School reopenings -current plan WAS McHugh's plan

ascophyllum

Here's a wild thought; the inspectorate are essentially redundant in their capacities this year - they can't visit schools or inspect in any meaningful way, so..... as they are the experts in delivering top class education, they could be redeployed to the classroom in their respective subjects to aid the inevitable teacher shortage.

I'm sure they wouldn't mind the chance to demonstrate best practise, perhaps they could be assigned to some of the more challenging schools where their expertise would be most needed?

It would be a travesty to have hundreds of expert teachers lying idle at such a time of national crisis.

Rosita

ascophyllum wrote: »

Here's a wild thought; the inspectorate are essentially redundant in their capacities this year - they can't visit schools or inspect in any meaningful way, so..... as they are the experts in delivering top class education, they could be redeployed to the classroom in their respective subjects to aid the inevitable teacher shortage.

I'm sure they wouldn't mind the chance to demonstrate best practise, perhaps they could be assigned to some of the more challenging schools where their expertise would be most needed?

It would be a travesty to have hundreds of expert teachers lying idle at such a time of national crisis.

You old cynic!! I like it though!

am_zarathustra

ascophyllum wrote: »

Here's a wild thought; the inspectorate are essentially redundant in their capacities this year - they can't visit schools or inspect in any meaningful way, so..... as they are the experts in delivering top class education, they could be redeployed to the classroom in their respective subjects to aid the inevitable teacher shortage.

I'm sure they wouldn't mind the chance to demonstrate best practise, perhaps they could be assigned to some of the more challenging schools where their expertise would be most needed?

It would be a travesty to have hundreds of expert teachers lying idle at such a time of national crisis.

This might be my favourite suggestion so far 😉

I think this idea of subs just being available is hilarious, there is no spare capacity I can see. All our PMEs do a lot of hours of substitution as is. We are in the inner city. It's impossible to get subs. Maybe with centrally organised panels you'd have some hope but a lot of schools were dependent on retired teachers coming back. I can't see that happening.

I am hoping the particulars of the extra subject choice is unambiguous. I really need to get on with planning for this year and that's been impossible until this is clarified

Rosita

km79 wrote: »

* Extra funding for hundreds of additional substitute teachers and support staff due to an anticipated increase in sick leave.
This is good and absolutely essential

Surplus primary school teachers may also be allowed work at second level in key subjects on a temporary basis;
This is nonsense . Firstly will primary level not require extra teachers ? Secondly and most importantly they are completely different curricula. If it was purely in a supervisory capacity on short notice for a day etc then that’s fine . But for anything beyond that no way . Primary teachers are not qualified to teach secondary level and vice versa . Speaking as a parent I would be very worried if my son had a teacher in this situation for any period of time .

* Curriculum changes to take account of lost learning, including greater choice of questions for students in State exams;
That’s fair

* Enhancing cleaning and hygiene routines, with hand sanitiser and personal protective equipment to be centrally procured and distributed to schools;
Essential

* Administrative supports for school principals to help plan for school reopening;
Fair and probably essential

* A major emphasis on student wellbeing and enhanced access to guidance and other supports;

Wellbeing hours at Junior Cycle are at 400 hours from September. This has already impacted greatly on hours available to all other subjects. The same subjects that teachers and students are stressing over due to lack of time to complete. More time needs to be given back to teaching and learning next year imo to ease this stress . If they mean putting more guidance counselors back into schools though that is good . But I doubt it . Sounds like lip service with “student wellbeing “ just been thrown in there for the sake of it as usual .
* A €75 million fund to allow schools to reconfigure their classrooms and toilet facilities over the coming weeks to allow for physical distancing of students.

Good but probably won’t be enough for some larger/older schools

No mention of remotes teaching/communication guidelines.
Hopefully that will be dealt with too[/quote]

Would agree with your reaction to everything there. Just on the Primary teachers doing supervision - there could be an insane amount of that required maybe in halls etc.

I know in my own school I've seen students brought in at Christmas or May to do maybe two short exams in an entire day. The rest of the time they are being supervised as sending them home early in a no-no.

Given that many see no intrinsic value in school and that they should be open primarily to allow the economy to function we can expect to be supervising a lot so bodies will be needed I'd say.

lulublue22

km79 wrote: »

* Extra funding for hundreds of additional substitute teachers and support staff due to an anticipated increase in sick leave.
This is good and absolutely essential

Surplus primary school teachers may also be allowed work at second level in key subjects on a temporary basis;
This is nonsense . Firstly will primary level not require extra teachers ? Secondly and most importantly they are completely different curricula. If it was purely in a supervisory capacity on short notice for a day etc then that’s fine . But for anything beyond that no way . Primary teachers are not qualified to teach secondary level and vice versa . Speaking as a parent I would be very worried if my son had a teacher in this situation for any period of time .

In relation to surplus primary school teachers I’d be interested to know where exactly are they ? We found sourcing subs last year extremely difficult and many a day there was none with the resultant split of children around the school. We are in an urban area btw not rural in the middle of nowhere. So not alone is the sub crises at primary going to be solved but primary teachers are also going to sub in secondary. Makes very little sense to me.

Count Hairyfoot

Unfortunately you're going to see different version of that Examiner piece everywhere for the next month. The Times had something similar a while back comparing the difference between hairdressers and teachers, and Newstalk have Pat Kenny, Ciara Kelly and whatshisname on breakfast parroting it as much as possible. Actually Kenny has been quieter than normal probably because Trump wants the schools back and Kenny knows its ridiculous when Trump says it. It's probably eating him up inside that he can't bash the teachers without sounding hypocritical but I'm sure he'll catch up.

The public just don't like you...at least they don't like you when you inconvenience them in the slightest. You have great holidays and strong unions and the rest of us don't and as much as we'd deny it we're all just a bit jealous. We've also been to school so know everything that's involved and really don't see the big deal. That's what it comes down to. Everyone's life is easier if the schools are open. They get to go back to work. They get to avoid awkward conversations about childcare with the boss. They get to not have to think about the kids for 8 hours. Of course education matters as well - but it's only another thing on the list. Hack journalists know that a teacher bashing article is always easy click bait. That idiot will be on every radio station next week repeating it too probably. You then get to listen to DJs talking about things like sacrifice and the public good - some of them have plastic screens in their studios now - the troopers.

Good luck in the months ahead.

Treppen

ascophyllum wrote: »

Here's a wild thought; the inspectorate are essentially redundant in their capacities this year - they can't visit schools or inspect in any meaningful way, so..... as they are the experts in delivering top class education, they could be redeployed to the classroom in their respective subjects to aid the inevitable teacher shortage.

I'm sure they wouldn't mind the chance to demonstrate best practise, perhaps they could be assigned to some of the more challenging schools where their expertise would be most needed?

It would be a travesty to have hundreds of expert teachers lying idle at such a time of national crisis.

I don't know... All these experts back teaching would obviously make the results shoot up through the roof :pac: , they'd have an impossible job pushing grades down for the 2021 junior and leaving cert.

km79

Rosita wrote: »

Good but probably won’t be enough for some larger/older schools

No mention of remotes teaching/communication guidelines.
Hopefully that will be dealt with too

Would agree with your reaction to everything there. Just on the Primary teachers doing supervision - there could be an insane amount of that required maybe in halls etc.

I know in my own school I've seen students brought in at Christmas or May to do maybe two short exams in an entire day. The rest of the time they are being supervised as sending them home early in a no-no.

Given that many see no intrinsic value in school and that they should be open primarily to allow the economy to function we can expect to be supervising a lot so bodies will be needed I'd say.[/quote]

Supervision would be fine BUT the insinuation is they would be able to teach core subjects as they teach them at primary level
Ridiculous

Rosita

I think it's fair to say that the government announcement whenever it comes will simply start the process of individual schools trying to organise reopening as best they can rather than an endgame of any sort.

km79

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/families-risk-schools-not-opening-if-they-choose-to-go-abroad-39396094.html

As the Irish examiner hack said we are all in this together so everyone has to play their part.......

shesty

It would be the absolute height of selfishness on the part of anyone to go abroad for a family holiday then send kids into school.And I will tell any parent aquaintance that in conversation. Like many others, we cancelled a family holiday due for July back in May, and got over it.We have zero expectation of going anywhere til at least next summer (hopefully) and this "oh but I have to have my holiday'" thing is just a mystery to me.No.You don't.Take some time off, and get over yourself.

Sorry.I have no patience with people sometimes.

rainbowtrout

ascophyllum wrote: »

Here's a wild thought; the inspectorate are essentially redundant in their capacities this year - they can't visit schools or inspect in any meaningful way, so..... as they are the experts in delivering top class education, they could be redeployed to the classroom in their respective subjects to aid the inevitable teacher shortage.

I'm sure they wouldn't mind the chance to demonstrate best practise, perhaps they could be assigned to some of the more challenging schools where their expertise would be most needed?

It would be a travesty to have hundreds of expert teachers lying idle at such a time of national crisis.

Now there’s the innovative, outside the box thinking that the inspectorate love and expect of us ðŸ˜

rainbowtrout

am_zarathustra wrote: »

This might be my favourite suggestion so far 😉

I think this idea of subs just being available is hilarious, there is no spare capacity I can see. All our PMEs do a lot of hours of substitution as is. We are in the inner city. It's impossible to get subs. Maybe with centrally organised panels you'd have some hope but a lot of schools were dependent on retired teachers coming back. I can't see that happening.

I am hoping the particulars of the extra subject choice is unambiguous. I really need to get on with planning for this year and that's been impossible until this is clarified

Yes. Totally agree. There’s about 700 secondary schools in the country. Don’t know the primary figure off the top of my head. Even to provide one floating sub to each school to supervise classes for absent teachers ... well that’s a lot of subs.

rainbowtrout

shesty wrote: »

It would be the absolute height of selfishness on the part of anyone to go abroad for a family holiday then send kids into school.And I will tell any parent aquaintance that in conversation. Like many others, we cancelled a family holiday due for July back in May, and got over it.We have zero expectation of going anywhere til at least next summer (hopefully) and this "oh but I have to have my holiday'" thing is just a mystery to me.No.You don't.Take some time off, and get over yourself.

Sorry.I have no patience with people sometimes.

Yes, but isn’t that what happened in the crèche in Dublin this week. Employee went on holidays and came straight back to work.

There’s gonna be some tools who try it. Easy enough to police if they take holidays in September. It’ll be known they are on holidays and can be told to stay away until quarantine is over. Not so easy if they go away the last two weeks of August.

SligoBrewer

am_zarathustra wrote: »

This might be my favourite suggestion so far ��

I think this idea of subs just being available is hilarious, there is no spare capacity I can see. All our PMEs do a lot of hours of substitution as is. We are in the inner city. It's impossible to get subs. Maybe with centrally organised panels you'd have some hope but a lot of schools were dependent on retired teachers coming back. I can't see that happening.

I am hoping the particulars of the extra subject choice is unambiguous. I really need to get on with planning for this year and that's been impossible until this is clarified

This this this.
There are no teachers to hire. The only way to get capacity into the system is pay the people in Dubai and NZ to come home.
When you factor there are no teachers to hire, what is in this 'package'?

Hand sanitisers and not even PPE?

Is this March all over again?

Please, wake up. The package will be awful and we will get the blame for standing up for ourselves. The Examiner article today is plamásing the public for the big bad ASTI being bad again when all we want is to get back in the classroom.

ethical

Unfortunately there are no teachers to hire and with all due respect if I was teaching overseas I would loathe giving it up and coming "home" to uncertainty..
Look at all the Nurses /Medics that signed up when the call went out...............................how many got jobs?
I think you will find it is in single figures.....yet 70,000 answered the call!

am_zarathustra

Does anyone have a view on paying existing staff overtime to teach extra classes? In the past I would have taught an extra few hours a week to have a stand alone honours class or to offer a subject option. Always on my own bat, after offering and never suggested by management but I was young and had no responsibilities so I was happy to do it. There are young teacher out there who could take a few extra hours and make some extra money towards crazy rents in Dublin or other major urban areas or towards mortgages.

I know there could be issues with this long term and it is absolutely not a solution to the fact a huge number of excellent teachers have been forced abroad but the schools start back in 4 weeks and we need to make sure there is some capacity available. Overtime is used in other areas. I hate to even suggest it but if the other option is someone not qualified taking an honours leaving cert class maybe it is the better if two evils?

Treppen

SligoBrewer wrote: »

This this this.
There are no teachers to hire. The only way to get capacity into the system is pay the people in Dubai and NZ to come home.
When you factor there are no teachers to hire, what is in this 'package'?

Hand sanitisers and not even PPE?

Is this March all over again?

Please, wake up. The package will be awful and we will get the blame for standing up for ourselves. The Examiner article today is plamásing the public for the big bad ASTI being bad again when all we want is to get back in the classroom.

They'd be fools to come home. Medical staff who came home for the greater good weren't long being turfed out once demand went down. Unfortunately some thought they would get a longer term contract because of the "huge demand for medical staff".
I think teachers have a bit more experience of having low employment expectations and dealing with the teaching council though.

km79

http://twitter.com/AmyMolloyIndo/status/1286932976706760704

This is why I am so wary of lack of guidelines around a a few things . In particular remote teaching/live streaming and the implications on child protection and GDPR. They were ignored for a few months in a lot of schools imo. A blind eye was turned .
That can not continue

Rosita

Someone wrote here the other day that the government would come up with a plan and blame the unions if there are any hitches.

Sad to say but this actually appears to be the strategy. Pat Leahy in today's Irish Times: "The co-operation of the teachers' unions will be needed, but as one senior figure pointed out they might be more inclined to co-operate if they understood that they, rather than the government, would be blamed if the schools don't return."

What can you say about the mentality of a" senior figure" like that? They'd really be interested in the nitty gritty of opening and running a school.

ascophyllum

I don't understand what the union is up to either, they're playing right into the government's hands by making this a union issue - it needn't be. In the last few days the penny has been dropping in the media that 25-35 people in a tiny room is not good for anybody and presents a huge risk of explosive community spread. Even Ciara Kelly was taking the teachers' side on this a couple of days ago.

The unions should say we will go with whatever we're asked to do but we're concerned. One social media image of a crowded hallway or classroom on the first day back would do more to highlight the dangers than a 'society vs the unions' narrative. People have no idea what the interior of a school looks like and would be pretty shocked at what a full return would look like.

Coneygree

ascophyllum wrote: »

Here's a wild thought; the inspectorate are essentially redundant in their capacities this year - they can't visit schools or inspect in any meaningful way, so..... as they are the experts in delivering top class education, they could be redeployed to the classroom in their respective subjects to aid the inevitable teacher shortage.

I'm sure they wouldn't mind the chance to demonstrate best practise, perhaps they could be assigned to some of the more challenging schools where their expertise would be most needed?

It would be a travesty to have hundreds of expert teachers lying idle at such a time of national crisis.

Jesus, what a great idea! Come on Harry Hislop, let's be having ya in Junior Infants!

r93kaey5p2izun

Wouldnt be a bad idea at all re inspectors. I think there's nearly more Maths inspectors than Maths teachers in the classroom at this stage. I have had the pleasure of seeing a couple of inspectors absolutely flounder in trying to interact with students in my last school. It was beautiful.

SligoBrewer

ascophyllum wrote: »

I don't understand what the union is up to either, they're playing right into the government's hands by making this a union issue - it needn't be. In the last few days the penny has been dropping in the media that 25-35 people in a tiny room is not good for anybody and presents a huge risk of explosive community spread. Even Ciara Kelly was taking the teachers' side on this a couple of days ago.

The unions should say we will go with whatever we're asked to do but we're concerned. One social media image of a crowded hallway or classroom on the first day back would do more to highlight the dangers than a 'society vs the unions' narrative. People have no idea what the interior of a school looks like and would be pretty shocked at what a full return would look like.

Every parent knows how small the schools are from Open Days/Nights. Society is already on our side. The union has to fight this because the virus will spread from Day 1.

amacca

ascophyllum wrote: »

Here's a wild thought; the inspectorate are essentially redundant in their capacities this year - they can't visit schools or inspect in any meaningful way, so..... as they are the experts in delivering top class education, they could be redeployed to the classroom in their respective subjects to aid the inevitable teacher shortage.

I'm sure they wouldn't mind the chance to demonstrate best practise, perhaps they could be assigned to some of the more challenging schools where their expertise would be most needed?

It would be a travesty to have hundreds of expert teachers lying idle at such a time of national crisis.

Best teaching related post I've read in a long long time:D

maynooth_rules

ascophyllum wrote: »

Here's a wild thought; the inspectorate are essentially redundant in their capacities this year - they can't visit schools or inspect in any meaningful way, so..... as they are the experts in delivering top class education, they could be redeployed to the classroom in their respective subjects to aid the inevitable teacher shortage.

I'm sure they wouldn't mind the chance to demonstrate best practise, perhaps they could be assigned to some of the more challenging schools where their expertise would be most needed?

It would be a travesty to have hundreds of expert teachers lying idle at such a time of national crisis.

This is wonderful and so spot on. Teachers deserve to see these people's experties in action.
Does this mean no JCT inservices this year, now that would be a crime.

I know this sounds selfish, but the most important thing for me is keeping my classroom. I hate the idea of teachers having to move while students stay in classrooms in secondary schools. I can keep control of the sanitation in my room. We can't if we have to move every 40 mins or an hour. Teachers are the vulnerable group here, surely it's better if we are 'cocooned' in our room rather than having to move constantly.

alroley

maynooth_rules wrote: »

I know this sounds selfish, but the most important thing for me is keeping my classroom. I hate the idea of teachers having to move while students stay in classrooms in secondary schools. I can keep control of the sanitation in my room. We can't if we have to move every 40 mins or an hour. Teachers are the vulnerable group here, surely it's better if we are 'cocooned' in our room rather than having to move constantly.

Also where would we work? Most staffrooms can't hold all teachers normally, so definitely not while socially distanced!

I know my school's staffroom has a table that sits 12 if all squashed together, couches that will sit another 12 (again, not socially distanced) and 3 computers. We have a staff of over 40. It would never work.

Rosita

Regarding teachers as opposed to kids moving there's also the reality that classes are left in rooms unsupervised albeit maybe briefly. Obviously there are many scenarios during the day e.g. students moving between classes, where students are left to their own devices in actual fact, but to put a system in place where social distancing is necessary and students are in their own in a room is another matter. I say this in the knowledge that this probably already happens in some schools.

That said I was talking to an ex-Principal of mine a few weeks ago during a chance meeting and he suggested this would be the case. Again it'll, like almost everything I expect, will be a matter for local organisation.

It would create difficulties around staffroom and places for staff to go if teachers are not able to stay in their own rooms. There's also the argument that having loads of teachers touching surfaces in the same room isn't a good idea. There's a lot to be considered.

Rosita

alroley wrote: »

Also where would we work? Most staffrooms can't hold all teachers normally, so definitely not while socially distanced!

I know my school's staffroom has a table that sits 12 if all squashed together, couches that will sit another 12 (again, not socially distanced) and 3 computers. We have a staff of over 40. It would never work.

We have a workroom beside the staffroom and I expect on return to see the wall between them to be gone. That will, however, remove the work area as such. God knows what we'll do in the photocopying room where social distancing is impossible.

As we all know, and has been mentioned here in very recent posts, it's the nitty gritty day to day detail that will give school management most headaches.At break times and lunchtime in my school in bad weather when students can't go out it's like Piccadilly Circus. The only likely relevance of the government announcement really will be to classroom numbers. After that we are at square one in working out how schools will operate.

Bobtheman

Simeon Mysterious Minibike wrote: »

Wouldnt be a bad idea at all re inspectors. I think there's nearly more Maths inspectors than Maths teachers in the classroom at this stage. I have had the pleasure of seeing a couple of inspectors absolutely flounder in trying to interact with students in my last school. It was beautiful.

Really?