Obligatory, wage-affecting performance reviews for teachers - a great idea!

implausible

Roadtrippin wrote: »

And across the board there is a lack of attendance for the teacher training days they organise. A very small number (and teachers from your institutions may well be among that small number) shows up to these events, mainly because it's on the weekend and they don't want to spare a day of their precious weekend to go to these.
One of the people that presents regularly at these events has told me several times that they should start doing training days during the week since repeatedly they've had only very few teachers show up for them training days.

There is no incentive to attend these days. In the past, inservice was organised in school time and you got substitution to attend non-mandatory (i.e. not related to curriculum change) inservices. Now, they are almost exclusively held outside of school time, the expenses have been cut and they DO NOT go towards our Croke Park hours.

The last point is a particular bugbear of mine. Under CP, we are required to do extra hours over the year and the original idea was to improve our productivity. However, the result has been to use up these hours in pointless whole-school meetings which produce and save nothing and in my school, we have had speakers in after school to speak on various topics in order to 'use up' these hours. I would far rather go home when I finish my work and then go and attend a workshop that is relevant to my subject and productive than waste my time on the two examples I've given.

I have attended the first in a series of Literacy workshops recently and am quite excited about what strategies I might pick up at them. However, there is no incentive for me to do so. My music colleague gets no credit for the weekend Music conference she attends every year and there are examples across the board.

It's not about 'sparing a day of our precious weekends'; it's about the fact that we have to 'do' more for less money and the majority of teachers can see straight through the "teachers cars outside a school at 5:30" optics to the fact that these extra hours are a waste of time and money.

seavill

implausible wrote: »

It's not about 'sparing a day of our precious weekends'; it's about the fact that we have to 'do' more for less money and the majority of teachers can see straight through the "teachers cars outside a school at 5:30" optics to the fact that these extra hours are a waste of time and money.

Would have to agree to a certain extent here.

Friends of mine in a different school were going to an inservice one night in a different county as there was a policy in their school that needed to be reviewed and this inservice was specifically for this case.
However despite this being for the benefit of the whole school those hours could not go towards CP hours as it was not a whole school activity.

At our most recent CP meeting (a meeting about how to have our meetings next year) the principal said "right we have four more hours to "use up" for next year any suggestions what we are going to do?"

I have no problem staying to 6pm any evening for CP hours provided they are meaningful and productive. There are so many things that could be done for the benefit of the school rather than forcing the principals into having 50 teachers sitting in the same room at the same time just to fulfill CP hours.

There are also not enough in service courses for particular subjects. For example there has been NO inservice for one of my subjects since the new course was introduced in 1994. There were obviously courses with related material which I have attended but have had nothing to do with the Department of Ed or anything like that. As a result I would be one of the teachers who would have to leave that page blank when it comes to "in-services attended"

vamos!

Roadtrippin wrote: »

Thanks for bringing this up and giving me the opportunity to get back to you regarding these two points.

Re point 1) I agree. Nothing to add here.

Re point 2) I know people that give talks at these teacher training days and several of the main organisers from the GDI (Gesellschaft fuer Deutschlehrer in Irland = Society for German Teachers in Ireland).

And across the board there is a lack of attendance for the teacher training days they organise. A very small number (and teachers from your institutions may well be among that small number) shows up to these events, mainly because it's on the weekend and they don't want to spare a day of their precious weekend to go to these.
One of the people that presents regularly at these events has told me several times that they should start doing training days during the week since repeatedly they've had only very few teachers show up for them training days.

So, maybe in your case your school and your teachers are very dedicated but I can assure you (and I have a basis for this claim, trust me), that this is the exception rather than the rule.

The GDI organised a conference and a training day. Both happened at the weekend. I am not aware of any other CPD for German. My weekends are precious, I actually give them up for all sorts of school events : before the oral exams and for fundraisers, school trips etc. I did not and will not travel to Cork at my own expense to attend a GDI seminar. I work part time. Wages are a pittance (for my hours) and I can't afford to travel for CPD. I would happily attend evenings in my local ed centre, like I have done for CSPE but I have NEVER ever seen a suitable course for German or French. Don't tell me that has anything to do with low turnout numbers. How can one turn up to a course which doesn't exist? The Goethe Ins summer course costs 150E for a week. Should I being paying that from the 300E a week I earn? As well as giving up my weekends and evenings for planning, correcting, resource creation and extra curricular activities. I chose teaching as a career, not a profession. I work to pay for a life. Teaching is not the only part of my life.

Some of the ideas put forward on this thread make sense. Yes, teachers need to be more accountable. I am fully open to the idea of more drive-bys but don't think that they should be linked to pay. I think that teachers who don't teach well during their inspections and who cannot show evidence of planning, assessment and learning should be inspected again. Failure to improve could result in consequences for the poor teachers, not those of us (the majority of my staffroom anyway) who work well beyond the hours we are paid for. The same goes for CPD. If it were easily available and not going to cost a fortune, I would be happy to do it. If it ends up costing hundreds of euro, forget it!

christmas2012

how much do teachers get paid?

vamos!

christmas2012 wrote: »

how much do teachers get paid?

Scales are available on asti and into websites. I would go as far as to say that most young secondary teachers are only on part time hours (anecdotal, can't find stas to back that up). I cone out with about 300E a week. More if I get subbing. That doesnt happen that often as there are a load of part timers in my school. I am in on the old scales so post 11 recruits are on much less.

seavill

Roadtrippin wrote: »

mainly because it's on the weekend and they don't want to spare a day of their precious weekend to go to these.
.

Quite an insulting statement.

Firstly we work 5 days a week, who wants to work 6 days a week unless they have to, very few people. For this example I am classing CPD Saturday as work as it usually involves travelling to and from the venue plus the hours spent at the course so basically away for a whole day and depending on the venue back much later than 5/6pm.

Secondly I am all for CPD days even if on a Saturday, however when very far away it is difficult to always attend.

Thirdly, are teachers not allowed a personal life like everyone else on their days off???
And for your information my "precious weekend" is usually made up of coaching kids soccer teams. This involves every Saturday afternoon from maybe 1-5, some weeks I am asked to help out with the youngest kids that's 9.30-11.30 also. Every other Sunday morning I also have a training session which usually takes up to lunch time.
So my "precious weekend" also involves commitments that I have. Commitments that do not involve lying around for 2 days with nothing else to do.
Plus to actually try and fit in some family time also. Surely I am allowed to enjoy my family time on my days off.

Roadtrippin

seavill wrote: »

Quite an insulting statement.

Firstly we work 5 days a week, who wants to work 6 days a week unless they have to, very few people. For this example I am classing CPD Saturday as work as it usually involves travelling to and from the venue plus the hours spent at the course so basically away for a whole day and depending on the venue back much later than 5/6pm.

Secondly I am all for CPD days even if on a Saturday, however when very far away it is difficult to always attend.

Thirdly, are teachers not allowed a personal life like everyone else on their days off??? [...]
Plus to actually try and fit in some family time also. Surely I am allowed to enjoy my family time on my days off.

Here's the thing though - nobody wants to work 6 rather than 5 days a week but a lot of people have to, especially these days. Me included.
I understand that when you have a family and other engagements that it is tricky to make time to go to events like teacher training days. This is why I agree with the idea that these training days should take place during the week if at all possible.
However, I think that every teacher should be able to give up one, two or even three weekends a year for training purposes if at all possible. Even without obvious incentive. The incentive is that it may make someone a better teacher and staying informed is always a good thing.

That is just my opinion - I don't expect anyone to agree with me on this.

Roadtrippin

vamos! wrote: »

The GDI organised a conference and a training day. Both happened at the weekend. I am not aware of any other CPD for German. My weekends are precious, I actually give them up for all sorts of school events : before the oral exams and for fundraisers, school trips etc. I did not and will not travel to Cork at my own expense to attend a GDI seminar. I work part time. Wages are a pittance (for my hours) and I can't afford to travel for CPD. I would happily attend evenings in my local ed centre, like I have done for CSPE but I have NEVER ever seen a suitable course for German or French. Don't tell me that has anything to do with low turnout numbers. How can one turn up to a course which doesn't exist? The Goethe Ins summer course costs 150E for a week. Should I being paying that from the 300E a week I earn? As well as giving up my weekends and evenings for planning, correcting, resource creation and extra curricular activities. I chose teaching as a career, not a profession. I work to pay for a life. Teaching is not the only part of my life.

Some of the ideas put forward on this thread make sense. Yes, teachers need to be more accountable. I am fully open to the idea of more drive-bys but don't think that they should be linked to pay. I think that teachers who don't teach well during their inspections and who cannot show evidence of planning, assessment and learning should be inspected again. Failure to improve could result in consequences for the poor teachers, not those of us (the majority of my staffroom anyway) who work well beyond the hours we are paid for. The same goes for CPD. If it were easily available and not going to cost a fortune, I would be happy to do it. If it ends up costing hundreds of euro, forget it!

I understand that it isn't possible for everyone to attend costly events - really these should be cheaper and there should be travel funding etc. made available for teachers to attend these.
The state the country is in at the moment and the way the education system is increasingly underfunded, that won't happen any time soon unfortunately.

Mostly, with my previous statement, which may have been a bit inflammatory in the way it was phrased, I mean to address the problems with those teachers that do not deem it necessary to broaden their horizon at training days. Those that have become too complacent and comfortable to do anything to inform themselves and improve their teaching. I personally believe that you are never done informing yourself and learning as a teacher (or in many other professions). Even if you think you are a good teacher, you can always learn from others. Hence, my suggestion to have peer-review evaluations of teachers and random, unannounced (and more regular!) inspections by the external inspectors.

Since it seems unlikely that there will be any more funding made available to travel and attend these training days in the near future, my only comment here is this:

In any other job I have worked in (unless it was a very large company), training was always paid by myself unless it was vital for health and safety to have training done. I know people working in IT, and only the bigger, American companies fork out money for further training. Often in IT people have to pay for their own CISCO or JAVA cert unless they are on a back to education programme or in third-level education anyway.
If at all possible, as teachers we need to realise that attending training days will stand to us in the long run and look good on our CVs, for example. That training may not always come free, unfortunately. If as a part-time teacher you have no money for it, on the other hand, it is totally understandable if you can not attend these events. Travel funding should be made available in these cases.

Roadtrippin

seavill wrote: »

I have not dismissed everyone with a different opinion than mine on this forum. Please point out where I have.

I have posted several times in response to comments by partyatmygaff and possibly you I cannot remember now without going back, but most have not been responded to at all.

I have clearly explained my point of view. I have agreed with most of what partyatmygaff has said numerous times except for the part about student surveys being the sole reason for an inspector being called in. I have clearly explained why I have disagreed with this in detail several times.

I am not the only one who posted and found this to not be a logical suggestion.
The poster themselves was not bothered by this but you seem to have reason to post an irrelevant pointless comment.

I did not comment fully on this one as I felt by going into the long details it may sidetrack the thread from the real issues.

Seen as you feel so aggrieved by what I posted I shall explain just for you. Hopefully you will actually have a meaningful reply to it this time.
Also if you would like to point out where on previous pages I have not posted long (probably too long) responses and explanations I would be more than happy to apologise to you.

Anyone can learn off answers to do well in our exam system, teacher or student. This is the whole problem with the way our education system is set up.
More to the point a teacher who has even had an exam class for one year in a subject will definitely know how to answer the exam questions even if they know nothing about the subject past this basic knowledge.
Any teacher will tell you this.
With our system the same type questions come up over and over there is a very finite amount of information that is actually needed for most exams the way the system is now.

As I mentioned even teaching an exam class for one year, a terrible teacher will be able to get 100% in any exam especially if they know they are going to be tested on it.

As most people have been saying on this forum, it is the ones who just cannot teach are the problems. The ones who have no way with children, or have no interest in producing materials in such a way as to make it fun and interesting for the kids.
These are the things that make a good teacher more than whether or not they can learn off a few answers from the book.

Only some form of inspection can judge this, including regular RANDOM, UNANNOUNCED inspections. This is the way forward, not trying to keep students sweet or being able to learn off exam answers.

Hopefully Roadtrippin that explains it enough for you. As you can see an explanation that is kind of off topic for the title of the thread hence why I didn't feel the need to post the first time.

Thanks for going into more detail. I did not follow your earlier posts which is why I was (jokingly) prodding you to elaborate.

I actually agree with most of your points so I have little to add here.

One last thing I would comment: I reckon parts of the problem with those that you labelled "the ones who just cannot teach" is that they should not get an HDip in the first place or should be spotted during more regular, unannounced inspections.
I have taught language teachers and some of them should not have passed their exams... But since I am not a full time lecturer, I have no say in the matter really. There should be entrance tests for HDips in the case of languages. If your language skills are below par, you should not be allowed to do an HDip and offered a preparatory language-improving entry course. Instead, what most universities do, is take the money from the students and run with it... Profit over professionalism. Always a great idea.

seavill

Roadtrippin wrote: »

That is just my opinion - I don't expect anyone to agree with me on this.

Easy to ignore responding to the Posts that don't suit you to respond to I see.

Anyway please read my response that you quoted in your post. I said I am all for cpd days even on Saturdays the problem being the distance away.

The most recent one I did not attend was staring at 6pm on a monday evening 2 hours away from my school. 2 hours not including evening rush hour traffic. Impossible is not the word.

Roadtrippin

seavill wrote: »

Easy to ignore responding to the Posts that don't suit you to respond to I see.

I didn't ignore those - I didn't have time to read everything in detail. I am working today you see!

You have your mind made up about me anyhow so no need to further discuss then.

seavill

Roadtrippin wrote: »

I didn't ignore those - I didn't have time to read everything in detail. I am working today you see!

You have your mind made up about me anyhow so no need to further discuss then.

No I am quite interested in your responses hence the slight annoyance at not getting one. and you can see where my presumption was coming from being a bank holiday Sunday morning so was working on the presumption of no colleges or schools in today.

Would prefer To hear your opinion rather than getting into petty responses

Roadtrippin

seavill wrote: »

No I am quite interested in your responses hence the slight annoyance at not getting one. and you can see where my presumption was coming from being a bank holiday Sunday morning so was working on the presumption of no colleges or schools in today.

Would prefer To hear your opinion rather than getting into petty responses

I did respond to your earlier post as well - did that answer your question? Maybe just give me a more concrete single question to answer to so I can reply quickly. Not teaching today, but have to look into some of my research results for a publication. Thats why i am working.
Apologies for being a bit snappy earlier. But some people, not including you now, have gone into attacking mode on this thread which doesnt help the discussion, so i responded a bit OTT

seavill

Roadtrippin wrote: »

I did respond to your earlier post as well - did that answer your question? Maybe just give me a more concrete single question to answer to so I can reply quickly.T

I wasn't asking a question I was answering a post from you as part if a discussion. No specific questions related.

It appears I was answering your previos post when your reply came through. I'm on my phone so things are a lot slower. I did not see your response until you pointed it out just there. Apologies, just a time lag

marknjb

should all teachers not be made do a couple of course days during the summer holidays to upskill and improve on their teaching methods

Ms.M

I have always thought so marknjb. We should actually be asked to produce something each rather than just sitting listening to someone for a day. There's plenty of good resources and ideas not being shared around. I'd love the opportunity to show off without worrying about permanent teachers robbing my resources and giving nothing in return. I'm a bit bitter and selfish that way!

The holidays as they are are far too long. And the workload during the weeks we do work is far too heavy. I mean to be the quality of teacher we'd all like. I know there are the minority who don't bother. I'd like a better spread and more time to focus on individual students.
I don't know if a lot of teachers have a similar experience but dedicating all hours to teaching for the school year followed by months of nothingness is seriously challenging the 'aul mental health. :eek: Vocation, Vacation, Vocation, Vacation....

I have been doing a lot of planning over the summers but it's impossible to get enough done when you don't know what classes you'll be teaching until two weeks before the start of term or even the first day. And obviously you don't know the students either so I often end up wasting my time. It'll all come in handy somewhere down the line I suppose. I'd definitely prefer taking a few days to discover new ideas over these Croke Park meetings. I generally get nothing done when I go home because the pure boredom of it makes me sleepy..... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

jonseyblub

marknjb wrote: »

should all teachers not be made do a couple of course days during the summer holidays to upskill and improve on their teaching methods

I'd do a week of beneficial course days any day instead of those crap 2 hour sessions we are having for the Croke park hours. I can honestly say I have not got one thing out of those hours apart from P/T meetings.

seavill

jonseyblub wrote: »

I'd do a week of beneficial course days any day instead of those crap 2 hour sessions we are having for the Croke park hours. I can honestly say I have not got one thing out of those hours apart from P/T meetings.

100% agreed. Could not have put it better myself

byhookorbycrook

Part of the teaching council proposal is continuing professional development-outside school hours.I presume we won't be expected to pay as it is to be compulsory.

E.T.

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Part of the teaching council proposal is continuing professional development-outside school hours.I presume we won't be expected to pay as it is to be compulsory.

You're surely not suggesting it be paid for out of the surplus millions that the teaching council have amassed. From our payments. What a crazy thought!;)

doc_17

jonseyblub wrote: »

I'd do a week of beneficial course days any day instead of those crap 2 hour sessions we are having for the Croke park hours. I can honestly say I have not got one thing out of those hours apart from P/T meetings.

Yeah neither have I...but they weren't designed for us to benefit from them!