Timetables 2014

liverpool lad

Has anyone got their timetables yet for the coming school year? What are they like? Nice free periods? Many S&S? Any timetable discussion welcome!!

rainbowtrout

The whole point of getting the timetables early was so we could nominate S&S slots.

I got my timetable on Monday. I have a half day built into it so I can attend college part time. We already have a half day on a Friday so ignoring the half day for college because it is not free time, I have four free class periods in the week, which will go to S&S nominations. So I have no definite free periods this year.

mirrorwall14

No timetables, contracts or schedule for the first week yet here

blueberrypie

nothing yet here.
It was outsourced this year, school are expecting it back next week for management to look at it.

2011abc

Nada ...

vamos!

Nothing here. I'd imagine we will get it the evening before we go back.

man_no_plan

Ours are going up on eportal this morning. S&s selection due back by Monday.

sitstill

Got mine in the post yesterday but we're not sorting out S&S until we're back.

doc_17

We still have a vacancy to fill and that's the excuse as to why we have no timetable

Peter Flynt

Outrageous that management still haven't produced timetables in some schools. It's pure laziness.

I have my timetable since 01 July.

Peter Flynt

doc_17 wrote: »

We still have a vacancy to fill and that's the excuse as to why we have no timetable

It's not a great excuse is it. . . The timetable for the vacant post can still be done up.

Peter Flynt

rainbowtrout wrote: »

The whole point of getting the timetables early was so we could nominate S&S slots.

I got my timetable on Monday. I have a half day built into it so I can attend college part time. We already have a half day on a Friday so ignoring the half day for college because it is not free time, I have four free class periods in the week, which will go to S&S nominations. So I have no definite free periods this year.

None of us have free periods.

You have to nominate every class for S&S in order of preference - Something the unions have remainded conspicuously silent on. Indeed you are supposed to nominate the free periods that allow you to attend college part time.

This means you're on call for every "free period".

People are usually paid when they're on call . . Not in teaching.

Thanks Pat.

Pang

Nothing here and not expecting anything. We have never ever gotten ours until the morning we go back. Crazy seeing as we start teaching the next morning.

rainbowtrout

Peter Flynt wrote: »

None of us have free periods.

You have to nominate every class for S&S in order of preference - Something the unions have remainded conspicuously silent on. Indeed you are supposed to nominate the free periods that allow you to attend college part time.

This means you're on call for every "free period".

People are usually paid when they're on call . . Not in teaching.

Thanks Pat.

No it doesn't. You nominate your free periods. We've been told to nominate them 1-10. Then you will be allocated to five of those periods for S&S. Because its unlikely that people would nominate last class Friday as one of the five they would make themselves available for, whoever is doing the S&S timetable will allocate people to slots as much as possible according to preference.

We were also sent out a grid showing how many people they need on call for each slot. So you should be allocated to five of the slots you have nominated and no more

Incidentally I did nominate the slots where I will be in college, but it's a fairly moot point as I won't be there to do them, except on the odd day over the academic year.

Peter Flynt

rainbowtrout wrote: »

No it doesn't. You nominate your free periods. We've been told to nominate them 1-10. Then you will be allocated to five of those periods for S&S. Because its unlikely that people would nominate last class Friday as one of the five they would make themselves available for, whoever is doing the S&S timetable will allocate people to slots as much as possible according to preference.

We were also sent out a grid showing how many people they need on call for each slot. So you should be allocated to five of the slots you have nominated and no more

Incidentally I did nominate the slots where I will be in college, but it's a fairly moot point as I won't be there to do them, except on the odd day over the academic year.

OK. Fair enough - you are allocated five based on your nomination but you have limited control over the five. You could easily be nominated a 7th or 8th preference.

If people want to retain some sort of control over their S&S rostering then it might not be a bad idea to nominate classes which are unpopular (e.g. last class Friday) as your first preference so as increase the likelihood of securing other classes (like in your case going to College) that may be more beneficial.

I've nominated last class friday as a first preference.

rainbowtrout

Peter Flynt wrote: »

OK. Fair enough - you are allocated five based on your nomination but you have limited control over the five. You could easily be nominated a 7th or 8th preference.

If people want to retain some sort of control over their S&S rostering then it might not be a bad idea to nominate classes which are unpopular (e.g. last class Friday) as your first preference so as increase the likelihood of securing other classes (like in your case going to College) that may be more beneficial.

I've nominated last class friday as a first preference.

Well that's actually the clever way of doing it, hard to know if it will increase your chances of getting your preferred slots elsewhere. If your timetable gives you last class off everyday it is likely you will be caught for a couple of them.


For a teacher in my school on 22 hours, they only have 9 free class periods, so nominating 1-10 is fairly irrelevant because they'll be slotted in for 5 of them anyway. i'm not going to lose huge amounts of sleep over it. I don't like doing it, I don't like not getting paid for it. But everyone is in for S&S now, so having about 30 teachers on the rota vastly decreases the chances of getting caught for it.

RealJohn

In fairness, I very rarely had to cover classes last year. Apparently the extra teachers who hadn't done it before made a big difference to me. Before now I'd have to do it at least once every two weeks on average.

Of course back in the day, I used to nominate last class on Friday simply because we could only be asked to do one class a week so I'd often have it done before Friday anyway. I have last class on Friday free this year again but I'll have to think about where it'll come in my order of preference now since I can be asked to do more than one.

solerina

We have nothing yet, not unusual as we normally would only get them the very last week before we go back, I would expect something next Tues/Wed

derb12

We got them last Monday and I nominated my s&s prefs and dropped it back the day of the results. I missed being able to look at the full school timetable when I was doing it - sad to say there were certain slots where I got caught a lot due to the same two teachers so if I could time my s&s with their free periods I'd have been a lot happier in previous years. I guess with so many nominated periods it'd be impossible to avoid now anyway.
I also don't mind supervising for last periods - I'm rarely gone before 4 anyway so it doesn't make much difference to me - much better to have a breather in the middle of the day rather than solid classes with no break and then home early but wrecked!

Moody_mona

Kids have homework they want to get done last class on a Friday, which can help the time pass! I have classes free before double science classes, I really hope my DP can avoid them if necessary. This is where I feel the s&s most, not so I can sit drinking tea, but to do prep I can't do at home.

Millem

I wish I had opted out of s & s I have 10 slots

Moody_mona

Millem wrote: »

I wish I had opted out of s & s I have 10 slots

Of substitution?? Are you not just supposed to be available for five?

I think I would have opted out if I had the choice. It doesn't seem like much of a financial sacrifice (open to correction on this!)

fall

https://www.education.ie/en/Circulars-and-Forms/Active-Circulars/cl0042_2014
This is the link showing how the new system will work. It's all about the needs of the school. We are basically now on site 9 to 4/ 4 30.

Moody_mona

Thanks fall. I understand this to mean you rank all available periods but are still only rostered for five, which may or may not be used.

fall

That's my understanding too but you might be unfortunate and the five they pick could be your last five in terms of preference. I think it's a pity that we don't have more control over what we want.

Millem

Moody_mona wrote: »

Of substitution?? Are you not just supposed to be available for five?

I think I would have opted out if I had the choice. It doesn't seem like much of a financial sacrifice (open to correction on this!)

Yes I wish I opted out last year and taken the pay cut I have 10 free slots, I was told to rank them in order of preference

I did superintending with a good few who opted out and they said for them it was like not getting an increment. (They were young so early enough on the scale where increments are decent enough)

Moody_mona

I think after you rank them Millem you'll be assigned five of them, and have the other five actually off

seavill

Yes this is how it works - rank your 10 and then 5 will be picked for you by management hopefully in the order you selected but in reality could be anything but still only 5 and do a max of 3 in a week

RH149

We would normally get them around the same time as the LC results come out or a few days later (If you went in on results day you got handed yours and saved him a stamp!) This year we got ours in Mid July to allow the S&S to be sorted (I opted out, thank God!!) but sure lots of our staff would have been away at the time as many of the 'young' staff often go travelling for most of the Summer so they probably are only sending back their preferences now.




No big surprises, just looks very full and then there the CP hours to be added....: (

Millem

Moody_mona wrote: »

I think after you rank them Millem you'll be assigned five of them, and have the other five actually off

Yes that's what I was told, I hope he doesn't pick my 2 days for last class.
When is this stupid agreement finished?? I was on mat leave so I didn't really know what was happening???

gaeilgebeo

Reading this thread makes me so glad I opted out of S+S!

Millem

gaeilgebeo wrote: »

Reading this thread makes me so glad I opted out of S+S!

Stop I know! I wish I had too.

gaeilgebeo

Moody_mona wrote: »

Kids have homework they want to get done last class on a Friday

Unfortunately not the case in all schools. This would be one of the worst classes to supervise in my school.

ccazza

I opted out and it's costing me €45 a pay check which is almost double what it will be next year so for me it's been so worth opting out. It's not so much the supervision of classes, it's the break and lunchtime cover that used to annoy me most and I'm in a school with not a lot of discipline issues and no trouble on corridors. It was not having the time to have a proper break and lunch that got to me most.

Millem

gaeilgebeo wrote: »

Unfortunately not the case in all schools. This would be one of the worst classes to supervise in my school.

My school is grand now I have to say but they wouldn't do their homework last class, they would spend it whinging and asking why can't they go home early or failing that, can they have class outside

Don't ask me why because neither event has ever been allowed!!

Or depending on the group you might be asked did you see love/hate etc

gaeilgebeo

ccazza wrote: »

I opted out and it's costing me €45 a pay check which is almost double what it will be next year so for me it's been so worth opting out. It's not so much the supervision of classes, it's the break and lunchtime cover that used to annoy me most and I'm in a school with not a lot of discipline issues and no trouble on corridors. It was not having the time to have a proper break and lunch that got to me most.

Mine is working out at €12 per week but because I was due a good increment, it has balanced out and my fortnightly pay has stayed the same or very nearly.

I was being called 3 periods a week.
I was often called at short notice.
There was no transparency at all.
The same teachers seemed to be caught all the time.
Some teachers were rarely, if ever caught.
We had weeks were certain teachers had been called 3 times both weeks in a fortnight and other teachers only once in that fortnight or not at all.
The paper-work that ensued after incidents every lunch and break time (a lot of the times, for students I didn't teach) was adding hugely to my work load.
I felt I could not catch up and was really starting to resent my job.
Burn-out was coming halfway through the year as opposed to the end of the year.
As much as I hate having to pay a "fine" to not participate in something that was never in my contract to begin with, it has been a small price for my well being and job satisfaction.

Didn't mean to go off-topic.
We got our timetables Monday.

Theequalizer67

You are only responsible for the students you teach??! You should have a duty of care for all.
So you leave someone else deal with the mess. Collegiality and solidarity indeed.
Let others get lower rates of pay for same job is probably ok as well.
This Me Fein club is destroying profession.

gaeilgebeo

Theequalizer67 wrote: »

You are only responsible for the students you teach??! You should have a duty of care for all.
So you leave someone else deal with the mess. Collegiality and solidarity indeed.
Let others get lower rates of pay for same job is probably ok as well.
This Me Fein club is destroying profession.

Wow!

You took my comment out of context.
I said I had to deal with discipline issues of students I didn't teach, in the sense that I had enough to deal with with my own students.
Of course I have a duty of care to all students and am heavily involved in the coordination of pastoral care in my school( which is a tough DEIS school).
I have also campaigned heavily through the union for the NQTs and have been very vocal on my disapproval of the tiered pay scale.
I am most certainly not a mé féiner in any way and I am paying a fine of €1500+ per year not to do S+S.
The dept in turn pay the school which can then offer a sub or someone on low hours some paid classes.
I do not apologise for opting out.

Hermia

We got ours today but no mention in the letter about s and s yet. We're asked to try and spread out the classes we choose so there's at least one morning, after break and afternoon. I've last class on a friday free this year but don't know whether I'll nominate that one!
I've no early days this year (last year i finished at 1 on a Tuesday) but I never did any work, just ended up taking the afternoon off and then being mad busy for the rest of the week! So hoping the fact I've a few doubles free this year will motivate me to get on top of those corrections!

seavill

Theequalizer67 wrote: »

You are only responsible for the students you teach??! You should have a duty of care for all.
So you leave someone else deal with the mess. Collegiality and solidarity indeed.
Let others get lower rates of pay for same job is probably ok as well.
This Me Fein club is destroying profession.

Yea in fairness thats no where near anything they said, think you misread that post

unknowngirl!!

We got our timetables at the start of the week but no mention of S & S other than it being on the agenda for staff meeting when we are back.. I thought it was to be sorted before returning?

mirrorwall14

It was according to a circular released late last year but it looks like a lot of schools aren't ready for it.

solerina

The letter arrived this morning and it contained my TT as well as a letter detailing that we need to nominate the 9 periods that are free in order of pref 1-9 for S+ S rota. We were also asked to nominate the times we are available to supervise on the corridor. We always did 50 mins on corridor, there was no mention of how much we are going to be doing this year, but hopefully it will be less than 50 mins with so many teachers now involved.

Theequalizer67

gaeilgebeo wrote: »

Wow!

You took my comment out of context.
I said I had to deal with discipline issues of students I didn't teach, in the sense that I had enough to deal with with my own students.
Of course I have a duty of care to all students and am heavily involved in the coordination of pastoral care in my school( which is a tough DEIS school).
I have also campaigned heavily through the union for the NQTs and have been very vocal on my disapproval of the tiered pay scale.
I am most certainly not a mé féiner in any way and I am paying a fine of €1500+ per year not to do S+S.
The dept in turn pay the school which can then offer a sub or someone on low hours some paid classes.
I do not apologise for opting out.

The point is you expect others to do what you will not do (choice) and it also means that you can afford to pay a fine.(choice)
Unfair on two levels.

You can dress it up about some paid classes to another qualified teacher if you wish.

Group think going on here it seems but this is inequitable.

doc_17

Peter Flynt wrote: »

It's not a great excuse is it. . . The timetable for the vacant post can still be done up.

In a world where everything is as it seems and done as it should be I would agree with you. But my ETB is a very strange entity. We had a vacancy earlier in the summer and a the Principal requested a fairly common combination of two mainstream subjects. Despite half the candidates who applied for the job having the required combination he did not get what he was after. The successful candidate is not a teacher of one of the subjects and there are no teachers of that subject in our school! It's GUBU.

So since we have another vacancy the DP and P are wary about handing out a timetable with AN Other on it given that our ETB could once again do something that would quickly render it meaningless.

And as for the S&S debate going on....no point blaming anyone other than ourselves for that. We voted for it. We gave up our terms & conditions of service to accept the HRA. We are probably going to lose more of them. Soon we will have to nominate all our periods and fill as many of them as is required, not just the 5.

gaeilgebeo

Theequalizer67 wrote: »

The point is you expect others to do what you will not do (choice) and it also means that you can afford to pay a fine.(choice)
Unfair on two .

Your attitude is quite shocking but I am taking it that it is caused by a lack of understanding of the S+S scheme.

Teachers like me, who believe it or not are still considered early in their careers (12 years) are certainly not able to afford another pay cut, have opted out for a number of reasons as I've already outlined. You are obviously too short-sighted or not teaching long enough to understand any of those reasons.

I do not "expect" others to do work I won't do. The Department do. Some had a choice to opt out and didn't. Some had no choice. It wasn't a fair system really but that doesn't mean that because you chose to do it, everyone else has to do it too. I'm not a martyr to the department.

I would use caution airing your very contentious views about S+S in the staff room.
Bear in mind that some of those teachers who have opted out are bringing the issues facing NQTs to the unions at local and national level and your attitude of disdain may not be appreciated.

electoralshock

I got my first ever timetable of my own today. I am very grateful for that!

Theequalizer67

gaeilgebeo wrote: »

Your attitude is quite shocking but I am taking it that it is caused by a lack of understanding of the S+S scheme.

Teachers like me, who believe it or not are still considered early in their careers (12 years) are certainly not able to afford another pay cut, have opted out for a number of reasons as I've already outlined. You are obviously too short-sighted or not teaching long enough to understand any of those reasons.

I do not "expect" others to do work I won't do. The Department do. Some had a choice to opt out and didn't. Some had no choice. It wasn't a fair system really but that doesn't mean that because you chose to do it, everyone else has to do it too. I'm not a martyr to the department.

I would use caution airing your very contentious views about S+S in the staff room.
Bear in mind that some of those teachers who have opted out are bringing the issues facing NQTs to the unions at local and national level and your attitude of disdain may not be appreciated.

I notice you did not address the key issue of equity but instead made it personal.

I would caution about your own assumptions. I understand the scheme thank you very much.
If you can't afford the cut , you wouldn't have taken it, please stop being the martyr. As for unions, look what they have done to promote equity!
I don't care about it being appreciated, they are enjoying their break, others are not. Let's face reality here.

I call it as I see it and it's about time others and the union acted accordingly.

Realt11

Still no timetable received from school and we are back this day week!

mirrorwall14

No timetable, no contracts and no schedule for the week back here...

implausible

blueberrypie wrote: »

nothing yet here.
It was outsourced this year, school are expecting it back next week for management to look at it.

How does that work? Do schools do that - outsource? Surely it's the DP's job.

No timetable here, not expecting it til first day back.