**Nov 2016 Teacher Dispute / See post 1 for Warning **

man_no_plan

There was a big push from the unions at the time of croke park against the use of the hours as a teaching hour. This was to protect the jobs of teachers. In a school of 40 teachers it would account for two Whole time equivalent teachers whose jobs would have been lost.

Making the hours be used for CPD etc was about reducing the erosion of teaching time for student. Before croke park we regularly had half days for meetings about this that or the other. I can't say that the content of staff meetings has become any more or less interesting since these hours.

My sums on the 33 hours go like this, apologies if you've seen this before but I think this is a reasonable use of the time. For clarity I will add the m58/04 hours. Back in the day we got 1 1/2 % or something under sustaining progress, I think it was, to do the hours. Interestingly as the TUI and possibility the ASTI had a history of rejecting these agreement s as they increased workload etc but they were carried in by an ICTU majority. In any case the 3 x PTM count for 9 hours and the three two-hour staff meetings are half in half out. In croke park the 3 hours in school could be bought out reducing the CP hours to 30 plus 12 from ptms and half out to give 42 hours in total.

So here we go....

1 day meeting at beginning of school year = 6 hours

5, possibly 6 x 3hr ptms = 15 / 18 hours

One staff meeting per term 3 x 2 = 6 hours

Open night = 3 hours
Awards night / grad / whatever you do in your school at the end of the year = 3 hours

Subject planning, 1 hour per subject per term = 6 hours

Total 39 or 42 hours depending on the no of ptms.

As I said before, how schools have time for all of these expert visits I will never know. However I do know in some smaller schools there may be only 3 ptms but that's only 9 hours. I can think of 10 ways to use these productively apart from having speakers in on them.

I don't mind saying that they have become very divisive within the staff. We don't count any hours for external CPD, for example, because there was a huge row one year over everyone being allowed to count two hours but everyone not doing done external CPD. That kind of **** is what has principals making up busy stuff because as soon as there was discretion there were a number who tried to ride the system and they ruin it for everyone.

But, the above us how we do it and it works well. Nobody loves the meetings but we get work done in them and things move on. Maybe if there was a change in mindset on both sides it would help. Perhaps the JMB need to talk to principals about creative and productive meetings and letting teachers take responsibility for school planning and development and not be micro managing everything. As you know I am in an ETB, maybe the approach is different so there aren't the same issues with the 'demoralisation' and 'insults to my professional ism' among teachers because they are actively involved?

evolving_doors

km79 wrote: »

So does childcare etc etc
It's a working day
I don't walk to school
Is it any wonder we have a reputation as moaners !
The govt will break us soon due to short term thinking again

Don't think it's 'moaning' because of the 'hassle' of it. It's the financial cost given that ASTI teachers may be going on unpaid indefinitely. I know a couple of non-permament teachers who are struggling to meet their costs on a week by week basis (and that's while they are being paid!).

judeboy101

feardeas wrote: »

I have and will. I'm talking about colleagues, diesel or petrol costs money.

Well tell every member who turns up tm to throw a euro in the kitty start a transport/hardship fund. Or carpool with other staff /other schools. Use social media. Are all ur staff using whatsapp groups or some such way of co-ordination?

dory

Has anyone (in any of the interviews on the media) spoke about the possibility of separating JC reforms and the pay/hours/S&S issues?

People keep saying how the other public sector people signed up to LRA. But, from what I can see, there was nothing in it that changed their sector as much as the proposed JC would change ours. We turned down LRA because of the JC, not money or hours. So how in the name of God is it now not being mentioned at all? We need professional spokespeople.

The way I see it - take out the bit about us going along with any government reforms, let us then reballot our members on the LRA and see what happens. I know new teachers wouldn't get their pay restored right now (or maybe at all) but it would move this along and give us a chance to properly discuss the JC. I say this as a half-new teacher who gets no allowances btw.

I'm embarrassed at how bad the leadership is at explaining the issues giving that a teachers main job is to explain stuff!!

gaiscioch

Iused2likebusts wrote: »

Our holidays are now up to 6 and a half months a year. Ed deciding to include weekends in his argument aswell.

hehe. Did he really. He really is special. To think he gets paid for these appearances and not once has a presenter had the integrity to disclose to the listener that Ed Walsh retired on an enormous golden handshake
of @€300,000 tax free in 1997 money, and has been in receipt of well over €100,000 as a mere pension every year since that. Ed Walsh is among the greatest parasites on this state's pension burden and let us never forget that.

Mardy Bum

The industrial action is over non payment of S&S. The strike over new teachers' pay. The Junior Cycle has nothing to do with either.

feardeas

judeboy101 wrote:

Well tell every member who turns up tm to throw a euro in the kitty start a transport/hardship fund. Or carpool with other staff /other schools. Use social media. Are all ur staff using whatsapp groups or some such way of co-ordination?

Maybe the union could look into that. A strike fund, as other unions have, would be helpful.

happywithlife

judeboy101 wrote: »

Well tell every member who turns up tm to throw a euro in the kitty start a transport/hardship fund. Or carpool with other staff /other schools. Use social media. Are all ur staff using whatsapp groups or some such way of co-ordination?

I've been in the hardship pool so to speak before and would never ever dream of saying as such to my colleagues. Truth be told I'm still pay cheque to pay cheque. So I'm mindful ever since of other teachers being in that position. Bear in mind many substitutes will be down pay due to midterm if they haven't accured holiday pay yet *think they do get something as the old way of signing on each half term etc was done away with 2 years ago? But stand to be corrected on that. So they're minding what meagre bit they have till next when God knows their next payday is. They technically have to have childcare arranged for the entire working day in case school is open - besides childcare is usually paid upfront/ in advance anyway in most cases. And am hours commute each way does add up - I'm just suggesting we need to be mindful of each others circumstances- there are older teachers going unpaid who need to support children in college etc. None of us know each others circumstances so it's not unnecessary moaning but genuine fear of how the heck do we survive?
It boiled my blood to hear R Bruton on radio1 this morning- and to have that soundbite repeated throughout the day on news bulletins I would rather go whole hog at this stage and continue to go unpaid than give in now.
Sorry I have may rambled a bit there. Putting kids to bed in between typing

feardeas

Not moaning, bank account might be in time though. One can only refer to the context they know.

I don't moan at all btw. Just upset at all of this, think I have the bright to be.

On another note I saw the gen sec say that ASTI would be open to a third party. I think that's good. Wonder when would the Industrial relations bodies like the labour court get involved? Or have the garda experience frightened them there.

okedoke

Iused2likebusts wrote: »

Because a proportion of them are pointless and end up costing the country money. I've no problem doing pt meetings and staff meetings outside school hours but most of the rest of the stuff we do is just a box ticking excercise that benefits nobody.

Is the ASTI position that teachers should be exempt from the additional hours even though the rest of public sector works significantly more extra hours or is it that the extra hours are ok but should be used more productively? The first position, I think is going to fly but the second position seems fair enough to me.

political analyst

man_no_plan wrote: »

I don't mind saying that they have become very divisive within the staff. We don't count any hours for external CPD, for example, because there was a huge row one year over everyone being allowed to count two hours but everyone not doing done external CPD.

I'm confused by what I've highlighted. What exactly do you mean?

man_no_plan wrote: »

That kind of **** is what has principals making up busy stuff because as soon as there was discretion there were a number who tried to ride the system and they ruin it for everyone.

How?

Inspector Coptoor

okedoke wrote: »

Is the ASTI position that teachers should be exempt from the additional hours even though the rest of public sector works significantly more extra hours or is it that the extra hours are ok but should be used more productively?

ASTI position is that in the co text of
Education, the way the CP hours were being used was not conducive to the good running of a school.

Very often we were corralled as a large staff into a lecture theatre to listen to garbage read off a PowerPoint.
This regularly impinged on co-curricular activities after school.

Only 5 of the Croke Park Hours were "concessionary" with the rest being dictated to us by management.

I did a 2 day CPD course during the summer - 14 hours of CPD and only 5 hours of it could be counted towards Croke Park Hours.

They are a complete and utter waste of time and a box ticking exercise.

No more and hopefully never again.

political analyst

dory wrote: »

Has anyone (in any of the interviews on the media) spoke about the possibility of separating JC reforms and the pay/hours/S&S issues?

People keep saying how the other public sector people signed up to LRA. But, from what I can see, there was nothing in it that changed their sector as much as the proposed JC would change ours. We turned down LRA because of the JC, not money or hours. So how in the name of God is it now not being mentioned at all? We need professional spokespeople.

The way I see it - take out the bit about us going along with any government reforms, let us then reballot our members on the LRA and see what happens. I know new teachers wouldn't get their pay restored right now (or maybe at all) but it would move this along and give us a chance to properly discuss the JC. I say this as a half-new teacher who gets no allowances btw.

I'm embarrassed at how bad the leadership is at explaining the issues giving that a teachers main job is to explain stuff!!

The new JC was separate from HRA. Isn't it also separate from LRA?

man_no_plan

Mardy Bum wrote: »

The industrial action is over non payment of S&S. The strike over new teachers' pay. The Junior Cycle has nothing to do with either.

Unfortunately Mardy an awful lot of your colleagues think it was ALL about the JC. The sense at the time was that rejecting the LRA was all about the JC.

Rejecting CP hours came next then pay for new teachers.

implausible

man_no_plan wrote:

As I said before, how schools have time for all of these expert visits I will never know. However I do know in some smaller schools there may be only 3 ptms but that's only 9 hours. I can think of 10 ways to use these productively apart from having speakers in on them.

I have been saying this for a while too - what's wrong with the CP hours is how management in certain schools uses them - no leeway, no creativity, everyone in one room together. It's the equivalent punishing the class for not being able to control the ones misbehaving. We haven't had a pointless speaker in ages.

man_no_plan wrote:

Nobody loves the meetings but we get work done in them and things move on. Maybe if there was a change in mindset on both sides it would help. Perhaps the JMB need to talk to principals about creative and productive meetings and letting teachers take responsibility for school planning and development and not be micro managing everything. As you know I am in an ETB, maybe the approach is different so there aren't the same issues with the 'demoralisation' and 'insults to my professional ism' among teachers because they are actively involved?

Same with us, we get on with them because (a) we are consulted about their use (b) they are fairly productive and (c) the principal isn't breathing down our necks about how we use the discretionary 5 hours.

There are 8 discretionary hours this year and 10 next year under the LRA deal TUI agreed. They are not going away, if schools were better at using them, we wouldn't have ended up with a hatred of them so strong that this mess has ensued.

political analyst

Inspector Coptoor wrote: »

ASTI position is that in the co text of
Education, the way the CP hours were being used was not conducive to the good running of a school.

Very often we were corralled as a large staff into a lecture theatre to listen to garbage read off a PowerPoint.
This regularly impinged on co-curricular activities after school.

Only 5 of the Croke Park Hours were "concessionary" with the rest being dictated to us by management.

I did a 2 day CPD course during the summer - 14 hours of CPD and only 5 hours of it could be counted towards Croke Park Hours.

They are a complete and utter waste of time and a box ticking exercise.

No more and hopefully never again.

If management, i.e. principals and deputy principals, are dictating the agenda of these hours then that indicates that they have the power to decide what is done in these hours. Is it the case that they went on a power trip when the CP hours were brought in?

political analyst

implausible wrote: »

I have been saying this for a while too - what's wrong with the CP hours is how management in certain schools uses them - no leeway, no creativity, everyone in one room together. It's the equivalent punishing the class for not being able to control the ones misbehaving. We haven't had a pointless speaker in ages.



Same with us, we get on with them because (a) we are consulted about their use (b) they are fairly productive and (c) the principal isn't breathing down our necks about how we use the discretionary 5 hours.

There are 8 discretionary hours this year and 10 next year under the LRA deal TUI agreed. They are not going away, if schools were better at using them, we wouldn't have ended up with a hatred of them so strong that this mess has ensued.

Why is management not permitting leeway on those hours?

dory

political analyst wrote: »

The new JC was separate from HRA. Isn't it also separate from LRA?

Mardy Bum wrote: »

The industrial action is over non payment of S&S. The strike over new teachers' pay. The Junior Cycle has nothing to do with either.

LRA said that we any educational initiative supported by the government has to be implemented. So that's getting the JC in the backdoor. Not sure about your staffrooms but we turned down LRA on this issue alone.

The TUI turned it down (initially) for the Flex hours thing the lecturers have, the JC was our beef.

I don't see how anyone could think that they're separate issues. If the JC wasn't an issue I know my school and at least one other would have signed up. Take out that issue and a lot more would sign up, and we'd get S&S payments.

jonseyblub

okedoke wrote: »

Is the ASTI position that teachers should be exempt from the additional hours even though the rest of public sector works significantly more extra hours or is it that the extra hours are ok but should be used more productively? The first position, I think is going to fly but the second position seems fair enough to me.

The thing is that with other public sector workers they just add on time at the end/start of their shift and do the same stuff. Personally speaking I would have had no problem over the last 5 or so years doing an extra hour or whatever teaching or helping kids out but instead I've started to hate my job purely because of those bloody mind-numbingly boring presentations that I've had to endure. They have caused so much tension between management and staff at times that I really feel they have done more harm than good.

jonseyblub

political analyst wrote: »

Why is management not permitting leeway on those hours?

Because in fairness to them if they follow the rule book they are not allowed to.

man_no_plan

dory wrote: »

LRA said that we any educational initiative supported by the government has to be implemented. So that's getting the JC in the backdoor. Not sure about your staffrooms but we turned down LRA on this issue alone.

The TUI first turned it down (initially) for the Flex hours thing the lecturers have, the JC was our beef.

I don't see how anyone could think that they're separate issues. If the JC wasn't an issue I know my school and at least one other would have signed up. Take out that issue and a lot more would sign up, and we'd get S&S payments.

There are too many irons in the fire at the minute. I know for a fact that the TUI wanted to get the JC tied up before the LRA was up for serious consideration because if they went hand in hand there would have been no concessions. From a TUI point of view all that was asked for was given on the JC. Whether you agree with that or not is another issue. The ASTI leadership at the time did accept the agreement but the members, as they are entitled to do, rejected it.

I think your analysis on it is spot on. The low pay campaign, while admirable, looks kike it was an afterthought.

As for where you are now, there in no consensus on what is right or wrong in the JC or what would make it okay. I'm sure I'll be told how bad it is and so on and that's fine but its a single opinion or two not a consensus. Really ASTI need a special Congress or the like to get their ideas straight, unfortunately I suspect this would be poorly attended and fail to represent the majority. The majority of ASTI chose the current course of action albeit led by the officials etc so its with ten the solution lies.

deiseindublin

There are 8 flexi hours that most schools are ignoring.

implausible

jonseyblub wrote:

Because in fairness to them if they follow the rule book they are not allowed to.

But the 'rulebook' allowed for five discretionary hours last years and yet you hear of teachers not being allowed to write off CPD hours. A quick search on this forum will find plenty of instances where staff are not consulted on the usage of the hours, which is supposed to happen. I've heard of principals not allowing open evenings or graduation nights to be used as CP hours.

The interpretation of the rule book is what's causing problems, especially in voluntary secondary schools.

political analyst

implausible wrote: »

But the 'rulebook' allowed for five discretionary hours last years and yet you hear of teachers not being allowed to write off CPD hours. A quick search on this forum will find plenty of instances where staff are not consulted on the usage of the hours, which is supposed to happen. I've heard of principals not allowing open evenings or graduation nights to be used as CP hours.

The interpretation of the rule book is what's causing problems, especially in voluntary secondary schools.

Then the unions should have put pressure on those principals to consult staff on the usage of the hours.

gaiscioch

Mardy Bum wrote: »

Teachers already have one of the longest class times in the OECD. There is no need for an extra hour per week of class teaching.

Well said. Here's the OECD 2014 report (p. 476)

And here's an article on it: Do Irish teachers work long hours by international standards?

Let us all keep that study in reserve when forced to respond to the usual ill-informed drones.

solerina

man_no_plan wrote: »

There was a big push from the unions at the time of croke park against the use of the hours as a teaching hour. This was to protect the jobs of teachers. In a school of 40 teachers it would account for two Whole time equivalent teachers whose jobs would have been lost.

Making the hours be used for CPD etc was about reducing the erosion of teaching time for student. Before croke park we regularly had half days for meetings about this that or the other. I can't say that the content of staff meetings has become any more or less interesting since these hours.

My sums on the 33 hours go like this, apologies if you've seen this before but I think this is a reasonable use of the time. For clarity I will add the m58/04 hours. Back in the day we got 1 1/2 % or something under sustaining progress, I think it was, to do the hours. Interestingly as the TUI and possibility the ASTI had a history of rejecting these agreement s as they increased workload etc but they were carried in by an ICTU majority. In any case the 3 x PTM count for 9 hours and the three two-hour staff meetings are half in half out. In croke park the 3 hours in school could be bought out reducing the CP hours to 30 plus 12 from ptms and half out to give 42 hours in total.

So here we go....

1 day meeting at beginning of school year = 6 hours

5, possibly 6 x 3hr ptms = 15 / 18 hours

One staff meeting per term 3 x 2 = 6 hours

Open night = 3 hours
Awards night / grad / whatever you do in your school at the end of the year = 3 hours

Subject planning, 1 hour per subject per term = 6 hours

Total 39 or 42 hours depending on the no of ptms.

As I said before, how schools have time for all of these expert visits I will never know. However I do know in some smaller schools there may be only 3 ptms but that's only 9 hours. I can think of 10 ways to use these productively apart from having speakers in on them.

I don't mind saying that they have become very divisive within the staff. We don't count any hours for external CPD, for example, because there was a huge row one year over everyone being allowed to count two hours but everyone not doing done external CPD. That kind of **** is what has principals making up busy stuff because as soon as there was discretion there were a number who tried to ride the system and they ruin it for everyone.

But, the above us how we do it and it works well. Nobody loves the meetings but we get work done in them and things move on. Maybe if there was a change in mindset on both sides it would help. Perhaps the JMB need to talk to principals about creative and productive meetings and letting teachers take responsibility for school planning and development and not be micro managing everything. As you know I am in an ETB, maybe the approach is different so there aren't the same issues with the 'demoralisation' and 'insults to my professional ism' among teachers because they are actively involved?

One issue I see here is that we definitely are not allowed 15/18 hours for PT meetings, Our Principal has his own understanding of the hours so we get 1.5 hours for every 2.5 hour meeting....the hours wouldn't seem so bad if they were laid out like your seem to be. We are not allowed a single minute for the Grad night, even though it takes 2/3 hours. We do much more than you show above and most of them involve us all sitting in a room looking at policies we have all seen 3 or 4 times before....total waste of time. I would be happy never to do another useless CP hour, if getting paid for S&S is linked to CP by government then I will hang on outside LR for as long as necessary.

Eintrachtrob

gaiscioch wrote: »

Well, hopefully any teachers still buying The Irish Times will make the decision to stop buying it after this sort of article (the latest in many partisan, agenda-driven, ill-informed lazy articles by O'Brien, who is following the pattern set by his predecessor Joe Humphreys):

"Secondary schools plunged into chaos over one hour’s additional work a week: Leadership of ASTI seems caught in trap of its own making"

I know in our school strong union people were among those who got The Irish Times for 50cent per copy. These people will keep writing this agenda-driven stuff until they are hurt in the pocket/circulation. If even half of the 17,000 ASTI members stopped supporting The Irish Times financially every day, they would feel it. I've never once in my life bought any newspaper published by Independent Newspapers so they're not on my radar. For most of my life, however, The Irish Times has been bought in our home. I haven't bought it in maybe four years (you can read it for free online, if necessary)- if they're this wrong/biased/agenda-driven about an area I know about, I shudder to think of how unreliable they are on the areas I know nothing about. Awful stuff.

#BoycottIrishTimes2016

I was a subscriber to the IT up until last week when I emailed them to ask them not to take any further payments.

I'm not buying the Irish Times to read the DOB Indo.

skippy1977

My Problem with the 33 Croke Park Hours...

Mondays 4-5.30 (5th of September to 24th October) - 12 Hours
Applied Maths with kids who like Maths (not on timetable due to budget cuts and reduction in teachers in our school).

Wednesdays 4-5.30 (7th September to 26th October) 12 Hours
Football training with 30 U16 lads from the area.

Free Period before lunch on Fridays (7th September to 28th October) 5.5 Hours
Couple of Leaving Certs come out of RE so that they can get a bit of extra help with Maths.

Last Tuesday (mid term break) - collected bus load of students from school at 9.30 and dropped them back at 14.30 on extra curricular outing.
5 hours

Now that's 34.5 hours (we are only in November) and a serious underestimation of the figure this year... and I'm not counting that almost every free class is photocopying, preparing lessons (okay some some days I run over to the shop for sausage rolls), 2nd half of most lunchtimes is same...or training or sorting the myriad of problems that occur in schools on a daily basis. Evenings correcting copies, updating google classroom (spent couple of hours sending out work today on it, most of my class laughed at me...not sure it has become that critical for them yet...one responded that he was in Magaluf!!) We voluntarily stay in Friday evenings on rotation basis for detention (in our school). An awful lot of teachers are the same, some do far more and yes an awful lot to less, with a very small minority doing nothing. Every staff probably has a few as in lots of workplaces.

But I am not allowed to write off 1 minute of the above towards Croke Park hours. As previously mentioned I spend the Croke Park hours in a room with the rest of the staff watching someone, who obviously didn't like it in the classroom, read a powerpoint of some piece of legislation (that we have already read). By the way teachers are happy to do 12 of the hours via the mechanism that was there before where we did stay late for a couple of PT meetings and a couple of staff meetings and I doubt anyone has a problem of returning to this.

Anyway, love doing all the above...(well maybe not the detention) and I could easily get vexed about people spouting in the media about us not just doing 1 hour a week but I don't because I'm not sure that we'll ever win the argument about what we DO. We don't clock in and clock out. Productivity is NOT increased by Croke Park hours. Money is spent (on speakers) not saved. There is no benefit to students. If anything there is less. Any evening I am staying late watching power points is an evening I don't get to prepare. The next day my energy and enthusiasm is unfortunately diminished and the students lose out (I know poor me...there I've trolled for ye I know my summers make up for it ok....yep I have Easter...ok ok ok...check).

I haven't responded directly to any posts here (well maybe okedoke's about the specificity of my objection to the hours) and I'm not interested in getting into a to and fro. I've been reading to just keep track of any developments really but by the end of this year I'll have worked far more than the 100 hours of other sectors...none of it will be timetabled or officially accounted for but it will have been productive and I won't have asked for 1c for doing it. So yeah that's what I think of the 33 Croke Park hours...
...on the up side one of the Home Ec teachers who I share a picket slot with in the morning (whole other argument) is making buns....so that will be nice. Hopefully the whole thing won't go on too long.

gaiscioch

Did Emma O'Kelly on RTÉ News really just ask, when pointing out that some ASTI schools have remained open 'A small number of ASTI schools have managed to open using others to supervise students. That prompts the question could management bodies be doing more to keep others open too?' That is a refreshing change.


PS: And it's hilarious watching these supposedly "anxious" parents and students being interviewed with all their shopping and smiling faces on them in Dundrum shopping centre! Could the RTÉ reporter not have found a study centre if they wanted to talk to "anxious" students?

deiseindublin

Much more balanced IT fact check article here, was actually surprised.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/teachers-dispute-fact-check-who-s-right-who-s-wrong-1.2858239