fRom members

acequion

worseforwear wrote: »

It's so important that teachers vote to block this thing, if it was only to give Donkey Quinn the kick in the arse that he's long been asking for. I believe he inserted the school based assessment element at the 11th hour without even the NCCA knowing about it. I know teacherhead that youre TUI, I'm not having a swipe at you but the ASTI cant afford to be hung out to dry again on this issue. I would like to know the TUI ballot before we vote. sorry but, "catch me twice", comes to mind.

I couldn't agree more! And not having a go at teacherhead either or any TUI person, but it's imperative that for once we all stick together. Quinn clearly despises us and seems to get a kick out of making offensive comments.Last week it was about religion,this week his disdain is aimed at older teachers,see here http://www.thejournal.ie/where he won't rule out cameras in the classroom.We won't get rid of him fast enough!

clunked

Reading the comments on The Journal I've worked out who the idiot in Quinn's office who said he had no work to do. He now posts as Miss filed there. Hilarious!

acequion

clunked wrote: »

Reading the comments on The Journal I've worked out who the idiot in Quinn's office who said he had no work to do. He now posts as Miss filed there. Hilarious!

Nothing hilarious though about Quinn's utter contempt for us. I had a P/T meeting tonight where a parent got very stroppy that the kid didn't get A in the xmas test,then menacingly said he hoped it would be A in the summer!

So is that a glimpse of the future as ordained by Minister Quinn!

thefasteriwalk

acequion wrote: »

Nothing hilarious though about Quinn's utter contempt for us. I had a P/T meeting tonight where a parent got very stroppy that the kid didn't get A in the xmas test,then menacingly said he hoped it would be A in the summer!

So is that a glimpse of the future as ordained by Minister Quinn!

Wow!

evolving_doors

clunked wrote: »

Reading the comments on The Journal I've worked out who the idiot in Quinn's office who said he had no work to do. He now posts as Miss filed there. Hilarious!

How did you figure out who it was?

clunked

That particular poster is such a fan of our Dear Beloved Minister that they must surely be on his pay roll.

chases0102

Hi all,

So this week, our DP is trying to organise cover of 2 periods, as set out as part of the inservice for this, and was just wondering if anyone else has had experience of this, and what did you cover as regards putting a formal plan together.

We have a very small English Department, 3 teachers, and would be very interested to see if other teachers have gone through this and what would be the best way to approach it?

implausible

chases0102 wrote: »

Hi all,

So this week, our DP is trying to organise cover of 2 periods, as set out as part of the inservice for this, and was just wondering if anyone else has had experience of this, and what did you cover as regards putting a formal plan together.

We have a very small English Department, 3 teachers, and would be very interested to see if other teachers have gone through this and what would be the best way to approach it?

Isn't it nuts - two hours of a dept meeting instead of proper inservice?! We haven't had ours yet as we would have nothing to discuss! What we are doing is trying some of the new approaches with our present first years e.g. today I was recording them doing one minute book reviews. We are dividing up the reading of new texts so we can decide what to do next year. Another thing I'm doing is factoring in the new statements of learning into our present plans, to get the hang of them basically. Until that's done, I don't see the point in meeting and I won't be onto the principal to give us those hours until we have concrete things to discuss.

On another note - have you seen the list of voluntary all-day Saturday courses the Dept are offering in relation to the new JC English? Now, I have done some courses in my own time before, but this is ridiculous after the insufficient farcical single day of inservice we got. We wouldn't even get hours off our HRA quota for it. When you compare this with the introduction of Project Maths, it's enough to make you bang you head off a wall!:mad:

thefasteriwalk

implausible wrote: »

Isn't it nuts - two hours of a dept meeting instead of proper inservice?! We haven't had ours yet as we would have nothing to discuss! What we are doing is trying some of the new approaches with our present first years e.g. today I was recording them doing one minute book reviews. We are dividing up the reading of new texts so we can decide what to do next year. Another thing I'm doing is factoring in the new statements of learning into our present plans, to get the hang of them basically. Until that's done, I don't see the point in meeting and I won't be onto the principal to give us those hours until we have concrete things to discuss.

On another note - have you seen the list of voluntary all-day Saturday courses the Dept are offering in relation to the new JC English? Now, I have done some courses in my own time before, but this is ridiculous after the insufficient farcical single day of inservice we got. We wouldn't even get hours off our HRA quota for it. When you compare this with the introduction of Project Maths, it's enough to make you bang you head off a wall!:mad:

Do you have a link to this list? This is the first I'm hearing about it, but my in-service isn't for another month.

chases0102

I agree with the sentiments above - the lack of proper training for delivering this is nothing short of risible. I could go off on a rant now, but I won't, as I feel it would be counter-productive!

Management in my school is eager to get planning going on this - however, like you implausible, I don't feel equipped yet to put in conrete plans for next year. Between having an MLL before Christmas, and with the Mocks this week, we're genuinely struggling to find the time to properly get my head around what is required for the planning process.

As regards the Saturday courses, I found them on the junior cycle website, but can't seem to find them again! I'll try again tomorrow, when I'm less tired I think.

sitstill

thefasteriwalk wrote: »

Do you have a link to this list? This is the first I'm hearing about it, but my in-service isn't for another month.

This is the link:

http://www.juniorcycle.ie/Media-Centre/Events-and-Seminars/(NEW)-Teachers-of-English/Supplementary-workshops

I've signed up to one already, even though I think it is ridiculous that we are expected to do this in our own time.

chases0102

What's even more ridiculous,having contacted the education centre, is that the Inservice I wished to sign up for is full.

So no possibility of attending an Inservice to help us deliver this new curriculum...farcical.

thefasteriwalk

sitstill wrote: »

This is the link:

http://www.juniorcycle.ie/Media-Centre/Events-and-Seminars/(NEW)-Teachers-of-English/Supplementary-workshops

I've signed up to one already, even though I think it is ridiculous that we are expected to do this in our own time.

How do you sign up? Is it just through the relevant education centre?

I'm no-where near any of the education centres for programme 2, I hope there will be more announced.