Beyond 2020: Using Technology in the Primary Classroom ==> Successfully complete this online course and you’ll get your fee refunded!

I did it last year. It’s a very good IT related course. Not for the beginner though.
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The summer holidays have well and truly started – rain, rain and more rain ….. and summer course mania is well under way. I wasn’t going to do a course this year but signed up to do a digital photography one. It cost me a grand total of €20. It hasn’t started yet and I’m between two minds as to whether I’ll bother doing it ay all.

Further enquiries leads me to believe I’d be wasting a week doing it. People … i.e. teachers doing the course view it as a week’s holidays trapsing up and down the countryside snapping at this and focusing on that!

I am interested in photography and learning how to use my camera properly but the thought of ‘wasting’ time isn’t appealing to me at the moment.

The reason teachers do summer courses (generally) is to get their entilement of E.P.V. (Extra Personal Vacation) days that they can take when needed during the school year. Most teacher do a course of a week’s duration giving them 3 E.P.V. days. Usually school authorities have no problem with teahers taking course days but normally don’t like them being taken at crucial times during the school year like the month of June for example.

Til now … you took a day …. no substitute teacher cover …. usually other teachers took your class and that was it. D.E.S. would get back to individual teachers if days were taken that weren’t allowed.

This year there’s a change … a new circular has issued …. Circular 0035/2009.

It states:

all teachers who attend a summer course will be issued withn a certificate of attendance and completion of the course which must be presented to the Principal at the beginning of the school year, as evidence of completion of an approved summer course and entitlement to EPV leave. On receipt of this certificate, the principal may approve EPV leave for the teacher in accordance with the terms of circular 37/97. The principal must retain copies of the certificates within the school for future audit purposes.

Big Brother (D.E.S.) is finally cracking the whip.  Incidences of ‘ghost attendees’ should drop …… I wonder what’ll they’ll do about teachers (and others … sons, daughters etc. ) doing online courses for others while ‘others’ are off in sunny Spain sunning their lily white buttocks?

I’m back from the brink. And in striking form!

The Education Minister Batt O’ Keeffe says it would be regrettable to see teachers taking to the streets to protest the Government’s public sector pension levy.

Minister Batt O’Keeffe’s comments follow Friday’s announcement from the three main teachers’ unions that they will be balloting their members on industrial action.

Union representatives have also urged their members to attend an ICTU protest rally which is taking place in Dublin on Saturday.

Minister O’ Keeffe is appealing to teachers to remember that the country is in a difficult and fraught financial state.

If balloted I will be prepared to go on the picket line.

The fat cats at the top, the bankers, the developers, the speculators and their equals creamed it during the Celtic Tiger years.

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The Department of Education has confirmed plans to cut special teacher support for around 900 primary school children with learning disabilities.

One hundred and twenty-eight teaching posts are being cut, affected 119 schools around the country, most of them in disadvantaged areas.

The department says the decision has been taken because the schools do not meet the minimum requirement of nine pupils with mild learning disabilities.

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Yesterday saw the D.E.S. publishing Circular 0002/2009 on its website.

It details:

1. Staffing in the 2009/2010 school year
2. Developing School Criteria for the School Year 2009/10
3. Appointment of the 1st Mainstream Teacher in new schools
4. Appointment of Administrative Principals
5. Appointment of Administrative Deputy Principals
6. Island schools
7. Panel Arrangements
8. Employment of Qualified Teachers
9. Vetting of teachers
10. Appeal Board for Mainstream Staffing
11. Staffing Regulation
12. Class sizes
13. Posts of Responsibility

You can see the details here.

The Fianna were the army of the High King.

Fionn Mac Cumhaill was leader of the Fianna. Other famous members were Fionn’s son, Oisín and Oisín’s son, Oscar.

The Fianna lived by their motto:

• Glaine in ár gcroíthe (Goodness in our hearts)
• Neart in ár ngéaga (Strength in our limbs)
• Beart de réir ár mbriathar (Truth on our lips)

Before a young man could join the Fianna he had to be master of many skills.

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1. Since my last report, your child has hit rock bottom and has started to dig.
2. I would not allow this student to breed.
3. Your child has delusions of adequacy.
4. Your child is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.
5. Your son sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.
6. The student has a “full six-pack” but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together.
7. This child has been working with glue too much.
8. When your daughter’s IQ reaches 50, she should sell.
9. The gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn’t coming.
10. If this student were any more stupid, he’d have to be watered twice a week.
11. It’s impossible to believe the sperm that created this child beat out 1,000,000 others.
12. The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.

Not including me of course!

I reckon it’s the most mis-spelt word on the internet!

For the record it’s: receive

The rule ‘ i before e except after c ‘ would cover it me thinks!

When you get an email from your bank asking you if you recieved their request for your login details be afraid … be very afraid!

• The bandage was wound around the wound.
• The farm was used to produce produce.
• The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse
• We must polish the Polish furniture.
• He could lead if he would get the lead out.
• The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
• Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

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Wonderful!

The Department of Education may start to lease computers from IT companies for use in schools if they cannot afford to buy them during the recession.

The Sunday Tribune can reveal that education minister Batt O’Keefe met a number of leading IT firms last week to negotiate a ‘computers for schools’ deal as the downturn takes hold.
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