Leadership+ Issue 61 March 2011

ISSUE 61 â—? MARCH 2011

+ Leadership THE PROFESSIONAL VOICE OF PRINCIPALS

Charlie and Census 2011 The IPPN Mailing Lists The future ain’t what it used to be

Our Children, Our Future The child should be at the centre of all health and education services. Often, it is the parents of those children most in need of these services who are least aware of the existence of these services and least able to access them.

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Our Children, Our Future

by Seán Cottrell For generations, many children in Ireland have been appallingly treated. The abuse of children and the theft of their childhood is both tragic and shameful.

Even now in 2011, there are still children in inappropriate institutional care as well as children with disabilities, children with special learning needs who, in spite of best efforts, fall between the cracks of a system that is not designed to meet their needs.Where politicians and civil servants see statistics, Principals see children.To begin to right this wrong, our next Taoiseach should take the bold step of creating a whole new government Department for Children with full cabinet status to take charge of all areas currently under Health and Education that are relevant to children.

In a short time, the profile of children in our classrooms has changed radically.

As well as the obvious demographic changes, we know that there are increasing numbers of children in schools suffering from neglect and depression, displaying violent behaviours, attention disorders and emotional disturbance. Add to that the growing numbers of children who are trying to cope daily with family trauma, dysfunction, generational unemployment, as well as alcohol and drug addictions. Many of these challenges have always existed but they are now more prevalent than ever before.

The child should be at the centre of all health and education services. Often, it is the parents of those children most in need of these services who are least aware of the existence of these services and least able to access them. Also, many social services designed for young people operate on a stand-alone basis, work independently of each other and do not even communicate with each other.

and screenings for sight and hearing. The HENO would also arrange psychological and psychiatric assessments where signs of special educational or behavioural needs are identified by the public health nurse, the child’s GP or parents.All the evidence shows that such coordination, together with early diagnosis and intervention, not only serves the child’s needs best but is a far more effective and cost efficient means of delivering supports and services. If such an arrangement were in place, any child with a specific learning or behavioural need enrolling for junior infants would come with a full history and their own individual support plan. Instead of beginning the cycle of observation, enquiry and assessment, which can take all of junior infants, this child can ‘hit the ground running’ from day one in primary school.

The onus should be on the service providers to reach all relevant children and not the other way around. Attempts to reform individual government departments rarely work. The only way that the health and education needs of children can be met effectively would be to create a whole new Department for Children. The departments of health and education would continue with their normal remit.The Minister for Children (with full cabinet status) would integrate the health and education services for children to ensure that no child will fall between the cracks of the two departments.This is the least our children deserve.

Seán’s full speech text is available on www.ippn.ie under Events/ IPPN Annual Principals’ Conference 2011

Take for example speech and language therapy, a classic instance where early diagnosis and intervention between the ages of 2 and 4 can make such a difference. Far too often children with speech and language difficulties are first diagnosed in junior infants, are then put on a waiting list for speech therapy which may not start for up to two years, by which time the child is struggling in class and feels self conscious about the speech defect.

Every child born in Ireland should be tracked from birth, not only in relation to their health needs but also in relation to their educational and care needs.

If computerised tracking of every calf, cow and bull can be done by the Department of Agriculture for food traceability, why isn’t similar technology already in place to make sure that no child misses out or gets lost in the system? Irrespective of the lack of resources, most Principals and parents acknowledge that the role of the SENO has had a positive effect in addressing teaching and care support for children with SEN. Children are currently being monitored by two entirely separate services, health and education. Imagine a scenario where the SENO role is expanded to that of a ‘HENO’ – a Health & Education Needs Organiser.The role of the HENO in each district would be to coordinate and collate the various developmental checkups, vaccinations Editor: Damian White editor@ippn.ie Assistant Editor: Brendan McCabe project@ippn.ie Articles to: Geraldine D’Arcy project@ippn.ie Advertising: Louise O’Brien adverts@ippn.ie Irish Primary Principals’ Network Glounthaune, Co Cork 1890 21 22 23| www.ippn.ie

The opinions expressed in Leadership+ do notnecessarily reflect the official policy or views of theIrish Primary Principals’ Network ISSN: 1649 -5888 Design: Brosna Press 090 6454327 • info@brosnapress.ie PAG E 3

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Charlie and Census 2011

By Carmel Burns, CSO

planning and decision-making. Census Charlie explains all this in the Census Story as part of the lesson plans.

An accurate census is in everyone’s interests. It provides the knowledge so that public resources can be shared evenly across the country and to ensure that services at local level are relevant to all the people who live there.

Who is Census Charlie?

Census Charlie is a character designed by the Central Statistics Office to engage with and educate primary school children about Census 2011. He is the hero in a series of lesson plans actively engaging children in the story of the Census while incorporating aspects of the Primary School Curriculum.

When is the Census?

The 2011 census will take place on Sunday April 10th next, when every household in the country will complete their Census form.

Census Charlie, the Census Enumerator will count all children in the country.

What is the Census?

The census is a count of the population of the country. It also asks questions relating to every person in the country on census night to collect information on a variety of important topics including age, education, language spoken, employment, health etc. The information provided is strictly confidential and only statistical reports are published.

Who carries out the Census?

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) conducts a census of Ireland every 5 years. It employs a temporary field force of nearly 5,500 to carry out the census across the country, including almost 5,000 census “Census Charlie” enumerators who will deliver and collect census forms to every household.

Why is a census conducted?

The census will give a comprehensive picture of the social and living conditions of our people in 2011. Only a census can provide such detail.

The results are essential tools for effective policy,

Census figures are important to each and every community in Ireland because they provide information about the population down to the local level across a range of different criteria e.g. age, education, employment, language spoken, health, etc. This information can be used to tell at a community, regional and national level about the composition of the population and to identify the needs and requirements of each group in planning for the provision of services.

And the beauty of the census information is that everyone can use it – it’s free, it’s easy to access and it’s extremely useful.

Census History Ireland has been conducting Censuses of Population since 1841. This enables us to track developments over a long period of time with considerable accuracy. The census is therefore a fundamental part of our national heritage and our collective knowledge about the Irish people.

Unfortunately, most of the census returns prior to 1901 have been lost, either deliberately destroyed (1861 and 1871 returns), pulped because of paper shortages during World War 1 (1881 and 1891 returns) or destroyed when the Customs House was burned in 1922 (1813, 1821, 1831, 1841 and 1851 returns).

Of the pre-Independence censuses, only the 1901 and 1911 census returns remain intact today. The publication of these records online at http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/ has provided millions of Irish people and their descendants all over the world with the opportunity to discover their ancestors.This has been an extremely popular facility, with millions of visitors to the site since the 1901 records were first published in 2008.

Census 2011 for Schools In the lead up to the 2011 census, a set of topicPAG E 4

based lessons featuring Census Charlie has been developed to help children understand what the census is about and to learn how and why a census is conducted.

These have been developed and piloted by primary teachers for use in classes from first to sixth class. The aim of these lessons is to enable children to understand the census process and to teach skills in the collection, representation and interpretation of data. Census Charlie has lots of activities to make the learning fun. By learning about Census 2011 and by engaging in related activities to solve real problems, the children will value the importance of census statistics in helping to build our future as a nation. Each lesson has been developed specifically to incorporate the principles of the Primary School Curriculum.

Census Lesson Packs include: ● Comprehensive teacher notes and lesson plans ● Census information and key messages ● The Census Story ● Census flashcard/fact cards ● Sample Classroom Census forms ● Graph templates and tally sheets ● ICT tasks ● Integration and linkage ideas ● Assessment tasks ● Home/school links ● Extension activities.

The lesson packs will be made available online at http://www.census.ie in February 2011.

If you require further information on the census, please contact: Central Statistics Office Unit 4 Swords Business Campus Swords, Co. Dublin Lo Call 1890 313414 or Email: censuspublicity@cso.ie Carmel Burns worked with both the PCSP and PPDS on the implementation of the Mathematics, English and Science curricula and as a facilitator in Learning Support. She currently works as a shared learning suport teacher in Athenry, Co. Galway, as an associate member of the Professional Development Service for Teachers and as Mathematics co-ordinator in the Post Graduate Diploma for Special Educational Needs in NUIG.

Latest News If you are aware of a school where a vacancy has arisen please let us know so we can follow up to RETIRING/NEWLY-APPOINTED ensure that the newly-appointed Principal can PRINCIPALS avail of the many supports and services available In 2010, 266 vacancies for the post of Principal to them during their first year. were advertised. 42 Principalships have yet to be filled but most of those have a start date in MEETINGS/TRAINING HELD OR Jan/Feb 2011. 109 mentoring partnerships ATTENDED BY IPPN between new and experienced Principals have ● IPPN Annual Principals’ Conference at been arranged so far.

Citywest – attended by 1,025 Principals ● Meetings with the Directors of Teaching Since 1st January 2011, 12 primary Practice from Teaching Colleges Principalship vacancies have been advertised. Of ● Presentations at Misneach 2 in Ennis, these, one appointment has been made and a Monaghan, Enniscorthy, Cork, Sligo, mentor has been assigned.

Kildare ● Presentations at Forbairt in Kilkenny One of the functions of IPPN is to support newlyMeeting with NCCA re. PISA results review appointed Principals and enable them to become ● Meeting with the Chief Inspector. effective leaders of their school communities. If you have been recently appointed to the role and would like to avail of a mentor for your first year EVENTS and wish to avail of your Newly Appointed Principals’ IPPN Annual Principals’ Conference 2011 Pack, containing the Principal’s Information keynote speech texts, videos and presentations as Management System (PIMS), Leadership+ and well as seminar presentation materials are now other publications and supports, please notify available to download from www.ippn.ie under Jackie on support3@ippn.ie or phone the IPPN the Events section.

Support Office.

Latest News

www.ippn.ie Resources

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Other materials recently added to the website include: PRINCIPAL ADVICE School Policies ● Policy for Physical Intervention with Pupils ● Instrument Rental Agreement ● Guidelines for Student Teachers and others working in the school ● Work Experience Policy II PARENTS & PUPILS Suitable prayers, songs, hymns etc ● Poems/Prayers for Retirement RESOURCES/PUBLICATIONS School Policies ● Deich mBliana ag Fás – Reeling in the first ten years of IPPN ● Leadership+ Issue 58 Sep 2010 ● Leadership+ Issue 59 Nov 2010 ● Leadership+ Issue 60 Jan 2011.

In Profile: Gerard Farrelly, Teaching Principal, Goresbridge NS, Kilkenny As a Teaching Principal in a 5-teacher school with 1 learning support, 1 part time resource teacher and over 100 children, I sometimes wonder what on earth I did when I applied for the job, with the many hats I continually find myself wearing, from the dog and bat catcher to the plumber, to the pest control manager to the counsellor. We have a lovely atmosphere in school generated by all the members of staff, children, parents and community, and I have a very supportive BoM and Parents’ Association, for which I am grateful. My own simple philosophy is that if people working in a school are happy then we will have happy children who will learn because of that fact alone. My daily routine consists of a plethora of tasks and experiences which make the day fly by and make me realise I don’t have enough time in the day to concentrate on any one thing. I am happiest when I am in my classroom working with my own class. They keep my feet on the ground and make me realise why I do the job. They make me laugh, they are idealistic and full of life, as they should be. I wonder how many of them will be able to say in years to come ‘I got a job here in town’ or how many will move abroad. I picture all that is before them and hope and pray that they leave my charge with their heads held high, feeling positive and as secure and happy as possible.

I did many different things before deciding to become a teacher, which helped to shape and mould me into what I hope is a reasonably good teacher.

I was born and bred in my beloved city of Liverpool, a place with so much tradition and history which I have to say I left with a very heavy heart to begin my new life in Ireland in 2001. My claim to fame is that I grew up in the infamous ‘Penny Lane’ and over many years watched tourists stopping to take photographs of the sign at the end of the street. I have extensive Irish roots, as my name

would suggest, and was brought up in a very traditional Irish Catholic way, spending many of my summer holidays with relatives all over the ‘Emerald Isle’, both north and south of the border, never thinking that one day my life would be here with my wife and family, but here I am, well settled and enjoying my life here.

I did many different things before deciding to become a teacher, which helped to shape and mould me into what I hope is a reasonably good teacher. I didn’t particularly enjoy school.

I’d actually say I hated it with a passion for many different reasons, and I moved away from home when I was 19 years old to begin a new life in Birmingham. The irony is that my new job consisted of working with young people in schools and with young people who had committed very serious criminal offences.

Some of them were as young as fourteen, and I quickly realised that their life experience was vastly different to the majority of others. Many of them had missed out on important relationships and the love and security that most of us enjoy. The day I left this job one young man who had done some terrible things presented me with a painting he had crafted. It left an indelible mark and brought it home to me that I actually wanted to make a difference.

A few years later I completed my training to become a primary school teacher, spending four of the happiest years of my life studying, playing and socialising to the best of my ability! This included participating in the Erasmus programme with six months spent in Norway, completing teaching practice, learning Norwegian (not as difficult as Irish I might add!) and attending a conference on education systems from around the world including initial teacher education. Following my graduation I was fortunate enough to get a job in West Derby in an extremely large primary school overlooking Liverpool Football Club’s training ground. The school would sometimes get a visit from various players. All the children wanted to sit on the top of the double-decker bus when going swimming, so that they could see their heroes on the hallowed turf.

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In September 2001 I started working in Scoil Phadráig Naofa Boys National School in Athy, Co. Kildare. It was a fantastic experience and from day one I felt at home. Athy is in area of great economic and social disadvantage, and many of the children there have seen and experienced things that most of us will never know anything of. I remember children saying they didn’t want the summer holidays to come, because they preferred to be in school which I found very telling. The problems we dealt with as a staff were enormous but the spirit in the school was unwavering, thanks to the brilliant, masterful and inspirational leadership of a Principal teacher, Declan O’Brien. When he announced he was moving to another school my heart sank. He was the epitome of everything a good leader should be.

In September 2001 I started working in Scoil Phadráig Naofa Boys National School in Athy, Co. Kildare. It was a fantastic experience and from day one I felt at home.

I am a firm believer in a style of leadership that leads from the front and the back, bringing everyone along and going back to pick up the stragglers, however difficult that may be.

Declan gave me the opportunity to grow as a teacher and to experience life in different management roles. I realise now how nurtured I was under his tutelage. His school in Derrinturn in Co. Kildare is very well blessed.

It is no coincidence that at least three of the staff I started with are now Principal teachers.

I embarked on learning Irish, completed my SCG exam and survived the subsequent visit from the Cigire. This was the most difficult thing I have ever done and the time and effort I had to put in was enormous. It gave me a great insight into what it must be like for some of the children in our care who struggle with all subjects, including Irish. I find teaching

Irish really enjoyable now but difficult too. I have no qualms about saying how much I struggle at times, but I try my best to give the children a grá for the Gaeilge.

I often think about my friends at home who are ‘Head Teachers’ and wonder about the different systems of education. Having worked in both jurisdictions, there are interesting comparisons to be made. One must bear in mind the population difference with over 60 million in the UK as opposed to four million people here. Both primary systems are excellent, with both positive and negative elements. The UK system benefits from the enormous resources that are put into education and the fact that the ‘Head Teacher’ is running the school, rather than trying to teach at the same time. Imagine being in a school where all the resources are literally handed to you, from books and copies down to the latest technology, and where almost every class has a teaching assistant. There is a structure for both literacy and numeracy, originally brought in from New Zealand, and I really believe it works - things like team teaching and co-operative learning are paving

the way for greater learning. With recent figures suggesting that literacy and numeracy standards have declined here, I can’t help thinking that curriculum overload has something to do with it. I also think that the enormous growth in gadgets has taken away from the traditional forms of entertainment.

As a child I remember actually talking socially to other people around me and using my imagination in my play. I feel that has changed so much now and that we need to get back to teaching thinking and utilising philosophical thought to reason things out.

We have fantastic, inspirational teachers and I feel the standard of teaching and learning here is extremely high and, because the primary school is relaxed here, the children learn.

curriculum is not as prescriptive and that the paper trail, although growing, is still nowhere near as great or tedious here. We have fantastic, inspirational teachers and I feel the standard of teaching and learning here is extremely high and, because the primary school is relaxed here, the children learn. One of the biggest differences is the area of child protection; this includes caring for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. UK schools have greater access to supports, including social workers and other agencies, and a ‘risk register’ which really does help to monitor children. At the end of the day there are good and bad points in both systems. The one constant is the children. Wherever I have taught they have been the same wonderful characters, full of life and love for others, with difficulties, problems, illnesses and possibly broken relationships at home. They are the ones who make the job worthwhile and remind me what I trained for and why I chose to apply to become a Principal - it certainly wasn’t for the financial rewards! I just want to make a difference and to bring a love of learning to the children in my care.

Ireland has a huge advantage in that the

My Viewpoint:

Secretaries and Caretakers – need to organise Patricia Whelan - school secretary, Presentation College, Carlow and Secretary of IMPACT School Secretaries' Branch As part of the on-going organisational plan within IMPACT, a pilot project has been put in place aimed at recruiting non-teaching staff into membership at primary and post-primary level.

We have received support from the three teacher unions who have all been positive and recognise the importance of all school staffs having trade union protection.

well aware face the anomalies of a two-tier system with a grade and public sector conditions of employment for the few remaining who are paid by the Department of Education and Skills.

The majority have to survive on a rate of pay and hours dependant on a paltry grant based on pupil numbers, with no pension or other benefits enjoyed by their teaching colleagues.

This project will run for six months and will concentrate initially on Dublin and surrounding counties as well as Cork and surrounding counties.

Special Needs Assistants, who provide a vital support role in our schools, are having overall numbers capped as well as changes to their contracts with little regard to the individual school needs.

As a representative/support network at management level, IPPN members will understand the need to organise and represent non-teaching staff, many of whom are on very low pay with no security for their old age or in ill health.

IMPACT trade union recognises the need for organisation in these non-teaching areas and formed dedicated branches for both school secretaries and SNAs in the past three years.

These branches are growing in strength and this pilot project is a further step in that growth.

School secretaries and caretakers whom you are PAG E 7

We urge IPPN members to support this initiative locally by allowing access and time for recruitment officers to meet with non-teaching staff and by encouraging this vulnerable group of workers to become organised.

Of course, new members are welcome from all parts of the country. Please give anyone interested the contact details.

FURTHER INFORMATION FROM: Cork Area: Joan McCrohan, IMPACT offices, Father Matthew Quay, Cork Tel. 021-4255233 Mobile 087-6321944 Email: jmccrohan@impact.ie Dublin Area: Patricia Whelan, IMPACT offices, Nerney’s Court, Dublin 1 Tel. 01-8177812 Mobile 087-4135052 Email: pwhelan@impact.ie

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ICT Tips The IPPN Mailing Lists

SCHOOL ART EXHIBITION

by Seaghan Moriarty, IPPN Technical Advisor A community grows when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in" Greek Proverb Leaving the ageism and sexism aside, this saying is very much idiomatic of the IPPN mailing lists.

Thank you to the many members who take the time and energy to share their knowledge, perspective and solutions with colleagues around the country.

Most members are already subscribed to various mailing lists – but if you are not, please go to www.ippn.ie, log in with your username and password and click Network > Mailing Lists > Manage My Mailing Lists in the menu. Simply tick the list(s) you wish to join – and click the Subscribe button. Fåilte

Similarly, communication via the mailing lists should always be respectful, patient, open and supportive.

‡ %ULOOLDQW $UW ([SHULHQFH IRU DOO \RXU FKLOGUHQ These emails are the day-to-day queries that arise for which you can get almost instant support, whether it is the definitive Professional Advice from the Principal Advice panel (via the mailing list advice@ippn.ie) or from colleagues who may have dealt with similar situations in the past (via networking@ippn.ie). ‘The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment’ - Lady Dorothy Nevill As Principals and school leaders, we are highly sensitive to the way we deal with teaching colleagues, fellow professionals, parents and pupils.

Similarly, communication via the mailing lists should always be respectful, patient, open and supportive. As in school life, there should be no room for sarcasm, personal agendas, heavy-handed or throwaway comments.

‡ *UHDW 6RFLDO )XQGUDLVLQJ HYHQW IRU WKH ZKROH VFKRRO FRPPXQLW\ ‡ (DV\ IRU EXV\ WHDFKHUV SULQFLSDOV ZH ORRN DIWHU

DOO WKH GHWDLOV ‡ ([KLELWLRQ LV FRPSOHWHO\ IUHH RI FKDUJH WR \RXU VFKRRO ‡ 6WDUWLQJ DW %8 IUDPHG SLFWXUHV DUH JUHDW YDOXH IRU SDUHQWV www.imagesschoolart.com

Neither are the mailing lists intended for social chat or twitter-like comments. The real value of the mailing lists has been in the open and supportive environment where colleagues can ask school leadership-related questions.

‘NĂ­ neart go cur le chĂŠile’ – Seanfhocal ghaelach When you join a mailing list, you have access to hundreds of queries that are asked by colleagues.

You can (and should!) write an email to one of the mailing lists – anything from seeking recommendations on best approach for a school website, to whether to facilitate a meeting with a ‘stepfather’ without the mother being present, to seeking sample Job-sharing policies to help create your own etc.

Of particular import are our newly-appointed colleagues and those who “don’t get directly involved� in the Networking mailing list. Setting the tone where these colleagues will feel welcome, safe to ask any question and feel professionally supported – this is our collective responsibility as members of IPPN.

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Legal Diary

by David Ruddy, B.L.

“School entitled not to take Autistic Boy with Significant Development Delay and Significant Learning Disability” LUCAN EDUCATE TOGETHER NATIONAL SCHOOL

Services’ Clinical Support Team. It further stated:

this report would be provided to the school by the parents.

V

“A child will be accepted for admission when all of the following criteria have been met;

The parents furnished a report to the school.

The Principal concluded that the report did not recommend the boy for a placement in the Outreach Class, and that the boy did not reach the criteria for enrolment under the school’s enrolment policy. The Principal advised the parents of the school’s decision in this regard, and the parents indicated their intention to procure further reports. The School Principal sought a new assessment from the parents in relation to the boy, none was forthcoming.

THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE AND ALBERT O’ CEALLAIGH, MICHEAL HAYES AND TOM ASHE – Section 29 Committee Members (HIGH COURT) 2011 FACTS Lucan Educate Together is a national school.

The school established an Outreach Class for children with Autism. The school was advised by the Department of Education and Skills (DES) that in the event of the establishment of an outreach special class there would be significant supports put in place. In addition to teaching and childcare staff, it was envisaged that a multidisciplinary team would be available to support the class.The multidisciplinary team would include such support services as a child psychiatrist, a clinical psychologist, a social worker, a speech and language therapist, childcare staff and nursing personnel. The school claimed that, on the basis of the assurances provided to it by the DES, the school established an Outreach Class with the essential support services to be provided by Beechpark Services (which is an agency of the Health Service Executive providing services for children with autism spectrum disorder).

The school drew up an enrolment policy for admission to its Outreach Class in accordance with its obligations pursuant to Section 15 of the Education Act of 1998. The enrolment policy in relation to the admission of children to Outreach Classes specified various requirements to be fulfilled in order to ensure that the school was the right placement for a particular child. The first of the requirements was assessment and approval from Beechpark

(a) (i) the child has a diagnosis of an Autism Spectrum Disorder (this diagnosis being made from a professionally recognised clinical and psychological assessment procedure). (ii) if the child presents with a general learning disability, it must fall within the mild range (this diagnosis must also be made from a professionally recognised clinical and psychological assessment procedure).”

The Principal concluded that the report did not recommend the boy for a placement in the Outreach Class, and that the boy did not reach the criteria for enrolment under the school’s enrolment policy.

The child was placed on a pre-enrolment list for the school’s mainstream infant classes for September 2005. A request was made by the parents of the child to defer the school place offered to him to September 2006. In June 2006, the parents contacted the school to request that he be transferred to a preenrolment list for the Outreach Class rather than the mainstream class.The School Principal advised the parents that the boy needed to satisfy the enrolment criteria for the Outreach Class. A meeting was held between the School Principal, the Chairperson of the Board of Management and an Education Welfare Officer. An up to date psychological report detailing the boy’s scores in all areas of development was requested. It was agreed that PAG E 1 0

Ultimately the school advised the parents that the boy would not be enrolled in the Outreach Class. The letter stated; “It is the decision of the Board of Management of Lucan Educate Together National School that we believe we cannot meet the educational requirements for your son as recommended in his psychological report. His diagnosis of ‘significant development delay’ and ‘significant learning disability’ is such that we believe our classes are not suitable for his educational needs.”

The school received notice of a Section 29 appeal by the parents of the boy. The parents included new assessments on the boy which had not been previously furnished to the school. The Special Educational Needs Organiser prepared a report for the hearing of the appeal.

SECTION 29 APPEAL COMMITTEE FINDINGS The Committee upheld the parents’ appeal against the schools decision to refuse enrolment to the boy in question. The decision of the Committee was as follows; Lucan Educate Together has the capacity in its Outreach Class to enrol this boy. This was established in the report of the Special Educational Needs Organiser and was accepted by the speakers on behalf of the school

in the course of the hearing.

The boy in question satisfied the main criteria for enrolment in the Outreach Class. The report by Professor Fitzgerald, 6th June 2006 states that he ‘meets the criteria for Autism with sub-threshold Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder DSM – (IV) and mild Learning Disability…’

“It is the view of the Committee that the inclusion in the school’s enrolment policy of the criterion that ‘if the child presents with a general learning disability, it must fall within the mild range’ is inappropriate in the context of recent legislation. Not withstanding this, two other reports indicate the boy is indeed functioning within the mild range. Accordingly he also satisfies this criterion”.

The Committee recommended that the boy be enrolled in an Outreach Class with the school when the school reopened in January 2008. In relation to the decision, it was agreed that capacity of the Outreach Class to enrol the boy was never an issue.

OTHER REPORTS CONSIDERED BY THE COURT The report of Ms Flanagan, Senior Clinical Psychologist, states as follows: “This pupil is a young man who currently presents as having an intellectual disability.

His adaptive skills fall within the mild range of Adaptive Functioning. In the light of his scores on the Connors Scale, the boy would benefit from referral to a psychiatrist.”

The report stated that Adaptive Functioning is a measurement of how effectively individuals cope with common life demands and how well they meet the standards of personal independence expected of them in their particular age group. It stated that overall the boy obtained a score which placed him in the mild range of Adaptive Functioning.The report did not state he had a mild learning disability.

A report of Pól Bond dated 8th October 2007 obtained by the parents diagnosed the boy as having significant developmental delay and significant learning needs.

A report of an assessment of 13th and 20th

February, 2007, by Ciara McCarthy, Clinical Psychologist of Lucan Child and Family Centre in consultation with Aisling Whelan, Senior Educational Psychologist, of Beechpark Services, diagnosed the boy as having significant development delay autism and a significant disability. A report of Catríona McClean of 9th October, 2007 found that the boy would benefit from a school environment where he would enhance his social skills and enjoy the company of other children. She said she believed that he would benefit socially from a suitable learning environment and learn to cooperate more freely and routinely.

The BoM stated that the findings of the Committee were flawed in conflating issues around intellectual disability and adaptive skills which were two different areas. She said that none of the reports provided a basis for the Committee concluding that the boy had a mild learning disability.

The Committee felt that the School’s Enrolment Policy did not respect the parental right of choice guaranteed by the Education Act BOARD OF MANAGEMENT RESPONSE The Chairperson of the BoM wrote to the parents requesting them to contact the Director of Services at Beechpark in order to request a letter of acceptance and advised the parents of the school’s need for written confirmation of a Beechpark Service Agreement to support the boy with the full range of clinical services that he required at the school. This letter was also copied by the parents to the DES on the 11th January, 2008. The DES wrote to the school stating that is was the school’s responsibility to apply for whatever resources were required to facilitate the boy’s enrolment in January 2008.

The BoM stated that Beechpark Services had confirmed to the school that they were not an appropriate service to meet the boy’s needs.

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The DES claimed that the school, through its enrolment policy, was not entitled to limit admissions to the Outreach Class to children on the autistic spectrum with a mild general learning disability. It stated that it was open to the Committee to conclude that a diagnosis of autism was the main criterion for enrolment in the Outreach Class. It was contended that the Committee was entitled to rely on the report of Prof. Fitzgerald and it was open to the Committee to find that the boy suffered from autism and mild general learning disability. It was stated that the Committee was entitled to uphold the appeal even if the boy was not suffering from a mild general learning disability, the boy was in the mild range. It was denied that the Committee was bound by the School’s Enrolment Policy. It was denied that the Committee failed to understand the difference between a mild general learning disability and a significant learning disability.

The Committee felt that the School’s Enrolment Policy did not respect the parental right of choice guaranteed by the Education Act, the object of the maximum accessibility under the Act; the requirement to ensure that the educational needs of students, including those with a disability or special educational needs, were provided for and the principle of equality.

JUDGEMENT Mr Justice O’ Keeffe referred to the recent Supreme Court Case of The Board of Management of St Molaga’s National School V Secretary General of the Department of Education & Others (November 2010). One of the key aspects examined in the case was the power of Section 29 Appeal Committees to alter the enrolment decision of Boards of Managements.

The Appeals process enables the Appeals Committee to have a full hearing on the matter and, if so determined, to replace its judgment on the matter for that of the BoM. The Committee has the power to make such recommendations as it considers appropriate.

Such a decision is anticipated as a possible outcome of an appeal by Section 29 itself, in the provisions enabling a Secretary General to require a BoM to remedy a situation in

accordance with the recommendation of an Appeal Committee. The Court further stated that the Appeals Committee is not limited to a review, for example, of the lawfulness or reasonableness of a decision of a BoM. Mr Justice O’ Keeffe found in favour of the school. While it was not unreasonable for the Committee to describe autism as the main criterion for enrolment, and there was no issue of capacity in the outreach class for the child.

Other aspects of the Committee’s decision were unreasonable and invalid, he found. The Committee’s conclusion that the child had a mild learning disability was unreasonable given the facts and evidence in the case.

He said the report relied on by the Committee at the appeal could not be read as establishing that the child suffered from a mild learning disability. The report referred to the child as having “adaptive skills” within the “mild range of adaptive functioning” relating to how well persons cope with common life demands. This was a different condition to a learning disability, he said. He also ruled as “invalid” the Committee’s conclusion that the enrolment policy criterion permitting only a mild learning disability for the outreach class was “inappropriate in the context of recent legislation”.

Section 29 requires an Appeals Committee to set out the reasons for its decision on an appeal, he said. The Committee’s conclusion that the

“mild” learning disability criterion was inappropriate given recent legislation was “vague and uncertain”, did not specify the legislation referred to and was invalid, he ruled.

He also said the enrolment policy was prepared by the school BoM in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Education Act. Finally, the reasons conclude that two of the reports indicate that the boy was indeed functioning within the mild range and it is stated that he also satisfies such criterion. Again, the decision does not state whose reports are relied on for this conclusion. If there is reliance on the report of Prof. Fitzgerald or Ms Flanagan, this again is unsupported by their reports. Accordingly, this further reason should be struck down as unreasonable and unsupported by evidence.

Section 29 requires an Appeals Committee to set out the reasons for its decision on an appeal, he said.

OBSERVATION This case vindicates the decision of the Board of Management of Lucan Educate Together to refuse admission of the pupil at the centre of this case. The School Principal’s interpretation of no fewer than 5 professional reports was that the boy did not meet the criteria for enrolment

in the Outreach Unit. The Principal and her BoM were satisfied that the boy presented with significant development delay and significant learning disability. The pupil did not present within the mild range of general learning disability. The Section 29 Committee’s interpretation of the reports was different.They focused mainly on the report of Professor Fitzgerald.

Mr Justice O’ Keefe held that the findings of the Committee were flawed in its interpretation of issues around intellectual disability and adaptive skills, which were two different areas. The Committee’s conclusion that the boy had a mild learning disability was unreasonable, given the facts and evidence in the case. The judge also rejected the Committee’s assertion that the school’s enrolment policy was “invalid” in permitting only a mild learning disability for the Outreach Class as “inappropriate in the context of recent legislation”. The Section 29 Committee was vague and uncertain in making this point, and should have spelled out exactly what legislation they were highlighting.

A BoM decision to refuse admission of a pupil to a school is a serious one which ultimately could come under the scrutiny of a Section 29 Appeals Committee, and the High Court. The decision of the BoM of Lucan Educate Together has been vindicated in this judgement

by Mr Justice O’ Keefe.

Welcome to…

English Literacy Programme

…coming in Spring 2011 !

IPPN-HPA-Wonderland.indd 1

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04/02/2011 12:23:53

IPPN Annual Principals’

CONFERENCE

2011

primary

Gala Dinner and Refreshements Sponsor

President’s Reception Sponsor

Conference Pack Sponsor

Gala Dinner Wine Sponsor

Conference Publication Sponsor

We would also like to thank the following companies for their kind contributions:

FAVOURITE EXHIBITOR: Congratulations to Carambola Kidz who you voted your Favourite Exhibitor at this years Education Expo.

IPPN CONFERENCE PASSPORT GIVEAWAY We would like to thank the following contributing companies for the fantastic prizes they provided for our Passport Prize Giveaway this year:

Seán McCarthy, Scoil Barra Naofa, Monkstown, Co. Cork is presented with his Interactive Whiteboard System compliments of IMEX Interactive by John Williams from the conference venue committee and MC for the evening.

Mary Conroy from St. Mary’s Special School, Oldcourt, Rochestown, Cork receives her prize of an Apple iPad from Paddy Tamplin of Schools Websites.

Ciaran Whelan and Anthony Shannon of Allianz present Mags Coffey from Scoil Mharcuis, An Gleann, Co. Cork with her Allianz sponsored prize of tickets and accommodation to this year’s All Ireland hurling or football final.

Christine Fitzsimons, Scoil Maria Assumpta, Ballyphehane, Cork, winner of a Netbook compliments of The Educational Company of Ireland, being presented with her prize by John Williams.

Additional prize winner (not pictured): Michael O’Sullivan from Scoil Mhuire gan Smál, Coars, Cahirciveen, Co. Kerry was the winner of the ScoilTel sponsored prize of a trip for two to the 5* Monart Destination Spa.

Finally IPPN would like to thank our Education Expo exhibitors this year for their support in helping deliver our annual conference and contributing to its success.

Draft Plan to Improve Literacy and Numeracy in Schools A summary of the speech delivered by DES Secretary General, Brigid McManus, at Conference 2011

I am heartened that, notwithstanding the economic environment, IPPN has chosen the positive theme “Our Children – Our Future” for this year’s conference. It is more important than ever that, in these times of economic and financial difficulty, our focus remains on our shared objective of securing that future. Our common objective of ensuring the highest quality educational outcomes for our children is key to that future. The quality of your work as school Principals has a key impact on the educational outcomes in your individual schools.While we can be proud of many of our educational achievements, we cannot be complacent. As you all know our reading and mathematics results in the international PISA tests announced last month were very disappointing. Our national assessments do not show the same deterioration but they indicate plenty of scope for improvement. We need to make sure that within the resources we have available that we are providing the best possible opportunities for young people in school to learn the fundamental skills that they will need in the years ahead.

leadership, use of data, curriculum and assessment, targeting specific at- risk groups and supporting parents.

The Draft Plan, launched last November by the Tánaiste, sets out realistic but ambitious targets to ensure that all students achieve the highest standards of which they are capable in literacy and numeracy.

Targeting and Monitoring The national targets commit us to increasing the percentage of children in the top performing levels of the national assessments in reading and mathematics by at least 5% and to decrease the numbers of students in the lowest performing levels by at least a similar amount by 2020. Each school will set targets and monitor progress in achieving its own targets in literacy and numeracy – in the way that some DEIS schools are already setting targets and working successfully towards better learning outcomes for their children.

Draft National Plan to Improve Literacy and Numeracy in Schools The Draft Plan, launched last November by the Tánaiste, sets out realistic but ambitious targets to ensure that all students achieve the highest standards of which they are capable in literacy and numeracy. It proposes a range of actions across all levels of education from early childhood through primary and post primary and covering different elements - teacher education, practice in schools, school

Teacher Education A critical element in the effectiveness of our education system generally and in relation to literacy and numeracy is the area of initial and ongoing teacher education. The Teaching Council is already active in defining its policy position on teacher education as a continuum and in mapping out the framework within which programmes of initial teacher education will be delivered in the future. We need to reconfigure the content of initial teacher

However, it is a draft plan. It must be informed by practice and experience on the ground.

Principals with their overview of practice in schools are especially well placed to comment on what is right in the Plan; what could be better and what may be missing. Your input is crucial and I would encourage you to get actively involved in the consultation process.

Strong leadership by Principals is essential to ensure that schools look critically at their own work, identify how improvements can be made, implement actions that can make a difference for learners and monitor student outcomes effectively. The Draft Plan specifically acknowledges the role of the IPPN in supporting and driving change and proposes that the organisation should work with the Department’s support services to help Principals to implement robust school selfevaluation, focussing, in particular, on improvements in literacy and numeracy.

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education to focus on knowledge and skills about literacy and numeracy as well as ensuring these are a key part of induction programmes and continuous professional development.

Curriculum A further key element of the draft Plan is getting the curriculum right at each stage of the child’s development.We have to ensure that children experience a seamless development of their literacy and numeracy skills from early childhood to the end of compulsory education. This will mean significant changes to the infant curriculum and redeveloping the primary school language curriculum to give teachers a clearer sense of what children should learn and be able to do at each stage of their education. It will also require us to look at prescribing more time for literacy and numeracy and therefore less time (and less curricular content) for other areas.

A further key element of the draft Plan is getting the curriculum right at each stage of the child’s development.

Public Finance The rapid deterioration in the public finances in recent years brings huge challenges to all of us involved in public service. I appreciate that tightening resources is making your role as school leaders even more challenging and you are understandably concerned about the impact for your schools and pupils. However, the scale of the current public finance problem cannot be overstated. Education has been sheltered much more than other areas of public spending but, given the enormity of the current difficulties, the reality is that no area of public spending can be spared. The actions set out in the National Recovery Plan in respect of the education sector, while difficult and challenging, cannot be avoided.

Croke Park Agreement The Croke Park Agreement has as a core

objective the need to ensure that the Irish public service continues its contribution to the return of economic growth and prosperity to Ireland, while delivering excellence in service to the Irish people. In keeping with this core objective and given the vital importance of education to our society, the Agreement provides that teachers will continue to cooperate with the implementation of change and will contribute to the realisation of national educational policies and objectives. [...] An important feature of the Croke Park Agreement is the provision of an additional hour per week by teachers.

Discussions have concluded between the relevant partners at primary level with a view to putting in place a protocol for the use of this additional hour by schools and a Circular on the implementation of the Agreement issued to schools earlier this week.

The rapid deterioration in the public finances in recent years brings huge challenges to all of us involved in public service Under the terms of the agreement, school management is empowered to set out what it wants to achieve with this additional resource.

The additional hour is focused on minimising encroachment on tuition time. In the future, activities such as school planning, parent teacher

meetings and in-service training can take place outside of normal school hours. This measure should eliminate school closure which currently occurs for these activities and thereby increase actual tuition time for pupils and remove the burden from parents to make alternative arrangements to deal with these closures. I would urge school Boards of Management and Principals to make sure this extra time is focussed on activities that deliver improved educational outcomes. Where the additional time is not fully utilised for activities such as school planning, or where the school identifies it as a priority need, the additional hour can be used for supervision before and after school and this will now give schools an important additional resource to use in managing this situation. The Croke Park Agreement also allows for greatly improved flexibility in the reassignment of duties to post of responsibility holders. This increased flexibility will be an essential element of enabling schools to function at a time when the numbers of posts of responsibility are being reduced.

The reality is that the growth in numbers over the years has been immense by any standards.

There were some 300 SNAs in the system in 1998. The employment of over 10,500 today represents a staggering level of increased investment. Expenditure on SNAs increased by 922% between 2001 and 2009. Of course the application of a cap will not be without difficulties both at school level and at national level. It is for this reason that the Department

Are you planning to retire in 2011?

If you have made the decision to retire in the coming weeks or months of 2011 we wish you every happiness and fulfilment in the future.

IPPN acknowledges the importance of providing every possible support for Newly Appointed Principals and aims to contact them as soon as they are appointed. However, the greatest challenge we face is to find out the names of these Newly Appointed Principals as early as possible.

To assist the work being done in the IPPN Support Office could you please let us know of your impending retirement and also the name of the Newly Appointed Principal as soon as that decision has been made? This would be of enormous help to us and I know would be very much appreciated by the Newly Appointed Principal.

Any information that you can provide can be emailed or mailed to Jackie at the IPPN Support Office support3@ippn.ie PAG E 1 5

and the NCSE will be consulting with school management bodies to explore how best to operate the cap and best meet the needs of pupils. Even allowing for increased pupil numbers in the coming years the ratio of SNAs to pupils will still be better than it was in the 2005/2006 period. We had no crisis then and we should not have one now.What we do need is good and prioritised deployment of SNAs at national and school level with a focus on outcomes for children and in particular on the creation of independence.

Even allowing for increased pupil numbers in the coming years the ratio of SNAs to pupils will still be better than it was in the 2005/2006 period.

Other topics covered in the Secretary General’s address included: ● Procurement ● Capital Programme ● ICT in Schools Programme ● Work Placement Programme (WPP) ● Adverse weather conditions ● Child Protection Guidelines.

Full speech text available to view or download at www.ippn.ie in the IPPN Annual Principals Conference 2011 webpage within the Events section.

Working for Learners A summary of the speech delivered by Dr Harold Hislop, Chief Inspector, Department of Education & Skills at IPPN Conference 2011

The full title of the Chief Inspector’s input was ‘Working for Learners – Improving Quality Assurance to improve learning in schools’. Dr Hislop opened his speech by commenting on his own background as a primary school Teaching Principal and the support he received at the time by the newly-formed IPPN. The following are some of the key points made.

THE ROLE OF THE INSPECTORATE The Inspectorate works to improve the quality of learning for children and young people in schools. It’s an aim which is easy to say but very challenging to realise. It’s also an aim that we share with Principals and others in the educational system. The Inspectorate’s unique contribution is that we can provide an external perspective to each school community about the quality of its teaching, learning, leadership and management.

REVIEWING AND IMPROVING THE WORK OF THE INSPECTORATE Like schools, the Inspectorate needs to be constantly asking itself if we can improve the way we carry out our evaluation and advisory work.

1. Revising whole-school evaluation • Our new model enables us to carry out thorough evaluations of whole-school practice while at the same time minimising disruption to the work of schools.

• Largely because of the comments you made to us, we now ask Principals to complete a much shortened school information form, we request only a minimum of documentation and source much more of our data within the Department. In fact, we often have to discourage Principals from attempting to give us too much paperwork!

• We seek to get at the authentic voice of parents and pupils through using parental and pupil questionnaires to enrich our evidence base. We are developing a similar questionnaire for teachers in our new post-primary WSEs

and I see no reason why we couldn’t use this approach at primary level in due course.

• We are producing shorter and clearer reports so that our external review of the school has the potential to have a much greater and more immediate impact on improving the work of the school.

2. Incidental inspections • These inspections provide important and authentic opportunities to evaluate the work of schools and teachers. They give us excellent information on a sampling basis about certain aspects of the work of schools, including data on the quality of lessons. Because we now collect and analyse this information much more effectively, incidental inspections enable us to fulfil our quality assurance role in an efficient and effective way • Of even greater importance for us, however, is the opportunity that incidental inspections provide to interact with, learn from, and advise Principals. The incidental inspection visits take place without the formality associated with WSE. We set aside time at the end of each incidental inspection to provide feedback to the Principal.We find that in many cases inspectors and Principals can have a really fruitful discussion about teaching and learning in the school on these occasions.

Inspectors can come to understand better the challenges and issues affecting you and your school, and they in turn are ready to provide advice and insights.

3. WSE for smaller schools • We believe that we need to develop a third inspection model somewhere between the new form of WSE and the incidental inspection visits.We need this because we feel that while the current model of WSE works well in larger

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schools, it is less well-suited to smaller one-, two- and three-teacher schools.

4. Probationary teachers • In a context where the teaching profession is gaining greater autonomy for standards of pre-service education, where legislation provides clearly that the profession should control entry to its membership, where a national induction programme is now in place for newly qualified teachers at both levels, and where employment law sees a clear distinction between induction and probation for employment, it is not a sensible or appropriate use of Inspectorate resources to carry out traditional probationary inspections in primary schools.

• The traditional probationary inspection process tended to undermine the critical role that Principals must play in leading and determining the quality of learning in their schools.

• The Tánaiste decided that it was more appropriate that a mature and responsible teaching profession should act as the gate-keeper for its own membership, as other professionals do in Ireland and as Principals do in most developed countries.

• The Inspectorate has recognised that transitional arrangements were necessary of course, and we will continue to work closely with the Teaching Council until Principals and the teaching profession takes over full responsibility for the registration, induction and probation of teachers in September 2012.

5. Evaluations that inform policy development • A further development has been to improve the way that we feed into policy review and development. Most recently, we have carried out a new

form of evaluation to examine how well DEIS was working in primary schools.

• By working from the basis of the school’s own planning, targeting, implementation and monitoring, we understood more clearly the school’s context and the degree to which the school had taken seriously the need to identify and act to improve learning in a focused way.

6. School self-evaluation • The activity that we call school planning or school self-review needs to focus much more closely on securing actual improvements in the learning and achievement of pupils. School planning

or school review that fails to improve teaching and learning is a wasted opportunity.

• If you only take one thought from this talk, can I suggest that it be a resolution to lead your staff and school community in a process of honest, critical selfreview? If you accept this challenge, I think you need to ask questions such as ‘How effective is our teaching and the learning of our pupils?’ and ‘Are the learning outcomes of our pupils improving?’

• I would urge school Principals and boards to use the additional time now made available under the Croke Park

agreement to further this type of work – work which can have a lasting impact on teaching and learning in the school. […] We believe that our external evaluation work should complement this sort of improvement agenda in schools.

The Chief Inspector finished with an alternative to the Christa McAuliffe quote ‘I touch the future – I teach’ - ‘Principals lead teachers. They hold the future of generations in their hands.’

Full speech text available to view or download at www.ippn.ie in the IPPN Annual Principals Conference 2011 webpage within the Events section.

The Tiger’s Child

By Damian White, penned during Conference 2011 as a reflection of the event In the wake of the tiger we gathered once more Political turmoil much to the fore Last year a Ferrari adorned the main door This year a Kadett, go faster stripes galore The Conference each year has that special buzz It gives us a lift like nothing else does I stood back this year to marvel at all The thousand plus leaders at the great gala ball Men discussing the size of their school Women explaining the offside rule A group animated, discussing with fury Education for Dowd? Or will it be Ruairí?

Principals who’ve made an early start Travelling from Beara or Carraigairt Old college friends with a solid high five Recall past glories, celebrate being alive Principals who teach each day with success Head for the bar for a liquid de-stress Principals thinking of stepping down Afraid that their lump sum will not be around Those who love notaí, those who do none Through IPPN have come here as one Drivetime’s Olivia adorned the event Conducted proceedings in the old Galway Tent Her gentle reminders made Hargreaves go red Who knows what would happen behind the bike shed King Harold was forthright, sure footed and clear He wants us probating by early next year In pantomime mode he said with a shrill To groaning and hissing – Oh yes you will!

Pasi Sahlberg outlined with a satisfied grin How good it was to be a flying Finn His slides of phone throwing and air guitar numbers Just doesn’t compare to frog swallowing in Ballycumber He showed us pictures of Finns of great fame He forgot Olli Rehn – we all know his name But what made the Finns so terribly smart?

Dropping school inspectors was not a bad start Brigid was stoic and deviate she won’t And Harold the villain said ‘Oh no you don’t!’

President Pat is Wexford and proud Said sacking SNAs should not be allowed Like JFK – Wexford roots and all There’s a lot of activity behind the grassy knoll Dear Angela conducted the event from the front Support staff concluding a busy old month Responding so soundly to the kind and the shirty And our baby Jennifer hit the big round thirty World President Virginia has sure made her mark An early contender for Phoenix Park Seán Cottrell covered issues far and wide The Minister’s horse just wasn’t outside A wonderful speech hit all the right issues And his Cabinet staff had us reaching for tissues The National Director had his homework done A real feel good Friday – we applauded as one A man of steel and courage to fight Always and ever – ninety nine percent right Consummate John led the great Gala Ball The wonderful Kenneally – inspiration to all Niamh Brennan was key on organisation Wants good active Boards, who all know their station Damien Mulley said Twitter was much over hyped Dan Boyle’s favourite plaything – instantly wiped Next President Gerry, Louth’s next star to shine That’s Murphy not Adams who’ll cross the white line Next year our targets will surely be met A Louth man would never throw a ball in the net Yes ten years a-growing – we’ve travelled afar In less than an hour we’ll be back in the car Refreshed and refocused and up for the fight For the children of Ireland – to do what is right Our Children – Our Future, the jewels in our crown Our mission is simple – we will not let them down.

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‘The future ain’t what it used to be’ A summary of the speech delivered by IPPN President, Pat Goff, at Conference 2011

Education Cutbacks The latest round will most affect disadvantaged schools and their communities, kicking out the props and collapsing the scaffolding supporting them. 700 Primary teachers, including RTTs, Visiting Teachers for Travellers and DEIS Rural Coordinators, are being taken out of the system.

English Language Support Teachers - who knows? This shows very little understanding of the role that schools play in counteracting disadvantage. Let’s hope our children will be given the priority they deserve by the new government.We don’t want endless rhetoric.We don’t want empty promises. We don’t want the education of our children to be a pawn on any political chessboard. ‘Our Children, Our Future’ is the carefully chosen theme of this conference.

We must invest in our children. After all, education is just as much a social as an economic need.

The cap on the number of SNAs will have an enormous impact on our schools. The care needs of the child with Special Needs have not changed. The supports needed to include that child in the class have not changed. The parents rightfully expect that their child will be supported and included in a mainstream class.

The school has kept its part of the bargain. Sadly, government has not. This child has a right to be included with her peers.

It is tough when your school loses resources.The resources of special schools and special classes are being brought back to the mid nineties – the time of the SERC report. In our own school, we’ve had the pain of telling teachers and SNAs their jobs are gone, and telling the parents the support level for their child is greatly reduced. I know full well the struggle you are going through trying to maintain a credible service.

Tá na Gaelscoileanna ag fulaingt na gearrtha siar chomh maith. Tuigimíd an dúshlán atá ag príomhoidí ins na scoileanna sin.

Literacy and Numeracy The PISA results show Ireland has gone from near the top of the rankings for literacy and numeracy to barely average. As educators, this is deeply concerning. […] The decline in standards is not solely the result of the arrival of the New

Irish. Did the introduction of the Revised Curriculum impinge on standards of literacy and numeracy? In our consultation survey, 8 out of 10 of you tell us that curriculum overload is a significant factor. 3 out of 4 of you want time to be taken from other subjects to further support literacy and numeracy. There is a need for some curriculum reform.Would it be better to go back to basics and focus every teacher in every school on literacy and numeracy? To achieve this, we would need to have far greater flexibility in how we deploy teachers.

If I had the choice to redeploy some support teachers as extra class teachers, I’d love to see the standardized test results in those classes. Many schools might not have the space to deploy teachers in this way, but at least, there should be choice.There should be far greater trust placed in the school to make decisions in the best interests of the children.

Inspectorate Down through the years, Principals have valued the good working relationships most of them have with their Inspector.We were pleased to see that many of the issues we raised with the Inspectorate were taken on board in the redesign of WSE and the reduction of documentation required. However, […] Principals want to see much greater consistency in the way Inspectors interact with Principals and teachers and the information they require. In relation to the probation of Newly Qualified Teachers, Principals want to play their part but 98% of them want the Inspectorate to retain ultimate responsibility for probation.Whether it rests with the Teaching Council or the Inspectorate, Principals cannot accept this responsibility and increased workload. This seriously affects our terms and conditions of employment and must be dealt with through the appropriate channels, even if this means amending the legislation.

Enough should mean enough.

Children First It’s reassuring that schools are compliant with the key requirements of child protection procedures.

However, one in five Principals has not yet received any formal training in their role as Designated Liaison Person. This figure rises to one in three of Deputy DLPs who need training.

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This is an area that needs to be addressed urgently.

Teacher Training As practitioners we know that a 1st class honours degree does not always result in higher teacher competence in the classroom. IPPN welcomes the introduction of the 4th year in the B. Ed programme provided it is not more of the same.

The focus must be on the core competencies of teaching literacy and numeracy and far better preparation for classroom management skills and the ability to communicate with parents.This can only be done through a new model of teacher placement in schools. An increasing number of our new teachers are now being trained online, in private institutions or overseas. This raises genuine questions as to uniformity of standards.

IPPN In the space of the last three years 30% of you are new to the challenging and rewarding role of Principal. If I have one wish for the coming year, it is that all Principals would fully avail of the opportunities to participate in their local Principals’ support group and in their IPPN County Network. This form of peer support is recognised as one of, if not the best, coping strategies for people in challenging roles.

Conclusion We are going through tough times and the cutbacks are impacting heavily both personally and professionally. As they say down our way – ‘the future ain’t what it used to be’. The banks are broke, the government is broke, but our spirit is not ‘broke’ and certainly not our sense of hope.

Our hope is that the children we serve, especially those that are disadvantaged, will be a priority for the new minister and the new government.

Likewise we must prioritise. The pride we have as Principals, and in our work, will not allow us to be satisfied with just being average in literacy and numeracy.There is a saying that “reputation is for now, but character is forever”. Our reputation has taken a hit, now is the time to stand up and be counted and show our true character.We can do no less for our children, who are our future.

Full speech text available to view or download at www.ippn.ie in the IPPN Annual Principals Conference 2011 webpage within the Events section.

Sharpening Up Our Act

By Professor Andy Hargreaves, keynote speaker at the IPPN Principals’ Conference A classic episode of the Simpsons features Krusty the Clown in a comedy competition.The other acts are new and “alternative”. By comparison, Krusty’s jaded repertoire is an embarrassment. A string of “I say, I say, I say!” jokes is received in stony silence. Caricatures of Chinamen are met with moans of disapproval. And Krusty’s final desperate act of flipping up the dickie on his shirt prompts only howls of derision. Backstage, Krusty collapses in tears. “All these years when I’ve been cashing in”, he says, “I should have been sharpening up my act”!

The country was young, successful and optimistic.

What could possibly go wrong?

Ireland has become the Krusty the Clown of economic and educational globalization.

A number of years ago, I addressed an influential steering group of representatives of church, state and business on the future of educational change in Ireland.The Celtic Tiger was roaring. Business had been attracted by the 20% corporate tax rate, European Union subsidies and a ready-made workforce that was young, highly educated, English-speaking – and cheap. Dublin had the highest property values in Europe. In education, Ireland was one of the top performers on the international PISA tables of pupil achievement.

The country was young, successful and optimistic. What could possibly go wrong?

So I did not receive rapturous applause when I drew attention to a more sobering prospect.

Ireland’s economy and educational system, I warned, were successful but unsustainable. Low taxes were limiting the opportunities for reinvestment in educational innovation and university research. The Government’s strategy was reactive to teacher union demands rather than proactive about a future-oriented reform agenda. It only met the standard of other countries on special education inclusion after a protracted battle in the courts. Eventually, I predicted, the workforce would age, salaries would rise and the companies attracted by

Ireland’s fair-weather tax breaks would migrate to Eastern Europe, where workers’ motivation was just as strong but the wages would be cheaper. What would the Irish do then?

Like adolescents who have been reminded about their eventual mortality, the audience listened to me with polite indifference. After all, as Machiavelli advised us, in fair weather, people do not consider the possibility of a tempest. And what a tempest Ireland has become. Pensions cut by 7%, benefits slashed, unemployment up to 13%, an exodus of 1000 people a month, and a fall down to the mediocre middle levels of PISA achievement – this is Ireland today. And while the wages and jobs of unionised teachers might have been protected, education has not been spared from the axe. Support and resource positions that give assistance to struggling students are all easy targets.

It’s when your back is against the wall that you most need to reinvest in your future. Ask the poor immigrant parents who sacrifice everything to provide opportunities for their children and their future.

It doesn’t have to be this way. In England, schools are being protected from public sector cutbacks that have reached levels of 40%. The US’s Race to the Top reform strategy is actually investing more resources in education as a way to escape from the slump.

It’s when your back is against the wall that you most need to reinvest in your future. Ask the poor immigrant parents who sacrifice everything to provide opportunities for their children and their future. Look at the top European performer on PISA – Finland – that rebounded from a 19% unemployment rate after the collapse of its Russian market in 1992 by making massive investments in educational PAG E 1 9

innovation and creativity to become the world’s most successful knowledge economy. Go to another top performer – Alberta, Canada where proceeds of the province’s oil boom (2% of the education budget) have been reinvested in a ten year programme of school-designed innovations for 90% of the schools. Or consider top-three PISA performer, Singapore, where the collapse of its electronics industry in the 1990s led it to develop a new vision around the idea of “Thinking Schools, Learning Nation” with a slimmed-down curriculum so that schools could “Teach Less, Learn More”.

Education is not an unaffordable expense but an indispensable answer.

It is the way to reinvent as well as reinvest in the future.

Education is not an unaffordable expense but an indispensable answer. It is the way to reinvent as well as reinvest in the future. On PISA, high performing systems have well-supported (and not merely well-paid) teachers. Innovation is an essential investment, not an indulgent frill.

Proper support for special education students shortens the long tail of underachievement.The curriculum is clear in its guidelines but prudent in its coverage – leaving room for innovation and creativity. And just as the country needs well-prepared leaders, so do the schools.

Ireland has had to change by default. Now it must change by design. Education must be the answer.This country has finally stopped cashing in. It is time to sharpen up its act.

Andy Hargreaves is the Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education at Boston College. His book on The Fourth Way is published by Corwin Press.

Video footage of Andy’s speech and presentation materials are available to view or download at www.ippn.ie in the IPPN Annual Principals Conference 2011 webpage within the Events section.

To Enrol or not to Enrol Same old question

By Damian White, Leadership+ Editor and Principal, Scoil Shinchill, Killeigh, Co. Offaly I can’t always explain what goes on in my head but a weird moment last week took some beating. Looking at a box of 24 beer bottles, whose longevity was one of the benefits of the Christmas weather and consequent decrease in visitors, I thought of the impending school enrolment process. No, it’s not that excessive numbers in both cases make me slightly unstable, though therein lies a grain of truth.

The six rows of 4 neatly arranged ‘golden children’, all stamped with the same date, appealed to my perverse sense of order and I briefly wished that enrolment could be so straight-forward. And that children could be piled in neat collections of 24. It occurred to me that a similar thought occurred to an Aryian doctor in Brazil many years ago, which disturbed me enough to pick the analogy.

If you are in a developing school, do you have the physical space to grow? If you grow from, say a 4 to 5 teacher school or 8 to 9 teachers, where do you place the new staff member to greatest effect?

The truth is, children in a school’s catchment area aren’t born to a pattern. There is no agreement between parents as to whose turn it is to have a child. Numbers presenting each year for enrolment vary, leading to a proverbial snakes and ladders game each year for Principals as we attempt to shoehorn as many applicants as possible into the school without upsetting parents, children, staff and the general equilibrium.

Every school has its enrolment issue. When is the school full? Is it when you have 27 pupils multiplied by the number of mainstream teachers? Is it when you are one pupil short of the next teacher appointment, as some suggest?

If you take in more than 27 pupils per teacher, are you opening flood gates. If you have the

numbers for a staff increase under Developing Schools Status, can the sand shift in the budget and push the necessary figure for growth beyond your reach as happened to our school some years ago? If you are in a developing school, do you have the physical space to grow?

If you grow from, say a 4 to 5 teacher school or 8 to 9 teachers, where do you place the new staff member to greatest effect? If your classrooms vary in size, do you switch things around to assign the biggest room to the largest class? These questions can only be answered by the individual Principal who should be giving it some thought from February onwards.

Sitting with another Principal and reviewing the figures can help both Principals to solve their own school’s problems.

Enrolment Policies have also been throwing up some questions recently.

Can you any longer prioritise places for siblings of current pupils or children of staff without the potential for a court challenge?

Enrolment Policies have also been throwing up some questions recently. Can you any longer prioritise places for siblings of current pupils or children of staff without the potential for a court challenge? Schools can only recommend on age below which a pupil will not be accepted on roll. If a child is 4 by September 30th they can make a case for inclusion, in spite of the school’s advice to wait another year.

For some schools, the struggle will be to maintain numbers, due to population decline in an area, emigration or a maturing populace in a housing development. However, all the indications are that population growth will affect the majority of schools over the coming years.

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Will the Principal now give as much time to the prospective parents who smugly say ‘Well, sell your school to us Mr or Ms Principal’.

Instead of lashing out the platitudes like Principal can afford a little brashness on their own part, ‘How much are you willing to pay for it?’ For €2 million, we’ll throw in the shed’. ‘Good road frontage and space for a pony’. ‘I’ll sell if you keep on the loyal staff ’.

For some schools, the struggle will be to maintain numbers, due to population decline in an area, emigration or a maturing populace in a housing development.

It is all reminiscent of a true story from a county close to my heart a number of years ago.

The story of a posh lady doing the rounds, checking out all local schools in a rural area before deciding which establishment to honour with little Tarquin Brown Thomas Lunch box, reached our hero, a thoughtful Principal who has seen it all before. Spotting a big shiny car pulling in to the school one afternoon, he quickly made sure the children had work to do before putting his feet on the desk and picking up an old newspaper. The anticipated knock came on the door, ‘Come in’ he shouted. ‘I’d like to discuss your school as we try to reach a decision on where to send out little darling’ she purred. Unabashed, the Principal flicked over the page of his newspaper. ‘Can you call at a more appropriate time?’ he grumbled. ‘Close that door behind ye’. He never did figure out where Mummy eventually settled upon!

That reminds me – I’ve a box of beer bottles whose best before dates are fast approaching.

Our hero could help me solve that problem. I must give him a call, just for old time’s sake.

Lessons from Finland: How Finland survived the financial crisis and built an inclusive, high-performing education system

By Dr Pasi Sahlberg, Centre for International Mobility (CIMO), Ministry of Education, Finland The global economic downturn is forcing many education systems to pull back their reform plans and even cut current operations.

At the same time, policy-makers stress that human capital is a long-term investment and a necessary condition of success in enhancing economic competitiveness and the overall prosperity of nations. The financial crisis that started in 2008 is now sweeping across Europe, affecting funding of education and cutting salaries of education personnel. The UK, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland, together with the entire Eastern European Union, are suffering from the consequences of the poor financial situation.

This raises a question: How has Finland been able to build a world-class inclusive and totally publicly-funded education system when it has been shaken by the worst economic crisis since the 1930s? Opening the door to global financial markets in the 1980s, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 and the pricing bubble in the early 1990s brought Finland close to economic breakdown and financial bankruptcy. Unemployment climbed from 3% to 18% in two years, GDP dropped 13% at the same time and public spending came close to 70% of the overall State budget. Yet the education system remained unaffected.

The cure that the Finns chose included radical increases in taxation, a reduction of the public sector and investment in research and development.

The cure that the Finns chose included radical increases in taxation, a reduction of the public sector and investment in research and development. Finland was in the midst of a radical decentralization of its public administration when the economic crisis arrived.There was also the emerging corporate giant Nokia that was in an exceptionally fast

growth curve at that time. The following describes the key factors that helped Finland, not only to save its public education system, but to accelerate its transformation and improvement: (1) decentralization that gave schools and municipalities the power to decide how to adjust to a tighter fiscal situation; (2) strategic focus on research and innovation that also helped policy-makers to secure the right conditions to develop teaching in schools (not only mathematics and science); and (3) support to maintain a very high level of activity in youth groups, to which more than half of all Finns aged 10 to 29 belonged.

Let’s take a closer look at the policies and practices that have driven Finnish education reform since the 1980s. Many governments are taking great note of the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results that were released last December but are rather selective on their reporting of the education systems that are doing well in PISA. Finland has been one of the few consistently highperforming education systems in the ten-year history of PISA. Interestingly, Finland has not employed any of the market-based educational reform ideas in the way that they have been accepted in many other nations, the United States and England among them. It implies that a good educational system can be created using alternative policies orthogonal to those commonly found and promoted in global

education policy markets.

By contrast, a typical feature of teaching and learning in Finland is high confidence in teachers and principals as respected professionals. Another feature involves encouraging teachers and students to try new ideas and approaches rather than teaching them to master fixed attainment targets. This makes the school a creative and inspiring place for students and teachers.What is important is that today’s Finnish education policies are the result of three decades of systematic, mostly intentional, development that has created a culture of diversity, trust, and respect within Finnish society in general, and within its education system in particular. The result is a cocktail of good ideas from other countries and smart practices from the tradition of teaching and learning in Finland.

The Finnish Way of educational change is interesting because it captures the story of an education system that has traversed from being barely mediocre in international standards in the 1980s to a celebrated model two decades later. A significant period of building this world-class education system occurred during a serious economic crisis. Although Finland is not included in the latest McKinsey report in the sample of ‘sustained improvers’, it is referred to as the only one to have an “excellent” education system. What distinguishes Finland from other nations is that this high level of educational performance has occurred simultaneously in student learning and systemwide equity in education.

GLOBAL MOVEMENT VS. THE FINNISH WAY Global educational reform movement (germ)

The Finnish Way

Literacy and numeracy Standardization Test-based accountability Market-based management Data and control

Broad and creative learning Customization Professional responsibility Educational leadership Collaboration and trust

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Olivia O’Leary ‘This Gift of Words’ Personal Reflections

It was a windy July day in West Cork and I’d fallen in love....... with a boat.

It was my cousin’s Drascombe Lugger and he was rightly proud of it. And as we sailed around Baltimore Bay, I wondered why it was that this boat, above all others, had taken my fancy?Was it the lovely peppermint green colour? Was it the dramatic ox blood sails? No, it was something else, something about the way it sat on the waves: the lovely two-masted balance of it.

And then I remembered falling in love before, with the same two masted shape. It was on a flash card pinned up on the cófra in Mrs. Silke’s junior room in Borris National School. The cófra was painted in that ubiquitous brown paint with the cream grain in it that you saw everywhere in the 50s- just like the counter in Mr. Rice’s shop across the road from our house.

If I looked out the window from my schoolroom I could see Mr. Rice outside his shop where I bought thrupenny ice creams and where sometimes he gave me extra scrapings he called butter and jam.

young. And I envy you that. And I admire you for the fact that no matter what happens in those children’s lives - grief, parental strife, illness or the threatening noises off - stage of economic collapse, unemployment, house repossession, or even emigration - you provide stability, order, a focus on that child’s development and potential. You provide a sense of security and continuity not only for the child but for the community. And I know that most of you are committed to the sort of inspirational educational mission Andy Hargreaves spoke of yesterday: ‘to make a child the best they can be for themselves, their community and the world’.

So go polish your wands, you wizards, and weave your magic for those children. Be proud and positive and know that we, who from your classrooms learned to like the world and to sail its seas in our two masted wordboats, salute you, and are grateful that for all our lives we are made happier and more powerful by the spell you cast over us, like that in Mrs. Silke’s junior room all those years ago.

And then I looked back up at the card pinned to the cófra and at the written shape on it and at that very instant I realised that I could read it, that with its two tall mast letters and its two short ones, it spelt l-i-k-e, like.

I like ice-cream, I thought. And I like Mr. Rice.

That was the start of a great romance with words, and how they sail across the front page of a newspaper, or bob along to the end of a line of poetry, or electrify an otherwise boring political speech. Like was a great word to start with and because I’d been given this new gift of words, I liked school and I liked teachers who had shared this magic with me. I’ve never forgotten that our great poet, Seamus Heaney, knew how powerful you were which is why he chose in his earlier years as a poet, abandoning Queens, not to ope for the ivoery tower university world in Dublin, but to lecture instead in Carysfort Training College. He said he wanted to be teaching the teachers who would first introduce children to the magic of words,and to poetry.

These last few days, I’ve listened as you’ve talked about how best to spread this magic. And I’ve sat on the sidelines and envied you because you do the most romantic job in the world, giving children the wordboats which will help them sail out into that blue yonder. I know there are arguments as to how it’s done. Do you focus specifically on literacy and numeracy and what do you lose if you do? Do tests take into account the fact that some children will come around to literacy by the scenic route? Are there other literacies and numeracies which must not be lost sight of - reading music, reading nature, reading the proportions of a painting or the flight of a football or the stride of a horse? In St. Columba’s School in Douglas, Co. Cork, where they have a number of deaf students, all the pupils learn sign language. How wide is our definition of literacy?

As I listened to your speakers, fascinated by what is as much a philosophical and sociological as an education discussion, I felt a pang that today I would be returning to my humdrum world of politics and elections, endless talk of property bubbles and bank bail outs and fiscal sovereignty and the failures of the past. All of you, on the other hand, will be returning to the future, to hope, to where the people looking at you from their desks are always

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A Reflection on School Ethos Statements

By Dr Ken Fennelly, CEO, Church of Ireland Board of Education Church of Ireland Schools There are 174 primary schools in the Republic of Ireland which are under the Patronage of the Church of Ireland.This normally means that the local Ordinary (Bishop) is the Patron of the school. The schools range from the small single, two or three teacher rural schools dotted around the countryside, to larger schools in urban areas.

In terms of numbers of schools it is a substantial presence in the field of Irish primary education provision.These schools are important in the life of Church congregations and the local communities that each school “lives in”. In many ways, this role and presence defines the ethos of Church of Ireland schools: they are a faith presence in the local community in that they can be an extension of parish life into the daily activity of the community; they widen the evangelising mission of the Church and they play a vital role, especially in rural areas, of solidifying the local Church of Ireland population as well as ensuring that the Church group does not remain socially and civilly insular.

These schools are important in the life of Church congregations and the local communities that each school “lives in”.

The educationalist John Dewey has argued that children learn about civil society and citizenship through their experience in school. A faithbased school lets pupils experience living the citizenship of their faith. Bourdieu talks about children developing a “habitus” and exchanging forms of capital through their school experience.

One would like to think that in learning of the faith through the Follow Me RE curriculum, pupils in Church of Ireland schools would also develop a “habitus” of faith and that this would be a central part of the exchange of cultural capital in the classroom.

Ethos: a limiting definition of ourselves?

It is noticeable when reading through ethos

statements from various denominational schools, both primary and secondary, that the major themes are about faith, the particular charisms of the founding community and in general the mission of the religious community involved in running the school. No surprises there you might say! Yet, are schools limiting themselves by only thinking of the ethos statement as a statement of how the school community interacts with the community of faith? Let me be clear, in Church of Ireland schools the role of faith in the life of the school should be inherent in its foundation in what could be described as a symbiotic relationship.The Bishop as Patron, Follow Me RE curriculum and the involvement of local clergy are obvious signals of this. For a religious minority, having a clear statement of faith in the ethos statement of the school is important to the Church community.

Let me be clear, in Church of Ireland schools the role of faith in the life of the school should be inherent in its foundation in what could be described as a symbiotic relationship.

Yet, are we laying boundaries around ourselves?

This is a question for all Boards of Management of denominational schools, I would argue. Our faith foundations should be the source of our ethos and in doing so should inform and set the tone for the whole ethos of the school but should not necessarily be the only theme of the ethos statement. Ethos informs everything from the curriculum, pedagogy, staff relationships, parent relationships, staff-pupil relationships to the physical environment of the school. It should promote harmony, care and consideration. It should express a desire to create an environment that encourages pupils to “grow into themselves”, promotes an environment that nurtures pupils’ self-esteem and an enjoyment of learning. In other words it should not be aspirationally flat.

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A Rolling Document…

In the years following the enactment of the Education Act 1998, the issue of ethos became sort of “fashionable”. Conferences were held and much high quality work has been published on school ethos by educationalists and other experts.Yet much has happened in Irish society in the intervening years and there is a danger that the issue of ethos has been put on the shelf in schools as being “finalised”. Maybe the school has “moved on” since that policy was last revised? Pupils from a range of nationalities will be in all classes with a range of religious traditions or of no religious beliefs, no doubt.

The teaching staffs may have changed, a new Principal might have come on board or, as will be the case from September 2011, a new Board of Management might be in place. All of these events are opportunities to reflect on the ethos statement of the school.

Pupils from a range of nationalities will be in all classes with a range of religious traditions or of no religious beliefs, no doubt.

At their core, Church of Ireland schools exist to serve the parents and children of their local Church of Ireland Church community, yet, to paraphrase Parnell, this should not form a boundary to their ethos. The school ethos statement should be dynamic and rolling. So dust it off and ask: does this statement reflect the reality of what our school does and what do we aspire to?

Dr. Ken Fennelly is Secretary to the General Synod Board of Education of the Church of Ireland and Education Officer for the Church of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland, appointed in April 2010. He holds a Ph.D. in the Sociology of Education and MA in Sociology from NUI Maynooth and is a graduate of St. Patricks College, Maynooth. A native of Kilkenny, he has taught at third level, was involved with Y.S.I. at second-level and has held posts in the DIT and in HR at NUIM.

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Allianz School Premiums 2011 Over the years Schools have raised many issues with us in relation to all aspects of insurance but none have been the source of more passionate debate than insurance premiums.

In the period since January 2004, Schools have benefited from a series of rate reductions which reflected not only an improvement during the period in underlying claims costs but, more importantly, an absence of either a significant large individual loss or a significant weather related incident.

However, during the period December 2009/January 2010 and more recently over the recent Christmas period, we have experienced widespread losses as a consequence of the extremely severe weather conditions.These losses have resulted in claims from Schools alone, in excess of € 10 million.

Given the current difficult economic times in which Schools generally find themselves, it is only natural that attention will focus more sharply on costs, including the cost of insurance.

We have carried out a review of the effect which recent weather events have had on our rating and have come to the conclusion that, regrettably, there is no alternative but to apply increased rating at renewal in 2011.

The Premium is the amount which a School pays to Allianz as the Insurer for the protection provided under the Custodian School Protection Insurance Policy. Ultimately School insurance rates, and consequently levels of premium, are driven by the cost of claims.

Given the current difficult economic times in which Schools generally find themselves, it is only natural that attention will focus more sharply on costs, including the cost of insurance. Even in the best of times insurance is often viewed as an unwelcome cost. However, the true value of your insurance package can only be fully appreciated if you are unfortunate enough to suffer a loss that results in a claim under your policy.

Allianz are profoundly aware of the obligations which our unique position imposes on us to maintain the highest standards in relation to the provision of value for money, cover and service.To this end, we remain totally committed to working with you, our education customers, to ensure that there is no diminution of these standards.

Consequently we in Allianz are happy to re-affirm the commitments which we have previously given to you in relation to pricing, policy cover and service.

Price Guarantee Primary Schools insured with Allianz are written on a unique basis under which premium rates are based on the total cost of all Primary School claims, thus ensuring a greater consistency in overall pricing which, in turn, maintains insurance costs at a financially sustainable level. This approach to pricing has an obvious benefit for Schools who have had claims, but also ultimately benefits all Schools. No School can say with certainty that they will not have a large claim in the future, however with the Allianz pricing guarantee you can be sure that your premium will not be severely effected by such an event that may have been completely outside of your control. If this approach was not taken, then such an unfortunate incident could lead to a large premium increase and financial uncertainty for your School's future. For example, the occurrence of a large loss under a more commercial approach could lead to your School premium doubling from one year to the next.

Cover Guarantee The standard Allianz Custodian School Protection Policy provides full Policy cover to all Primary Schools regardless of the type of risk, location, claims experience etc.... Furthermore we guarantee to maintain such full Policy cover on all Primary Schools.

Of particular importance to Boards of Management is the protection provided by The Indemnity to Management Section of the Allianz Custodian School Protection Policy. This Section provides cover in relation to legal liabilities arising, inter alia, from the performance of their duties by the Board of Management. The indemnity provided is in respect of legal costs and damages incurred in connection with a claim.

Allianz have also committed in respect of Schools currently insured by them to PAG E 2 7

provide an indemnity to Boards of Management of Primary Schools in respect of historical exposures, subject to the individual limits of indemnity operating at the time of occurrence of such instances.

The standard Allianz Custodian School Protection Policy provides full Policy cover to all Primary Schools regardless of the type of risk, location, claims experience etc...

Naturally there are terms, exceptions and conditions attaching to any insurance Policy, but it is important to state that there has never been a case where a Board of Management has been left without indemnity in relation to such claims.

Service Our local representatives (details below), located throughout the country, are available to call to your school and discuss any insurance related matters.

This ensures that you have a single point of contact and any issues you may have are dealt with in a speedy and effective manner.

Shane Mooney ACII– West T: 087 9190428 Shane.Mooney@allianz.ie Martin Sinnott ACII - South East T: 087 6862329 Martin.Sinnott@allianz.ie Neil Tobin ACII– South T: 087 2528018 Neil.Tobin@allianz.ie Alan Black – Dublin / North East T: 087 9938227 Alan.Black@allianz.ie Noel O’Loughlin ACII– South West T: 087 2588943 Noel.O’Loughlin@allianz.ie Mairead Mullins – North West T: 087 2485065 Mairead.Mullins@allianz.ie