Substitution budget for Primary Schools.

ifconfig

Is there anyone on the forum who knows from what budget a school draws funds for substitution cover when a teacher is absent on uncertified leave ?

I know this was a contentious issue as Batt O'Keefe when minister had proposed to cut the payment but the government did a sort of U-turn on it around 2008.

I know that there is a scheme for supervision of students where teachers opt into it whereby each fulltime teacher in a school can claim up to 37 hours for supervision for , say , school yard duties and school trips, etc away from school.

Obviously the department (DES) pays for substitutes once a teacher is on a sick cert but where is the other short-term substitution funded from ?

-ifc

byhookorbycrook

Thyere's no budget for uncertified cover in primary, that I know of.Classes get split up usually or a board of management could technicially hire a sub privately, but no board I know has the cash to do that. The 37 hours is to do with lunchtime supervision only, not for hiring subs.

ifconfig

Since posting I found the link below which suggests that , when the govt back-tracked they did put in place funding for substitution for uncertified leave for 2nd day of uncertified leave.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breaking/ireland/mhsnaucwidql/

Actually it is the 37 hour supervision funding that I am interested in.
As I understood it (although I am not in the teaching profession but on a parents assoc) that the 37 hours per full time teacher is not ringfenced for
just school breaks. I understand it could be used for tours, kids outings to theatre, activities.

To be more specific my interest is to establish whether primary schools have funding for supervision for yard duty for , say 10mins before school starts (and for the 10min overspill at the end of school).
In the school in question they have 5 fulltime teachers plus a resource teacher.
Unless I am reading it incorrectly it would seem they have a right to claim for 37 hours per year for each full time teacher.
I calculate that 30 mins break + 10mins short break , 183 days per year is 122 hours approx and that there must be an excess of supervision hours if more than 3 teacher choose to opt in to supervision.
I understand that , if teachers won't opt in then outside supervision could be co-opted and could be paid out of the allocation for unparticipating teachers.


reason why I asked about substitution was to establish if supervision cover money was being drawn out of those 37 hours because that could deplete excesses in that funding.

--ifc

byhookorbycrook

That sub cover only comes into place if two teachers are out.Hence classes are divided,since unlike secondary schools we don't have the possibility of those.
If a teacher is out sick, the other teachers will usually cover their lunchtime duty.
The supervision payment does not cover before or after school hours.Nor does it cover extra hours for training teams, school concerts, school quizzes, matches,school tours, educational trips,ceremonies/sacraments or other extras.

Same holds true for Croke Park hours.

ifconfig

Ok.

I guess the sub cover issue isn't relevant to what I am trying to establish.

When you say the supervision payment does not cover times outside of the mid morning and main lunch breaks then I just wonder how this is policed ?

Say, in a school with 5 full time teachers ...which has a 10min mid morning break and 30 min long break each day.
183 statutory days in the school year (primary school).
If all 5 teachers opted into the supervision scheme I understood it that they (the sum of all eligible teachers) could claim at total of 185 (=37x5) hours in the year.
40mins break times for 183 days is 122 hours so there is a surplus of some 63 hours of claimable supervision time (using this example of 5 teachers participating in the supervision scheme).

Are you saying that the school is capped from claiming this money if they stray outside their mid morning and main breaks in terms of paid supervision activities ?



--ifc

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

That sub cover only comes into place if two teachers are out.Hence classes are divided,since unlike secondary schools we don't have the possibility of those.
If a teacher is out sick, the other teachers will usually cover their lunchtime duty.
The supervision payment does not cover before or after school hours.Nor does it cover extra hours for training teams, school concerts, school quizzes, matches,school tours, educational trips,ceremonies/sacraments or other extras.

Same holds true for Croke Park hours.

byhookorbycrook

Once a school is larger than a three teacher, they cannot claim any extra money to the best of my knowledge for covering more than the 37 hours unless people opt out of supervision. Is that what you mean?


If the resource teacher does not have the school as a base-school as may happen if they are shared with another school. the hours they supervise are done at their base.

ifconfig

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Once a school is larger than a three teacher, they cannot claim any extra money to the best of my knowledge for covering more than the 37 hours unless people opt out of supervision. Is that what you mean?

Not really.
I mean that , if there are 5 full time teachers, where all are opting into the scheme, all are eligible to claim for 37hours per year (and no more, just like you say).
This totals to 185 hours of supervision time.
If the same school has 122 hours of lunch break time in the year (183 days x 40 mins) then I am trying to establish if the department still provides this excess funding. If so that gives 63 hours of flexibility into additional supervision activities.

If there is no flexibility as to allowing teachers (or co-opted external supervisors) to supervise outside defined lunch hours then , in this case , does the department withold this money (63 hours worth in this case?)

--ifc

byhookorbycrook

The DES pays for 37 notional hours, this means the funding is for lunchtime supervision only. In secondary, it is called subbing and supervising, so that teachers can be called on to give up free periods as needed. As I already said, we don't have free periods so can be called on by taking extra children into our rooms as needs be so kind of make up the "notional hours" that way. .

Hope I'm making sense?

ifconfig

Yes. Many thanks for all your followups & clarifications.

I haven't yet fully got it though ...

I guess the bit I am not getting is how come the fact that they are notional hours implies that the supervision is restricted to lunchtime supervision only.

Are you saying that the notional hours can only be counted *if and only if* those hours refer to lunchtime activities and there is no flexibility in that in the way the DES sanctions the use of those "notional hours" ?

So, in my example.. 40mins daily break time gives 122 hours per year.
The school *could* claim their full complement of 185 (37 hours x 5 staff)
or (37 hours x 3 participating staff + 37 hours x 2 co-opted supervisors) if they extended their lunchbreak times ????
I calculate that 63 hours in a year is 20 mins per day.
So a school with 5 teachers could max their supervision claim if they had a 50mins lunch break and a 10 min short lunch break but couldn't claim the same amount if that was broken into a 30mins lunch break, 10 min short break and 10mins before and after school doors open supervision ????

Sorry for being so persistent.
Have a meeting to go over this with BoM.

-ifc

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

The DES pays for 37 notional hours, this means the funding is for lunchtime supervision only. In secondary, it is called subbing and supervising, so that teachers can be called on to give up free periods as needed. As I already said, we don't have free periods so can be called on by taking extra children into our rooms as needs be so kind of make up the "notional hours" that way. .

Hope I'm making sense?

ifconfig

actually.. I realise my last example (extending lunch breaks from 30mins to say 50mins long) is not a correct one since primary schools are not permitted to have a main lunch break that exceeds 30mins.
However, I still am just trying to find within the web resources I have regarding the 37 hour per full time equivalent teacher allowance whether it is stipulated that those notional hours are restricted to supervision of lunch activities.

byhookorbycrook

Yes, the hours are only for break times,under the DES rules.

ifconfig

OK. Many thanks again.
Yes. It takes a bit of reading but when I read through the second of the 2 circulars on this page (18/03)

http://www.into.ie/ROI/InformationforTeachers/LunchtimeSupervision/

Both the title of the document and the contract for supervision does imply that the supervisory duties covered are expressly for mid-morning and afternoon lunchbreaks and as such couldn't conceivably extend into assembly and dismissal times.

There is an onus of responsibility on principal(s) and BoM for the arrival/dismissal but there appears to be no means to tap into any DES funding of such activities which is a pity.

Situation in hand is that teachers have apparently declined to engage in 10mins before school supervision leaving the BoM (as I see it) in an awkward situation vis-a-vis health and safety issues.
School bus arrives 9:15 .. doors locked until 9:20am. Average time of arrival of pupils at carpark is approx 9:10am.

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Yes, the hours are only for break times,under the DES.

byhookorbycrook

I think the fact that so many things that were being done outside of school hours by teachers and not allowed towards Croke park hours has caused many schools to fear that any extra work on their behalf will similarly be taken for granted by the DES and has also eroded much good will from teachers.Ten minutes could be turned by the DES into the likes of 30 mins before school and after is one fear I have heard mentioned.

I know in some schools that parents do informal supervision before school opening, might be worth considering?Or would some parent be interested in setting up a paid service?Both have drawbacks though.Do you tell the child they have to stay outside because mam didn't pay?What authority would a parent have to chastise an other's child and so on?No simple answers

ifconfig

Thanks again byhookofbycrook !

It is useful to get teachers perspective on this as it helps parents get a sense of all the factors.

Actually, going back to what was said earlier about Croke Park agreement re supervision hours I've checked this.
On the INTO website it actually allows for additional supervision hours (over and above the lunchbreak hours taken into account by the 37hrs).
Although it states that INTO prefers professional work over supervision it does seem to give flexibility to rural schools in particular where the BoM have identified a need for supervision for the small number of minutes before/after school.
It gives various permutations of usage of the 36 hours.

See point (3) in the document :

http://www.into.ie/ROI/PrincipalTeachers/CPQ&A.pdf

--ifc

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I think the fact that so many things that were being done outside of school hours by teachers and not allowed towards Croke park hours has caused many schools to fear that any extra work on their behalf will similarly be taken for granted by the DES and has also eroded much good will from teachers.Ten minutes could be turned by the DES into the likes of 30 mins before school and after is one fear I have heard mentioned.

I know in some schools that parents do informal supervision before school opening, might be worth considering?Or would some parent be interested in setting up a paid service?Both have drawbacks though.Do you tell the child they have to stay outside because mam didn't pay?What authority would a parent have to chastise an other's child and so on?No simple answers

J.R.

ifconfig wrote: »

Yes. Many thanks for all your followups & clarifications.

I haven't yet fully got it though ...

I guess the bit I am not getting is how come the fact that they are notional hours implies that the supervision is restricted to lunchtime supervision only.

Are you saying that the notional hours can only be counted *if and only if* those hours refer to lunchtime activities and there is no flexibility in that in the way the DES sanctions the use of those "notional hours" ?

So, in my example.. 40mins daily break time gives 122 hours per year.
The school *could* claim their full complement of 185 (37 hours x 5 staff)
or (37 hours x 3 participating staff + 37 hours x 2 co-opted supervisors) if they extended their lunchbreak times ????
I calculate that 63 hours in a year is 20 mins per day.
So a school with 5 teachers could max their supervision claim if they had a 50mins lunch break and a 10 min short lunch break but couldn't claim the same amount if that was broken into a 30mins lunch break, 10 min short break and 10mins before and after school doors open supervision ????

Sorry for being so persistent.
Have a meeting to go over this with BoM.

-ifc

As mentioned previously the 37 'notional' hours was a figure decided on by DES & unions to be a fair average amount to cover supervision during mid morning & lunch time breaks in schools - all schools are different and it would be an enormous logistics task to try and account for all individual hours supervision done in all schools throughout the state so this figure was agreed upon and was there to cover all situations.

There is a flip side to the 37 hours supervision payment by DES to teachers doing mid morning & lunch supervision -

- many schools have very large yards which require two teachers to supervise each break, others have a yard with many nooks and crannies which require two teachers on each break to supervise all areas and other schools have two small yards at either side of the school with a teacher on each during each break.

In these circumstances many teachers often do two supervision days per week - 80 minutes. In a school year of 39 weeks they will do 39 weeks X 80 minutes = 3120 minutes = 52 hours supervision.

Teachers in these circumstances only receive 37 hours supervision payment........any hours done above the 37 hours are not paid........the 37 hours was a figure agreed to cover all circumstances!!!!!!!

In many schools the principal will supervise the yards in the morning before opening and again in the afternoon until everybody has vacated the campus ..... those who do this do not get paid for it.....this can be anything up to 90 hours in a school year (30 minutes per day)!

J.R.

ifconfig wrote: »

Although it states that INTO prefers professional work over supervision it does seem to give flexibility to rural schools in particular where the BoM have identified a need for supervision for the small number of minutes before/after school.
It gives various permutations of usage of the 36 hours.

See point (3) in the document :

http://www.into.ie/ROI/PrincipalTeachers/CPQ&A.pdf

--ifc

That was to be allowed in circumstances in rural schools where the bus may arrive at the first school very early.

AS school buses cannot arrive outside each school just in time for school opening - some school has to receive pupils earlier than others, as the bus follows its route, so some schools may have pupils arriving by bus 30 - 40 minutes before opening.......it's these schools only that would be allowed use Croke Park hours for morning supervision.

It's not recommended but some schools, like above, may have exceptional circumstances and could use them for supervision in such a case.

ifconfig

Thanks J.R,

That would seem somewhat open to interpretation.
Although I don't have the source Croke Park Agmt documents but rather the INTO briefing it would appear that public transport arrival time is *one* but not the exclusive qualifying reason for inclusion of before/after school supervision into the CPA hours.

In a small rural school where the bus arrives at 9:15am and temporarily blocks a narrow road while dropping off the children a case could be made that parents dropping the children in cars may need to drop off, say 5 mins before this to allow safety and security of the children to enter the yard and so as to minimise accidents due to contention with the arrival of the school bus.

If school doors, in this instance are not open until 9:20am then it could be argued that the knock on effect on safety means it would be reasonable to include say 10mins window (9:10-9.20) as part of the allocation of CPA hours.




"Q: The additional time may also be used to provide supervision immediately before and/or after school.”
What is the position with regard to supervision before and after school?

A: The INTO would recommend that the additional hours would be spent on professional work rather than supervision. However as the Croke Park Agreement specifically provides that the additional hours can be used for pre and post school supervision it is open to a school to allocate some hours to assembly / dismissal time supervision if this is one of the priorities identified by the school concerned.
This may be a particular priority for a rural school where pupils depend on school transport which does not dovetail with the actual opening and closing time of the school."

J.R. wrote: »

That was to be allowed in circumstances in rural schools where the bus may arrive at the first school very early.

AS school buses cannot arrive outside each school just in time for school opening - some school has to receive pupils earlier than others, as the bus follows its route, so some schools may have pupils arriving by bus 30 - 40 minutes before opening.......it's these schools only that would be allowed use Croke Park hours for morning supervision.

It's not recommended but some schools, like above, may have exceptional circumstances and could use them for supervision in such a case.

byhookorbycrook

Apologies,Ifconfig, if I have steered you wrong, we were told both by the INTO and the DES that Croke Park hours could not be used in this way.

ifconfig

Hi ByhookOrByCrook,

No apologies needed.

Again many thanks for all the info and also elucidating the teaching staff perspective on supervision hours ,CPA and department guidelines, etc.

Based on the information I've gathered it still looks like some of that info is subject to clarification from the Dept in the final instance.
It really is something for the BoM to thrash out creatively in the final instance.

I understand that, even if CPA hours could be used in certain extenuating circumstances for early morning supervision that staff are probably not contractually bound to opt in to that supervision.

-ifc

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Apologies,Ifconfig, if I have steered you wrong, we were told both by the INTO and the DES that Croke Park hours could not be used in this way.