New JC English (disaster)

MrJones1973

I have a number of problems with this.
Firstly-one day of In-service and that wasnt great.
Secondly-ASTI /Department dragging feet on resolving issue
Thirdly, the online nature of all material means you have to print everything out -assumes you have ready access to a printer/paper. A more serious aspect of this is that you can wake up to find aspects altered with feck all scholarship.
Lastly, I dont feel on top of it. There is no real collegiality in the school and my students are quite weak. Not a huge amount of access to technology either

happywithlife

Yeah that technology but gets me too - not every teacher never mind student has easy access to broadband, IT facilities and printers. The powers that be assume we do. I've been in many a school that access to a colour printer is like asking for admission to Fort Knox ....nigh on impossible. can for see a huge discrepancy between standard of work being submitted based on students /schools circumstances

Jamfa

Mrwhite1970 wrote: »

I have a number of problems with this.
Firstly-one day of In-service and that wasnt great.
Secondly-ASTI /Department dragging feet on resolving issue
Thirdly, the online nature of all material means you have to print everything out -assumes you have ready access to a printer/paper. A more serious aspect of this is that you can wake up to find aspects altered with feck all scholarship.
Lastly, I dont feel on top of it. There is no real collegiality in the school and my students are quite weak. Not a huge amount of access to technology either

A lot of resources have been handed out at CPD day 2, school workshops & facilitation workshops but as you're in ASTI you haven't engaged with these and surely the online supports are part of the ASTI directives too.
The issue has dragged on for far too long & there would seem to be no movement or desire to resolve it so all you can do is teach as much English as you can & pick them up again for LC English in 5th year.

MrJones1973

I dont think looking at online Curriculum resources is against directive. Planning for assessment would be. TBH I will vote against every vote on JC as the general direction is disastrous. I point blank refuse to assess my own pupils. Furthermore No Middle Management exists to implement this and lastly no extra money for the productivity. I have already filled in gaps by cut backs with free extra work. Im done.

Hermia

I also feel like I'm in the dark. I back up ASTI as my union but as I'm in a mixed union school, the English department are split down the middle in terms of who has been on training days and therefore TUI have more of an idea what's going on. The one in-service I went to was a joke and the facilitator couldn't answer the questions we posed.

maynooth_rules

This video is worryingly accurate. I had an English 2nd year class last year and its an utter mess

Jamfa

Mrwhite1970 wrote: »

I dont think looking at online Curriculum resources is against directive. Planning for assessment would be. TBH I will vote against every vote on JC as the general direction is disastrous. I point blank refuse to assess my own pupils. Furthermore No Middle Management exists to implement this and lastly no extra money for the productivity. I have already filled in gaps by cut backs with free extra work. Im done.

I don't really see the point of the directive blocking attendance at inservice if you are having to go online during your own time to prepare for teaching the syllabus & print the materials yourself. Would it not make more sense for the ASTI to instruct teachers to not teach the new syllabus at all & face the consequences rather than leave everyone in limbo. The DES clearly aren't too bothered by teachers not attending inservice and they're saving money not having to pay for substitution. This year English teachers not in the ASTI can have 14 hours in-school substituted cover time to plan & meet etc as well as inservice in an Ed Centre & two days of whole school CPD. There are coordination hours available but there should be a full post but I'm not sure where the extra productivity is coming from as the SEC will still set & correct all exams.

implausible

maynooth_rules wrote: »

This video is worryingly accurate. I had an English 2nd year class last year and its an utter mess

Worryingly accurate? Have you been doing the assessments? Has the person who created this video been through the assessments?

You teach the curriculum, we've had to change the planning to accommodate the statements of learning, but once that's been done, it's business as usual.

There is an emphasis on oral skills, which in my opinion, is badly needed. After all, it was in the old Junior Cert syllabus, but mostly ignored and nor examined. Watching my (extremely weak) second years get up and give their oral presentations was a revelation for me, they were so into it and even though most of them were nervous, they reported back that they were proud of themselves for actually doing it.

Giving them a chance to prepare, revise and proofread their best pieces of work is also a welcome development. Why shouldn't a student be able to learn the skills of taking on board feedback and improving their work? In the past, I found that though you could put suggestions and corrections all over a piece of work and the student would nod and agree, then put it away and never look at it again.

As for parents helping, they can't do the oral CBA for them. If there is an issue with parents writing their work for the collection of texts, surely the teacher is going to know that it's not the student's work. What happens with projects in Home Ec at Leaving Cert, LCVP projects, LC History studies and these are for state assessment? The collection of texts CBA is for school assessment only, so even if there is 'help' from home, it doesn't count for state certification.

Suggesting that teachers at the SLAR meeting would give the students the mark because they knew that the child tried hard is insulting to the professionalism of the teachers. We judge and mark our students every day. the SLAR meeting is no different - you give the mark (well, descriptor), show a sample of your students' work to your colleagues and change or rubber-stamp it. For the end of term report, you send home the descriptor for the assessment instead of an end of term exam.

At the end of the day, students have to sit a state exam, so nothing has really changed.

I think that a lot of people who are complaining about the new JC don't really know what's involved. This is mostly due to the ASTI's directive not to attend inservice.

There is undoubtedly an issue with resources. All post-primary schools in the country have 100mb broadband, so accessing the resources shouldn't be an issue, printing them is up to personal preference. However, schools will need more access to computers and printers for students e.g. printing of student work coming up to the collection of texts CBA. As the other subjects come on stream, this problem will be exacerbated.

The main problem is not with the syllabus, it's that TUI teachers have been trained and given time for planning and ASTI teachers feel that they are in the dark. However, at the end of the day, we all have to teach the new course, ASTI teachers should be looking to their union for guidance on how to work with this.

rainbowtrout

implausible wrote: »

I think that a lot of people who are complaining about the new JC don't really know what's involved. This is mostly due to the ASTI's directive not to attend inservice.

I can't agree with this. Science is coming in for first years this year. I think the new syllabus is shambolic, I'm TUI and I've been to the inservice.

Moody_mona

Have you a link to the science syllabus rainbowtrout? Sorry to jump in here - I just keep getting the drafts when I Google, thanks

implausible

rainbowtrout wrote: »

I can't agree with this. Science is coming in for first years this year. I think the new syllabus is shambolic, I'm TUI and I've been to the inservice.

I should have been clearer, I was referring to the English course, I don't know much about the Science syllabus, but I do remember thinking that English was a complete disaster at the start - while we had a syllabus, the inservices were useless as the people giving them didn't have any answers to the questions teachers had, the Dept just wanted to get the thing off the ground. A few inservices later and the whole thing is a lot clearer, especially the logistics of assessing and reporting, which was the area of most concern.

English teachers have had 3 years of uncertainty and now we're at the assessing stage and TUI are doing it while ASTI are not. For Science, there is another year's grace to sort out the assessing issue.

Jamfa

Moody_mona wrote: »

Have you a link to the science syllabus rainbowtrout? Sorry to jump in here - I just keep getting the drafts when I Google, thanks

The science spec is here: http://curriculumonline.ie/Junior-cycle/Junior-Cycle-Subjects/Science-%281%29
These resources may be helpful too: http://www.jct.ie/science/science.php

Moody_mona

Cheers for that

Mardy Bum

Mrwhite1970 wrote: »

I dont think looking at online Curriculum resources is against directive. Planning for assessment would be. TBH I will vote against every vote on JC as the general direction is disastrous. I point blank refuse to assess my own pupils. Furthermore No Middle Management exists to implement this and lastly no extra money for the productivity. I have already filled in gaps by cut backs with free extra work. Im done.

In the new assessment regulations there is a state grade and a school grade for the students. They are separate and the classroom based assessments are just classwork that is graded. An oral presentation and 4 redrafted pieces of writing is all it amounts to. Similar to what we do now. Are you saying you do not assess your students for summer exams?

I know the slippery slope fallacy can be invoked here.

rainbowtrout

Moody_mona wrote: »

Have you a link to the science syllabus rainbowtrout? Sorry to jump in here - I just keep getting the drafts when I Google, thanks

http://juniorcycle.ie/Curriculum/Subjects/Science/Science

MrJones1973

Jamfa wrote: »

I don't really see the point of the directive blocking attendance at inservice if you are having to go online during your own time to prepare for teaching the syllabus & print the materials yourself. Would it not make more sense for the ASTI to instruct teachers to not teach the new syllabus at all & face the consequences rather than leave everyone in limbo. The DES clearly aren't too bothered by teachers not attending inservice and they're saving money not having to pay for substitution. This year English teachers not in the ASTI can have 14 hours in-school substituted cover time to plan & meet etc as well as inservice in an Ed Centre & two days of whole school CPD. There are coordination hours available but there should be a full post but I'm not sure where the extra productivity is coming from as the SEC will still set & correct all exams.

Im unclear about your point about productivity? There is a lot of extra work in assessing pupils and figuring out the curriculum . Locating it online. Copious report writing. Facilitating meetings etc

implausible

Mrwhite1970 wrote: »

Im unclear about your point about productivity? There is a lot of extra work in assessing pupils and figuring out the curriculum . Locating it online. Copious report writing. Facilitating meetings etc

That's why we've been given 14 hours this year for planning. There are two hours available for the SLAR meeting. The amount of work involved in assessing a class for the oral assessment is no more than setting and marking their summer tests.

The only extra paperwork is a sheet for each student outlining their mark/descriptor (and this can just be ticking a box) and a list of the assessments you are going to share at the SLAR meeting. The SLAR facilitator has to fill in a "we were at a meeting" sheet, a copy of which is given to the principal.

There is no report writing.

I had huge concerns initially about the paperwork burden, but there really is very little in this revised spec. If anything the revisions have created, for me, concerns about the lack of oversight, it would be quite easy to do the absolute bare minimum, fill in the sheets and nobody external to the school would ever check it.

MrJones1973

implausible wrote: »

That's why we've been given 14 hours this year for planning. There are two hours available for the SLAR meeting. The amount of work involved in assessing a class for the oral assessment is no more than setting and marking their summer tests.

The only extra paperwork is a sheet for each student outlining their mark/descriptor (and this can just be ticking a box) and a list of the assessments you are going to share at the SLAR meeting. The SLAR facilitator has to fill in a "we were at a meeting" sheet, a copy of which is given to the principal.

There is no report writing.

I had huge concerns initially about the paperwork burden, but there really is very little in this revised spec. If anything the revisions have created, for me, concerns about the lack of oversight, it would be quite easy to do the absolute bare minimum, fill in the sheets and nobody external to the school would ever check it.

I take your points but lets see. I find the pressure to have a co-coordinator of every subject unnerving as its not a post and why should anybody do it? I tried it for a year-you get no thanks,most people do what they want and you get SFA money wise

implausible

Mrwhite1970 wrote: »

I take your points but lets see. I find the pressure to have a co-coordinator of every subject unnerving as its not a post and why should anybody do it? I tried it for a year-you get no thanks,most people do what they want and you get SFA money wise

Coordination of a subject has nothing to do with the JC. In fact, all of the JC inservice I attended recommended that the SLAR coordination be rotated amongst teachers in that dept. Rotation of actual subject coordinator is often suggested in DES inspections.

MrJones1973

When a Department Inspection says its suggested or recommended they mean it must happen meaning ,extra unpaid work. But to be fair we dont really know how the JC workload will pan out so I will withhold judgement. However the bigger issue is the declining number of middle Mgt posts and their replacement by unpaid Union volunteers most of whom are breaking a directive on this issue.

implausible

Mrwhite1970 wrote: »

When a Department Inspection says its suggested or recommended they mean it must happen meaning ,extra unpaid work. But to be fair we dont really know how the JC workload will pan out so I will withhold judgement. However the bigger issue is the declining number of middle Mgt posts and their replacement by unpaid Union volunteers most of whom are breaking a directive on this issue.

I thought they recommended it to avoid the same person doing the job all of the time! Was subject coordinator traditionally a post? As far as I can recall, having a coordinator really became a need when the inspections and increased planning came in, which was long before the moratorium on posts. I stand to be corrected though, subject coordination could have always been a post in other schools.

You're right, we don't know how the workload will pan out, what I've outlined is my experience so far which has been positive. However, refusing to engage with assessment at all while not knowing what it involves will get us nowhere. I've met some ASTI members who still think that all assessment is for state certification, that there is a tonne of paperwork and some are still under the impression that the terminal exam in English is 60%. It worries me that those teachers voted 'no' without the facts of the new revisions.

I agree with you on the middle management posts, something has to be done and soon.

doc_17

rainbowtrout wrote: »

I can't agree with this. Science is coming in for first years this year. I think the new syllabus is shambolic, I'm TUI and I've been to the inservice.

I was at the inservice and it was the worst I was ever at. For anything. Completely useless.

MrJones1973

Am I right in saying that no item of a students work done for me (his teacher) will be sent to SEC? That what they present to SEC goes direct?

Jamfa

Mrwhite1970 wrote: »

Am I right in saying that no item of a students work done for me (his teacher) will be sent to SEC? That what they present to SEC goes direct?

Yes. The Classroom-based assessments have nothing to do with the SEC. The Assessment Task & Final Assessment will be sent together to the SEC and students will receive a grade eg. Distinction, Achieved with Merit etc.

stanley1980

No doubt I'm clutching at straws here but is there any possibility that the prescribed reading list has changed since before the summer. I've just realised that the novel I did with last years second years was actually from the 1st year list!! Is there anyway round this?.....

Jamfa

No. They are to study 2 novels from the 20 prescribed novels. The list was published in 2013 and relates to the current 1st, 2nd & 3rd years. There may or may not be a question(s) about the prescribed novels but if a question about a prescribed novel does appear and they write about another novel they will be penalised.

MrJones1973

stanley1980 wrote: »

No doubt I'm clutching at straws here but is there any possibility that the prescribed reading list has changed since before the summer. I've just realised that the novel I did with last years second years was actually from the 1st year list!! Is there anyway round this?.....

I almost made that mistake myself. . Buy a set of novels as investment by school and Just say you did extra reading. Kids reading an extra book cant be harmful now can it? You have an entire year to sort it out

siulach

Just a quick question for any ASTI teachers of English. I've just gone back through the directive from the union in an attempt to untangle what we are/are not permitted to do under the union directive. As far as I can see we are permitted to:

1. use department sample papers as a preparation for 2017 exam

2. allow students to compile their collection of student texts and facilitate them in redrafting two pieces to submit to department.

However, if I'm reading things right, we are not permitted to:

1. Attend CPD for new Junior Cycle

2. Engage with the oral assessment and classroom based assessment (to quote from letter circulated in January: ASTI teachers of English should be aware that the provisions relating to Classroom Based Assessments and Assessment Tasks set out therein are comprehended by the directive. ASTI members are prohibited from engaging in these activities.)

However, the deadline for completion of the oral assessment from department says that this component must be done between the 9th and 30th of September.

Essentially, I'm wondering what other ASTI schools are doing. Do we ignore the oral task? Do we allow students to do an oral task but just not assess it? After all, we have been directed to teach the new syllabus, so it's a very delicate balancing act trying to unpick what elements we are and are not permitted to do. Would love to know how others are tackling this one . . .

Mardy Bum

Yes and the union gives very little guidance with relation to the collection of texts and the oral assessment I.e do we do it and not assess them or do we not engage and all. Their response is very general and ambiguous.

implausible

siulach wrote: »

Just a quick question for any ASTI teachers of English. I've just gone back through the directive from the union in an attempt to untangle what we are/are not permitted to do under the union directive. As far as I can see we are permitted to:

1. use department sample papers as a preparation for 2017 exam

2. allow students to compile their collection of student texts and facilitate them in redrafting two pieces to submit to department.

Do you mean the Dept of Education? The collection of texts is a classroom based assessment to be assessed in-school.

What you might mean is the assessment booklet that is done in school and sent off with the state exam in June. This booklet includes a student reflection on the collection of texts CBA.

siulach

Shows what I know! Thanks Implausible, I mistakenly thought the texts together with the reflection sheets had to be handed up with the assessment booklet. So the department vision was that teachers give a numerical mark to their own students for both the collection of texts and the oral based assessment then.

However, that now throws up a whole other issue. Students are expected to complete a reflection sheet in the assessment booklet. Obviously, they will need to have put a collection of texts together in order to complete the reflection sheet. But, as Implausible points out, the collection of texts is a classroom based assessment, and as far as I understand it ASTI directive tells us not to engage with classroom based assessment.

My plan at the moment is to get students to complete a collection of texts (I would be setting and correcting essays for them even if I was teaching the old course, so really a 'collection of texts' is nothing new). I will also tell them to plan to redraft two pieces later in the term based on whatever feedback I give them. Does this sound reasonable to others?

I'm still completely in the dark as what to do with regard to the oral assessment. Ignore the deadline? Do an oral assessment, keep a record of same, but not give a numerical mark? Ignore the oral component altogether?

And there's also the question of whether the classroom based assessment (where students will complete the booklet to send to the SEC) will go ahead at all, or whether it can go ahead given that the CBA is to be based on the collection of texts that the union seems to suggest we should not be marking!!

I'm lucky to have a class of very focused, clever young people this year, and I hate going into them at the start of every term telling them that there is still no consensus about what they are meant to be studying and what form their assessment will take.