Anseo.net - If I were the Minister for Education

2016 was an interesting year in primary education, and for me, it was the year where our education system changed fundamentally. The NCSE published their new guidelines for children with additional needs paving the way for the disaster that we are seeing today. Sean Cottrell, the powerhouse of the IPPN announced that he was going to be retiring leading to a new direction for the organisation of pa...

By 2015, it seemed like Droichead was going nowhere. The Teaching Council were doing their best to force schools to join their pilot, which almost nobody wanted to join and the INTO were doing their best to do the same. Already 3 years overdue, less than 5% of schools across the country had signed up. Something had to be done and many teachers on the ground had the answers. The thing was, would th...

The story of Droichead is littered with twists and turns and all sorts of unexplainable changes that if it were a real bridge, it would have collapsed. While its foundation was fairly solid, it had a number of issues, not least the fact that it wasn’t going to be properly resourced, and secondly that it was going to be very difficult to work from a HR and Industrial Relations point of view. Howeve...

By 2013, The Teaching Council were in a sticky situation. The inspectorate had told them they would no longer be probating teachers but the Union were steadfast that teachers wouldn’t be doing instead. With chants of NEVER NEVER ringing in their heads, the Teaching Council needed to do something. In this part of the episode, I explore what happened next and how they managed to build that bridge an...

In the last episode of this series on Droichead, I’ve been slowly building the story of how Droichead entered our lives. Last time I began to go through the very first iteration of Droichead, which was called CEPP, the Career Entry Professional Programme, which was launched in January 2012 as a consultation. I went through the in school part of CEPP in the last section but there was an out-of-scho...

If you were to ask teachers what was the most divisive initiative to come into the primary education system in the last decade, Droichead would be high on the list. Initially designed so that schools would probate their own new staff, it developed from a pantomime into a circus. In part one, we look at the beginnings of Droichead and how it eventually did exactly the opposite of what it was suppos...

With all the talk about early childhood education in the media, I was interested in hearing about the sector and the differences between it and primary education. It became apparent very early that we share a huge amount in common in all sorts of areas including the complications of ownership of buildings, of all things! A huge thanks to Celine for taking the time to chat to me. I hope you'll enjo...

In this summer episode, I go back to my roots in educational technology and offer you five tech tools that helped me in my job this school year. They are: Gmelius - https://gmelius.com/ Sunsama - https://sunsama.com/ Voice over IP - https://www.3cx.com/ and https://explore.zoom.us/en/products/zoom-phone/ Clever.com - https://www.clever.com Screencastify - https://www.screencastify.com/ Oh...and in...

On 9th July 2021, I was racially abused by people that claimed to be members of the National Party. I received a number of phone calls from the heads of representative bodies, stakeholders and partners. For the first time, I was asked by them, how could they help. And I told them . In this episode, I discuss some of the people who have gone out of their way to discuss diversity in the education sy...

The NCSE was established in 2003 to "improve the delivery of education services to persons with special educational needs arising from disabilities with particular emphasis on children." It's rare to find an organisation that has achieved exactly the opposite of what they set out to do in such a short amount of time. What started off as a way to organise Special Education resources in Ireland has...

In the final part of our chat, Conor and I discuss the INTO's support of the LGBT+ community. We talk about schools that raise the Pride Flag but do nothing more and then we talk about some resources that teachers could use in the classroom without "undermining" the ethos (not my words!) Finally, Conor tells us what he would do if he were the Minister for Education. This is a public episode. If yo...

It's not often you'll hear me speechless but in this part of my interview with Conor Bredin, he speaks about his experience of being a gay teacher in Ireland. For anyone that thinks working in the Catholic system is no harm, needs to listen to this. Conor gives his thoughts on this issue and sums it up really well. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or g...

In this 3-part episode, I interview Conor Bredin - teacher, podcaster and author. Conor will be well known to anyone who was at the 2022 INTO Congress where he received a standing ovation for telling his experience of being a gay teacher in Ireland. However, Conor wears many hats and in this part I learn about his writing career and his podcast, which is all about storytellers. He's a great storyt...

Forgive the paraphrased Father Ted quote but it's probably appropriate after reading Emma O'Kelly's excellent article: "Bishops sought 'commitment' on priority for Catholic children in schools" https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/0609/1303940-catholic-schools/ I read through this article attempting to give further context and background, as well as cringe through the astounding arrogance shown by the par...

This week (May 31st) the SNA allocations were released to primary schools. It had been promised that a new frontloading model was to be used but for a third year in a row, school allocations were frozen. In this episode, I examine: why the representative bodies rarely, if ever, publicly condemn the NCSE why the SNA allocations come out so late in the year whether there were actually 1,100 extra SN...

One thing that binds us all together is our planet, and it would seem surprising if teachers around the country wouldn't be worried about the impending climate crisis. I was thrilled to be joined by Mary Moore and Laura Ní Mhaille from the Irish Schools Sustainability Network to discuss how teachers can help. We got through a huge amount from Green Flags to whether Climate Action should be a curri...

Probably my own claim to fame was that I once represented Ireland in the Olympics playing chess. And before you go googling, it was 1993 and it was the Jewish Olympics and I was 14. While I stopped playing seriously I've always loved the game so I was delighted to meet with Damien Fallon and Liam Murray from Ficheall.ie to talk about Chess in Schools. Ficheall.ie are running a number of summer cou...

Every May in Ireland, newspapers, magazines and radio shows are full of talk about Communion Season, as it seems collectively to be known. And during Communion Season, (I dislike that term), you hear lots of talk about getting the house painted and decorated, you hear a lot about dinner plans in hotels, you hear a lot about how dress fittings, hair appointments and in some cases spray tans - and t...

In September 2022, Nenagh will become the town with the first "thriving" school to reconfigure to the ETB and change from being a Catholic School to being a Community National School. John Gunnell is currently the principal of St. Mary's Junior Boys' National School, soon to be Nenagh CNS. I've covered the politics behind the reconfiguration, but I'm also interested in what it's like for a school...

I hate to bring the C word up again, especially so soon after we seemed, as a nation, to decide that COVID19 was all over and we could start shaking hands, giving each other hugs and having bonfires fuelled by hand sanitiser! Actually, I’m joking about the last bit - don’t try it, kids. While I don’t think any teacher in the country would ever want to return to the burn of distance learning, we pr...

If I was the Minister for Education, I think I'd hire my guest this week as my deputy! If you don't know Annie Asgard, you are in for a treat. Annie and I could talk about anything but we decided to focus on EAL (English as an Additional Language) teaching. It's relevant always but in particular now with so many Ukrainian children arriving into schools over the last number of weeks. It's hard to b...

As I’m sure you’ve probably figured out by now, I could talk about the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism forever and I’m sure I’ll be coming back to it many times again. There are so many stories that blossomed from it, whether it was the struggle for Castlebar or the scaremongering in Malahide, and I’m sure there will be many more stories as Ireland stutters its way out of church control of school...

The paradoxical relationship that most Irish people have with the church baffles me. I can't understand why people care so little about the fact that religion permeates the entire day of 95% of primary schools in the country, even to the point of defending it when there are moves to change schools over to multi-denominational bodies. Why would thousands of people take to the streets in protest whe...

In this episode, we continue our exploration of why the Pluralism and Patronage Forum didn't succeed as we move to Malahide, where the final nail in the coffin for divestment took place.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit simonmlewis.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode we focus on one of the maddest sagas in the divestment process: Castlebar. If ever there was a school that didn't think they'd see the light of day, Castlebar ETNS was it. From cowsheds to Cromwell, this was an example of why the Pluralism and Patronage Forum was never going to work. Image of Burren NS, which was offered to Castlebar ETNS  Anseo.net is the world's number one primar...