What do you do in your school?

Pinkycharm

Just wondering if any of your schools have morning assemblies for 10 mins or so before class starts to check attendance/uniform and collect notes? We're trying to implement a system but we need examples of what other schools do. Class tutors would meet classes and do the above and pass issues to year head. Just trying to make class tutor into a more efficient system for us.

evolving_doors

Pm sent

evolving_doors

I've often wondered how a 'house system' works out... this is where all years are part of 1 group and that house never changes. I think it would give a real sense of belonging once they leave school (as they know people who've gone 5 years before them and 5 years after them). It's probably only found in fee-paying schools I guess.

spurious

Be careful. The Department may not consider such assemblies as part of the student week and may not count them for hours.

happywithlife

Subbed in a lot of schools and only came across this once. It was unusual and effective only in so far as checking presence of students - which vswsre or equilivant would do more efficiently now anyway. It certainly didn't seem to make a difference on the ground to discipline issues
Have so been in a school with a house system - not fee paying and thought it cool. Would like to introduce it actually to my current school if I get kept on. It was really only a big event on one particular day of the year but overall the bones of a good system was there

r93kaey5p2izun

Our students have 10 minutes tutor time first thing every morning. Year Head checks in with each class and deals with students as necessary. That's the norm in all the schools locally. Are you saying you have this in place and are looking at changing to general assembly in a hall or similar?

Pinkycharm

Matthias Greasy Armada wrote: »

Our students have 10 minutes tutor time first thing every morning. Year Head checks in with each class and deals with students as necessary. That's the norm in all the schools locally. Are you saying you have this in place and are looking at changing to general assembly in a hall or similar?

as it is we've no system- our tutors meet them when they teach them. Year Heads it depends but mostly just in disciplinary cases.

r93kaey5p2izun

Ok. I couldn't imagine not seeing my students every morning! I think it's so important from a pastoral care point of view. What if you didn't teach them at all? Every school I know has more or less the same system as us, including the schools I attended myself. Hard to imagine the alternative to be honest.

nermal15

Pinkycharm wrote: »

as it is we've no system- our tutors meet them when they teach them. Year Heads it depends but mostly just in disciplinary cases.

This is the same in our school. Some tutors don't actually teach their class, or only see them once a week, and it's extremely impractical.

deiseindublin

Seemingly DES is clamping down on the 10 mins tutor time in the morning because it's not for Teaching & Learning. Few schools have gotten rid of it.

Would be carnage in our place if we didn't have it.

r93kaey5p2izun

It doesn't count for T&L time in my school. They do 28 hours of classes in addition to their tutor time.

evolving_doors

deiseindublin wrote: »

Seemingly DES is clamping down on the 10 mins tutor time in the morning because it's not for Teaching & Learning. Few schools have gotten rid of it.

Would be carnage in our place if we didn't have it.

I got the feeling there was a squeeze on it alright. How petty, they obviously want to scrape back the 40mins they gave towards JC planning.

Pinkycharm

Matthias Greasy Armada wrote: »

Ok. I couldn't imagine not seeing my students every morning! I think it's so important from a pastoral care point of view. What if you didn't teach them at all? Every school I know has more or less the same system as us, including the schools I attended myself. Hard to imagine the alternative to be honest.

We have class tutors but lets say I teach a subject and only see them three times a week, I'm taking up time in one of those classes to check journals etc. We've no allotted time for it so i'm either going into someone else's class annoying that teacher or I'm taking up my own class time. That's why i just wanted to see what other places do. A few people willing to volunteer to do it in the mornings outside of their class time to see how it goes. I completely agree from pastoral care side it is necessary. We're just looking for a model idea to see can we implement something similar.

Pinkycharm

nermal15 wrote: »

This is the same in our school. Some tutors don't actually teach their class, or only see them once a week, and it's extremely impractical.

its annoying to be fair!

evolving_doors

Pinkycharm wrote: »

as it is we've no system- our tutors meet them when they teach them. Year Heads it depends but mostly just in disciplinary cases.

I think that just sets up an adversarial system. i.e. the Year head only sees them when the proverbial hits the fan.
In our school they have an assembly with the year head and there's more of a positive spin put on it (organising fundraising for a charity, students decide what charity what event!, then there's an day out for a mini tour, parent/son table quiz (if possible with all that's going on). Give congrats to students who've achieved something. Usual talk about internet awareness and being kind to each other. Preparing for exams.
Sometimes teachers think that kids should magically know what's going on and what's coming up and how to behave. The tutor, yearhead system can also be a useful link with the Learning Support and Guidance.

Pinkycharm

evolving_doors wrote: »

I think that just sets up an adversarial system. i.e. the Year head only sees them when the proverbial hits the fan.
In our school they have an assembly with the year head and there's more of a positive spin put on it (organising fundraising for a charity, students decide what charity what event!, then there's an day out for a mini tour, parent/son table quiz (if possible with all that's going on). Give congrats to students who've achieved something. Usual talk about internet awareness and being kind to each other. Preparing for exams.
Sometimes teachers think that kids should magically know what's going on and what's coming up and how to behave. The tutor, yearhead system can also be a useful link with the Learning Support and Guidance.

What we have is ridiculous in that our tutors are basically nothing. They need to fit in better into a system that works. Your assembly time sounds great! How long does it take normally and is that in the mornings?

r93kaey5p2izun

It counts as a period on tutors' timetables in my school.

That system (no allotted tutor time) sounds like a disaster. Ridiculous that subject time would be interrupted for housekeeping or disciplinary issues. And what if you taught Home Ec for example, but some of your class didn't do it?

Personally I think tutor time should count as Wellbeing. It's absolutely essential for our students to have someone to check in with every day and to monitor their progress and deal with any issues they have.

Pinkycharm

Matthias Greasy Armada wrote: »

It counts as period on tutors' timetables in my school.

That system (no alotted tutor time) sounds like a disaster. Ridiculous that subject time would be interrupted for housekeeping or disciplinary issues. And what if you taught Home Ec for example, but some of your class didn't do it?

Personally I think tutor time should count as Wellbeing. It's absolutely essential for our students to have someone to check in with every day and to monitor their progress and deal with any issues they have.

I 100% agree with everything you've said and it would be great to have it as part of Wellbeing too.

evolving_doors

Pinkycharm wrote: »

What we have is ridiculous in that our tutors are basically nothing. They need to fit in better into a system that works. Your assembly time sounds great! How long does it take normally and is that in the mornings?

In the morning once a week for 15 minutes ish.
Year heads (AKA AP1's !!!) get time off their timetable don't they?

Pinkycharm

evolving_doors wrote: »

In the morning once a week for 15 minutes ish.
Year heads (AKA AP1's !!!) get time off their timetable don't they?

Yeah as far as I know they just haven't been using it for monitoring them, they've a Year head meeting each week instead.

evolving_doors

Pinkycharm wrote: »

Yeah as far as I know they just haven't been using it for monitoring them, they've a Year head meeting each week instead.

In fairness to them they are probably run ragged using that time off ringing parents and dealing with incidents of behaviour. Maybe time to take a pro-active approach in September. Easier said than done though.

TheValeyard

deiseindublin wrote: »

Seemingly DES is clamping down on the 10 mins tutor time in the morning because it's not for Teaching & Learning. Few schools have gotten rid of it.

Would be carnage in our place if we didn't have it.

Inspectors are demanding tutor system be dropped on whole school inspections, or serious changes made like a mental well-being lesson 10minutes every morning.

evolving_doors

Murray TheDemonic TalkingSkull wrote: »

Inspectors are demanding tutor system be dropped on whole school inspections, or serious changes made like a mental well-being lesson 10minutes every morning.

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r93kaey5p2izun

We had no criticism of our system during MLL.

man_no_plan

Matthias Greasy Armada wrote: »

We had no criticism of our system during MLL.

Likewise

joebloggs32

Matthias Greasy Armada wrote: »

It counts as a period on tutors' timetables in my school.

That system (no allotted tutor time) sounds like a disaster. Ridiculous that subject time would be interrupted for housekeeping or disciplinary issues. And what if you taught Home Ec for example, but some of your class didn't do it?

Personally I think tutor time should count as Wellbeing. It's absolutely essential for our students to have someone to check in with every day and to monitor their progress and deal with any issues they have.

If the students don't get their 28 hours the inspectorate will not be happy.

Noveight

In my placement school they have Junior Assembly on a Monday and senior on a
Tuesday, ten minutes at 9am to tell students about what’s happening during the week or to bring any problems to their attention.

ethical

Wellbeing is becoming more important....but is totally biased towards the student!

Fine ,having a morning assembly once or twice a week BUT IT SHOULD BE DONE FIRST THING! by postholders/year Heads.I know one school where this plan fell down because the effin Year Heads would not come in first thing to do it!!! They wanted to do it later on in the day.......and them getting c€8000 AND time off their teaching hours....for fcuk sake is it any wonder we have a crisis.Too many fcukin chiefs and not enough indians spells disaster for the school system as it stands.We are headin in the direction of the HSE and look at the mess they are in.We are not far behind!

r93kaey5p2izun

joebloggs32 wrote: »

If the students don't get their 28 hours the inspectorate will not be happy.

Of course. But they do.

Pinkycharm

evolving_doors wrote: »

In fairness to them they are probably run ragged using that time off ringing parents and dealing with incidents of behaviour. Maybe time to take a pro-active approach in September. Easier said than done though.

No teachers ring home if there's a problem, they don't. They speak to student involved but phone calls made by teachers.

man_no_plan

ethical wrote: »

Wellbeing is becoming more important....but is totally biased towards the student!

Fine ,having a morning assembly once or twice a week BUT IT SHOULD BE DONE FIRST THING! by postholders/year Heads.I know one school where this plan fell down because the effin Year Heads would not come in first thing to do it!!! They wanted to do it later on in the day.......and them getting c€8000 AND time off their teaching hours....for fcuk sake is it any wonder we have a crisis.Too many fcukin chiefs and not enough indians spells disaster for the school system as it stands.We are headin in the direction of the HSE and look at the mess they are in.We are not far behind!

Too many chiefs! Not enough of them surely? Most schools are running on a handful of posts even still with the new circular.

But sure don't let the facts get in the way of a good big of drama. How you could compare a school to any element of the HSE is beyond me.

deiseindublin

man_no_plan wrote: »

Most schools are running on a handful of posts even still with the new circular.

+1

ethical

Unfortunately "Posts " are a big THANK YOU to the boys in some schools,the in crowd,as chosen by some old nun or some effin octogenarian ETB sympathiser who retired 20 years ago .......but never went away you know!

Sheeps101

Do these 10 minutes for the teacher come out of his/her 21 hrs 20 minutes or is it regarded as an extra time for the teacher?

Cant imagine it being very good if the teacher was off first class on any given day.

r93kaey5p2izun

Sheeps101 wrote: »

Do these 10 minutes for the teacher come out of his/her 21 hrs 20 minutes or is it regarded as an extra time for the teacher?

Cant imagine it being very good if the teacher was off first class on any given day.

Yes it comes out of our 21h20 in my school. We are allowed nominate someone to do our tutor time one day per week if we start late and they can count that time off S&S.

evolving_doors

Sheeps101 wrote: »

Do these 10 minutes for the teacher come out of his/her 21 hrs 20 minutes or is it regarded as an extra time for the teacher?

Cant imagine it being very good if the teacher was off first class on any given day.

A lot of schools have tutor time 3 mornings then year assembly 1 morning. Then assign 6th year student leaders to another morning. So the year head can ask which tutors have a free class in the morning to put the 6th years and assembly day on.

The days of any classes off are coming to an end going by our workload and timetable and s&s etc. Most of the time when I've a free period in the morning I use it to catch up on stuff when the staff room is quiet and the photocopier is free.

evolving_doors

Sheeps101 wrote: »

Do these 10 minutes for the teacher come out of his/her 21 hrs 20 minutes or is it regarded as an extra time for the teacher?

Cant imagine it being very good if the teacher was off first class on any given day.

Yup. 40 mins off.
It's a form of teaching in my books.
Ya put it down as a mindfulness class there... whatever, tell inspectors they'll be delighted.

Sheeps101

Sounds like a load of nonsense to me to be fair. Year heads are getting enough extra wedge to compensate for the extra paper work during their extra 5 classes off a week.

Id much rather a normal class to teach than that nonsense 4/5 times a week.

Teacher0101

do you reckon yer heads are getting enough back? What is it, an extra 8k? Which FEMPI takes a wedge from as well.

I'm in a school of over 1,000. They are constantly dealing with incidents,
calming parents down and just dealing with stress non-stop.

joebloggs32

Teacher0101 wrote: »

do you reckon yer heads are getting enough back? What is it, an extra 8k? Which FEMPI takes a wedge from as well.

I'm in a school of over 1,000. They are constantly dealing with incidents,
calming parents down and just dealing with stress non-stop.

Much more appealing in the etb sector with the 4 hour reduction in timetable.

solerina

Sheeps101 wrote: »

Sounds like a load of nonsense to me to be fair. Year heads are getting enough extra wedge to compensate for the extra paper work during their extra 5 classes off a week.

Id much rather a normal class to teach than that nonsense 4/5 times a week.

Year heads and all post holders in my school do not get even one class off, classes off for posts only applies in ETB schools.

man_no_plan

solerina wrote: »

Year heads and all post holders in my school do not get even one class off, classes off for posts only applies in ETB schools.

In ETB schools they are usually more than a year head also. There is usually yearhead and then another significant responsibility along with it.

Terri26

solerina wrote:

Year heads and all post holders in my school do not get even one class off, classes off for posts only applies in ETB schools.

Not true. Community schools also get the time off. Vol Sec schools are not obligated to be given time off but some do. Community schools and Community College are not given extra time it comes out of the allocation so all schools should be able to give the time off.

solerina

Terri26 wrote: »

Not true. Community schools also get the time off. Vol Sec schools are not obligated to be given time off but some do. Community schools and Community College are not given extra time it comes out of the allocation so all schools should be able to give the time off.

I think it comes down to an agreement with the TUI, normally ASTI schools which were predominantly ASTI don’t get any time off.