Leadership+ Issue 23 November 2004

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I S S U E 2 3 • D EC E M B E R 2 0 0 4

Inside Getting the right person ..............2 Cross Border Conference.............3 Education and the Social Divide .........................................4 Tipping the Balance ..........................6 School Development Planning ....................................................8

Principals’ Survey reveals huge workload

Standardised Testing ....................10 SNA Review...........................................11 School Enrichment..........................12 IPPN Meetings ...................................13 Legal Diary .............................................14 GPA - Survival of the Fittest ....16 NABSME Study: Challenging Behaviour .............17 Modern Languages in Primary Schools..............................18

Guímid Nollaig faoi mhaise ar mhúinteoirí uile na h-Éireann agus ar gach duine a shaothraíonn chun tairbhe an oideachais in Éirinn. Beannachtaí ar leith dhaoibh a Phríomhoidí agus Phríomhoidí Thánaisteacha Bunscoile na tíre. Rath Dé ar an obair tábhachtach atá idir láimhibh agaibh. The opinions expressed in Leadership+ do not necessarily reflect the official policy or views of the Irish Primary Principals’ Network

ISSN: 1649 -5888 Irish Primary Principals’ Network Glounthaune, Co Cork President: Virginia O’Mahony president@ippn.ie Director: Seán Cottrell director@ippn.ie Editor: Larry Fleming editor@ippn.ie Advertising: Nora Kavanagh office@ippn.ie e: info@ippn.ie l: 1890 21 22 23 t: 353 21 452 4925 f: 353 21 435 5648 w: www.ippn.ie Design and print: Brosna Press 090 6454327 • info@brosnapress.ie

A Phríomhoide agus a Phríomhoide Thánaistigh, More than 1,100 Principals completed the recent on-line survey on workload, In-School Management and Boards of Management. I wish to sincerely thank all those who took the time to complete the extensive questionnaire. The exercise was most revealing in its findings as it has illustrated for the first time both the seriousness and scale of overload experienced by principals. The information extracted from this survey will form the basis for IPPN’s input to the working group which the DES has established to address principals workload issues. This survey has enabled IPPN to quantify and qualify what all principals have known anecdotally for many years. Several issues arise from the survey. Most notably, principals outline the failure of the current Board of Management and In-School Management structures to adequately address the severe overload of the principal’s role. It is also evident from the survey that a significant percentage of principals have suffered personally in terms of their own health and the extent to which their work has invaded family time. The survey, findings of which will be available next month, also shows how principals have experienced recent creeping bureaucracy, the net effect of which has turned the administrative principal’s role into that of fulltime administrator, who has a decreasing impact on teaching and learning in the school. This growing bureaucracy has virtually paralysed teaching principals, making it almost impossible to teach at the level required by the Revised Curriculum.

“Most teaching principals described a feeling of guilt experienced due to the incompatibility of teaching and being a principal, and the net impact on their own professional lives.”

Thankfully the survey was designed to draw from principals models of existing good practice and creative thinking. Several practical and worthy ideas have come through which will add significant value to the problem solving approach that IPPN intends to bring to the DES Working Group. Over the years most principals have learned the art of positive leadership where the emphasis is on bringing people ‘with you’ rather than ‘driving’ them ahead. Skillful consultation with staff, parents and children when appropriate, increases a principal’s status as a leader and not just a manager. Nowhere is this skill more required than when handling the perennial ‘hot potato’ of staff meetings and parent-teacher meetings. Sadly, this term has seen many schools taking a step backwards both in terms of the goodwill and flexibility shared between teachers and parents and the quality of time afforded to staff meetings and parent-teacher meetings. Ironically, this backward step is as a result of ‘sustaining progress’. We now have a situation where good practice, which has been fine-tuned over the years with the co-operation of teachers and parents, is being over-ruled by a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the regulation of staff meetings and parent-teacher meetings. This is nothing short of schools being ‘micro-managed’ with the attendant danger of strangulation by bureaucracy. Thankfully it appears that common sense is prevailing and that each school’s unique requirements are the key factors for consideration when allocating time for both internal and external communication. Schools face enough challenges today without being timetabled by the minute from afar. We would always hope that policies and resources are intended to empower education rather than stifle it. Is mise le meas, Seán Cottrell, Director, IPPN

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