Dropping a subject

tvnutz

Has anyone at secondary level ever had experience of dropping a subject from your timetable, as in telling management you don’t want to teach it anymore? I teach History, CSPE, Religion and Politics and Society for Leaving Cert.

I am currently fed up with teaching Religion, early on it was something I had some belief in, now I think its a load of crap. Even to teach it as non denominational I an fed up with it and despise teaching it, its non exam and basically becomes an entertainment class no matter how professional you teach it.

I approached management about it about 2 years ago only to be told I am contracted to teach it, ironically I’m not contracted to teach Politics and Society, I took that on when we were a pilot school. I felt like saying if you want to go that road then I’ll just abandon my 6th years a few months before the exam because I’m not contracted to teach them them that subject (even though I am qualified).

has anyone ever had experience of negotiating with management to stop teaching a subject?

I love the school I’m in but I know I can’t teach religion for the next 20 years so it sill unfortunately mean Ill have to look elsewhere

Treppen

I'm afraid needs of school usually come before desires of the teacher.

Would it be easy to fill you in for hours into another subject, and get someone else to take your religion hours?

I wouldn't get caught up in dictating contract either. You were initially contracted for X subjects but now are teaching subject outside that contract. Have a read of your contact again and I'd guess you'll find that they can ask you to teach other subjects. Also by the very virtue of you teaching that subject for months, that is a contractual arrangement, you can't suddenly stop doing it by threatening to withdraw from other subjects.

Might be a different story if your contract ends this year though and you are up for renewal again (i.e. you're not permanent or CID).

Maybe consider espousing the virtues of Paganism or Satanism in your religion class 😁 if it's a religious school they won't be long moving you.

Alex86Eire

We fill in a wish list at the end of each year to let management know which classes/subjects we ideally want to teach for the coming year. They do their best to fulfill it.

All you can do is keep asking before they make the timetable for the following year I suppose. Send an email so its in writing. Would you have any interest in going down the AEN route/adding another subject or short course? Getting a qualification in another area might mean they'd swap out the new subject for religion if you were desperate to get out of it.

mtoutlemonde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058287020/dropping-a-subject

I'm relatively new to teaching RE but I acknowledge what you have written above. I enjoy my Junior classes as I enjoy discussions with them on a range of topics. Although I have TY which has 28 with a lot of uninterested students and it is a bit of a nightmare no matter I do. I was using Look up programme and I enjoy it but my students don't. I sort of gave up last week and have been watching NUA film series with them. I've also used alpha and Saol for my junior classes. The Passion of Christ movie will take a few classes.

My main subject has also been dropped from the curriculum so I'm considering my options as I'm not prepared to teach RE for the next 20 years or I'll need therapy. The other fear is I redeploy and go into a school that offers RE as exam class.

It's not easy but keep the faith - if you can.

Random sample

Could you go at it the other way and request a leaving cert history class? I would imagine between history and politics and society it would make up the bulk of your timetable then. Junior history is so few classes you end up with a lot of groups or not many hours in it.

Do you have a politics and society module at TY I would request that too, and explain the need for it, which would add a few hours of that to your timetable.