Sacking Teachers

A list was read on the news this morning that purported to be a draft list of sacking offences for teachers. I may have missed it but I didn't hear "not being able to teach" anywhere on the list.
It included things like down loading porn and burning the school down: was a government report really needed to say that?
The idea was also there that a 2.5% pay increase should be linked to "accepting" the list.

It seems to me that everything that possibly could be wrong with this, is wrong with it. Here is one of the reasons why it is all wrong:

Quote :

The Irish Primary Principals Network says it now seems that Performance Management of Teachers is being added to the role of principal. "It is remarkable that IPPN, the professional body for Primary School Principals, has not been directly consulted" it added.

Drawing up something like this without consultation is, in my view a waste of time and grossly negligent. EU law requires consultation, but increasingly government tosses out all kinds of important policy decisions without have consulted the key people and bodies. The result is a mess, costly and time consuming, and poor decision making.

http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/concern-over-principals-role-in-sacking-teachers-1116090.html

Seems to me there is a system whereby public services decide they want more money and then construct a phoney basis on which to claim the extra money.

2.5% for accepting a list ? What utter bullshit. The list should already be in their contracts or schools code of conduct etc.

I know your out there, Chips, but you just won't bite...

I heard this this morning on Morning Ireland - other reasons stated were (paraphrased): not fulfilling their duties; serious bullying; gross insubordination.

How are these things implemented and proven etc. ? Isn't there a Labour relations court through which these things would go and which would end up being very costly and morally devastating for teachers ?

Auditor #9 wrote:

I heard this this morning on Morning Ireland - other reasons stated were (paraphrased): not fulfilling their duties; serious bullying; gross insubordination.

How are these things implemented and proven etc. ? Isn't there a Labour relations court through which these things would go and which would end up being very costly and morally devastating for teachers ?

There are proper procedures for employers to follow in all cases. First someone should be told they are doing something/ not doing something and advised what they need to do. If there is still a problem a written warning should be given. I think it is all on citizen.ie. You can't just go around sacking someone just because you don't like the cut of their jib. It should be the same for everyone and fair for everyone I think.

Edit: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/employment/employment-rights-and-conditions/employment-rights-and-duties/employment_law_update

There is information here for people both in permanent and contract employment. They all have rights.

The link in the independent leads to the following list:

> Gross insubordination.
> Incapacity to perform duties due to being under the influence of alcohol, unprescribed drugs or misuse of prescribed medication
> Serious breaches of confidentiality.
> Serious bullying, sexual harassment or harassment against fellow workers or students.
> Downloading/disseminating pornographic material from the internet.
> Circulation of offensive, obscene or indecent e-mails or text messages.
> Bringing the school's name into serious disrepute.

These are matters which justify immediate dismissal without procedure in most jobs. For teachers they are the only reasons they can be sacked.

Poor attendance, lack of diligence, consistently below standard performance, repeated low level insubordination etc are not reasons for somebody to be dismissed after the proper procedures have been followed. And guess what, some spineless principles won't even want to dismiss people for the gross failures listed by the department. You might remember principles wanting to avoid responsibility for managing the teachers in their schools. It's just pathetic. This is unions fighting for an easy life and not for the benefit of their oft-produced human shields, the children of the nation. Parents of the nation take note.

I would rather have an insubordinate, drunken, and disreputable teacher who can teach*, than a compliant one who can't.

*thinks: this describes my last teacher exactly

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

> Parents of the nation take note.

Why are we going to start sacking the parents next?

Regarding the issue of teachers being sacked has anybody ever been found that`ll stand up and say that no teacher should ever be sacked? I doubt it. The problem is that if you decide that quality of teaching is the determining factor in whether or not someone should keep their job you begin to weight certain things as more important than others. You also run into a potential situation where by acting to remove poor teachers that you actually do more damage than good. These are the problems that you run into straight away, and there may be others that I`ve not spotted.

1. Are results going to be the benchmark by which teachers` performance would be measured?

I`d make the following arguments against that criteria
(a) doctors aren`t paid by the amount of people that they heal. If a doctor prescibes the correct medicine and a patient refuses to take it nobody blames the doctor. Nobody would say that the doctor was responsible for not making the taking of medicine more interesting. I`ve never heard anybody make the accusation that the rise in heart disease is the result of poor quality doctors. If a teacher goes into class and teaches the course, does his best, contacts the parents in the event of the kids not doing homework and still the child doesn`t do his homework why should the teacher be held responsible? At what point are people actually going to realise that by absolving children of the responsibility for their own academic performance that you are actually doing them a disservice in the long-run. Every year thousands of third level students drop out of their courses and one of the reasons is that they`re used to people running around after them, giving out to them if they don`t study. When you remove that from the equation, they can`t function on their own.

(b) Certain teachers have a long-term impact on students, sometimes long after they`ve left school. One of the most laid-back teachers, I mean he didn`t work nearly as hard as most of the others, I had in school is the person who`s most had an effect on my development as a man. There were plenty of more able teachers in the school that I couldn`t tell you one thing that they said. Ten or fifteen of the pieces of advice that this guy threw out in class are still with me years after leaving the secondary school. His classes were some of the most pleasurable experiences I`ve had in life. The reason was he took a genuine interest in us. If I`d a kid now I`d be pushing to get them into his class this, despite the fact that in five years the man never once devoted a whole class solely to the course. He bounced all over the place, lacked structure, belittled all of us regularly. Under any reasonable intelligent, yardstick the man would have been fired long ago and do you know what it`d be a disaster for education. And this brings me onto my final point....

You`re making a dreadful mistake if you decide that you can uniformly measure what makes a teacher great, or average or poor, because this will vary from class to class, from time of the day to day of the day, from streamed to mixed ability, from stable classroom situation to having to move from class to class, from year to year and from subject to subject. I`m a much better history teacher than I am an Irish teacher for example. Put me teaching Irish and I`m average enough put me teaching History and I can keep a class of thirty teenagers of mixed ability captivated for forty or eighty minutes talking without the benefit of props or notes. You can`t measure things like long-term impact, creation of self-worth and confidence, creating a love for a subject, creating a positive classroom atmosphere, giving someone a real understanding of something, creating a unity of purpose among people of different abilities. You can`t measure the creative or the brilliant all you can merely do is attempt to measure the normal and the danger is that, while you may force the small number of genuinely poor teachers out that you also force out the larger number of brilliant teachers.

That is a very interesting post with a lot of food for thought and much I agree with strongly. The other side of it is that notwithstanding the need for fairness to employees, its the children's interests that must be put first.

Very few people in any field in the private sector is sacked for not doing their job well. There usually has to be catastrophic failure before someone is fired. Recruitment is too expensive and time consuming to be casual about replacing staff. But it would be disastrous if there were no bottom line and would inevitably mean that there was a general slippage across the system.

We were assured today on the news that a radiographer with an unacceptably high mistake rate was not longer employed by the HSE. There is an acceptable rate of error in radiography that is normal and that we have to live with. But there has to be a cut off point below which people should not be allowed to do damage.

We have all experienced being on the wrong end of this at some stage in our lives and it is a necessary learning experience. We either do better, or find something we are better at.

I would defend any teacher or employee wrongly dismissed or in a marginal situation and everyone should be given support and encouragement to do the best they possibly can in their job. Given the extensive protection there is though employment legislation and through Trade Union representation, I don't believe that there is any chance of mass persecution of good, average, or normally (acceptably) bad teachers if normal employment standards and procedures were applied.

Some good stuff there alright from both of you cactus and anmajornarthainig. Your values are in the right place. Teaching and education are not the same as you know and a teacher has more than a responsibility to just be able to shovel knowledge, facts, numbers into some youngfella's head.

Kids spend a big old fraction of their lives in their school and they should get much more than just an academic experience there. We need to find the teachers who excel in their fields and have very little problems teaching their subjects. Like anmajornarthainig teaching his History classes, the education and the teaching both integrate magically when the right balance is found. This is an experience that anyone here who has taught successfully will have had.

I was told by other teachers that a successful teacher is one to whose classes children go willingly with a smile on their puss.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Some good stuff there alright from both of you cactus and anmajornarthainig. Your values are in the right place. Teaching and education are not the same as you know and a teacher has more than a responsibility to just be able to shovel knowledge, facts, numbers into some youngfella's head.

Kids spend a big old fraction of their lives in their school and they should get much more than just an academic experience there. We need to find the teachers who excel in their fields and have very little problems teaching their subjects. Like anmajornarthainig teaching his History classes, the education and the teaching both integrate magically when the right balance is found. This is an experience that anyone here who has taught successfully will have had.

I was told by other teachers that a successful teacher is one to whose classes children go willingly with a smile on their puss.

And in general they do: there was a survey of children a couple of years ago you might remember, and it found that Irish children by and large are happy and like school. It provoked a lot of discussion from older people who said how they had dreaded school, and how much better things are now.

Quote :

You`re making a dreadful mistake if you decide that you can uniformly measure what makes a teacher great, or average or poor, because this will vary from class to class, from time of the day to day of the day, from streamed to mixed ability, from stable classroom situation to having to move from class to class, from year to year and from subject to subject. I`m a much better history teacher than I am an Irish teacher for example. Put me teaching Irish and I`m average enough put me teaching History and I can keep a class of thirty teenagers of mixed ability captivated for forty or eighty minutes talking without the benefit of props or notes. You can`t measure things like long-term impact, creation of self-worth and confidence, creating a love for a subject, creating a positive classroom atmosphere, giving someone a real understanding of something, creating a unity of purpose among people of different abilities. You can`t measure the creative or the brilliant all you can merely do is attempt to measure the normal and the danger is that, while you may force the small number of genuinely poor teachers out that you also force out the larger number of brilliant teachers.

Hear, hear!

I'd forgotten how great it is to read what you write with such passion about your job. It's clearly more than a job to you, anmajornarthainig - though I also recall from p.ie that you were thinking of leaving the profession... Am I right in that?

No teacher wants to be surrounded by underperforming colleagues - it makes life harder for everyone on many levels - in the staffroom, at the parent teacher meeting and in the classroom when other teachers have to pick up the slack.

What the government has consistently failed to invest in - despite the requirement for heaps of planning documentation and co-operation within departments when being assessed under WSE or Subject inspection. Teachers who work together get on better but there simply isn't time. A half day here and a half day there is not enough to plan and co-ordinate a whole department and I know this because I headed up the departments in both of the subjects I taught and had a subject inspection in one while I was acting head.

What I discovered was that the vast majority of teachers are happy to give up a breaktime or lunchtime or free class to meet - except that it's not possible to have a dozen English, Irish or Maths teachers all free at the same time.

Underperforming teachers do not necessarily need to be fired; the first thing they need is support and what many people don't realise is that there is a facility for teachers to retire early under a particular programme if they are unable to cope. Some in the private sector would stamp their feet and shout 'unfair' but I wouldn't like to see anyone, in any profession be treated like the proverbial Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman who said "You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away. A man is not a piece of fruit." Maybe there are lessons the private sector could learn about how to treat those who have given service to the best of their ability and then, often through no fault of their own (for who wants or desires or aspires to be 'bad' at their job?) can no longer give or have nothing left to give.

I taught for almost a decade and by the time I left I'd spent about thirty years in full time education. What I value now in a teacher looking back is not what I might have valued at fifteen or necessarily what I would value as a parent. I had teachers who could have done a better job but I can say the same about mechanics, doctors and waitresses.

When I reflect on my own teaching career, I ask myself whether I'd be ashamed to meet any of my old students and have to admit that in my first year of teaching I did a lot of shouting and not a lot of teaching. Until I learned that being a teacher is not about me but is all about the kind of person I am. I'm not proud of that, but can look back on it now as part of a learning curve. That's not much use to the students I taught that year. That said, on a night out recently, a pupil I started teaching when I did my dip approached me in a pub and gave me the most enormous hug and was genuinely pleased to see me, as I was him. I didn't teach him again after first year but we were in a lot of contact during his years in the school.

It is my firm belief and it has been for many years that successful teaching is all about the relationships. It's a given that the teacher knows his subject. But no matter how poor the teaching skills are, if the relationships are good (and I don't mean pally or frivolous), then students will learn because the classroom is a collaborative place.

Quote :

> Gross insubordination.
> Incapacity to perform duties due to being under the influence of alcohol, unprescribed drugs or misuse of prescribed medication
> Serious breaches of confidentiality.
> Serious bullying, sexual harassment or harassment against fellow workers or students.
> Downloading/disseminating pornographic material from the internet.
> Circulation of offensive, obscene or indecent e-mails or text messages.
> Bringing the school's name into serious disrepute.

Unless I count the student who hacked into the school's mainframe and accessed staff files, apart from breach of confidentiality, those issues are far more likely to occur among students than teachers in my experience.

Thanks for the kind comments Kate P. You are right I live and breathe the job. My problem would be, in terms of inspection, is that I`m very poor on paperwork and playing the lesson plan game, all that has a place, but it shouldn`t be the be all and end all. So much of my best work is unplanned and spontaneous. I`ve sailed awful close to the wind with some of the stuff I`ve said to kids, some of the teaching methods I`ve used and some of the pranks I`ve pulled. I could never show in front of an Inspector what actually makes me a good teacher. Maybe if I get insepcted for History I might leave the room and tell the inspector to ask the class what they think of me. I`ve have that much faith in them not to rat me out. As for my irish classes, hmmmm, I don`t think I`d do the same.

I changed schools last year and went through a very difficult year, by far the most difficult one yet in terms of teaching. I don`t really enjoy the school where I`m teaching now. The hostility of the kids towards work or towards education is shocking.The blindness of their own parents is really disturbing. Bring back the Dubs, I missed thems terribly. I am sticking with the teaching though, for three basic reasons 1. I do like and respect the scamps despite their laziness, selfishness, spinelessness, shallowness, violence and alcoholism. 2. I can`t think of what else I`d like to do 3.The thought of going back to college genuinely horrifies me. I was never a great studier myself which is, possibly, one of the reasons why I`m sympathetic to the messers. The problem is now, as I`ve mentioned on another thread is that my job will be gone next year. My girlfriend is in a similar position. I`m genuinely worried now about the future. My plan to get married in the next couple of years, settle in the west and raise little anmajornarthainigs is in trouble.

This is all wrong, the last thing we need right now is to be wasting teachers. Don't be sure it won't work out though anmajornathainig - go after what you want and you may well get it.

In difficult times it can pay off to be open and flexible too. When I came back to Ireland I had to give up "my career" and do something fairly random, but it turned out to be right for me.

Don't put off the little anmajornathainigs too long: the "right time" is anyone's guess: it could be now.

anmajornarthainig wrote:

Thanks for the kind comments Kate P. You are right I live and breathe the job. My problem would be, in terms of inspection, is that I`m very poor on paperwork and playing the lesson plan game, all that has a place, but it shouldn`t be the be all and end all. So much of my best work is unplanned and spontaneous. I`ve sailed awful close to the wind with some of the stuff I`ve said to kids, some of the teaching methods I`ve used and some of the pranks I`ve pulled. I could never show in front of an Inspector what actually makes me a good teacher. Maybe if I get insepcted for History I might leave the room and tell the inspector to ask the class what they think of me. I`ve have that much faith in them not to rat me out. As for my irish classes, hmmmm, I don`t think I`d do the same.

The paperwork seems like it's a bigger deal than it actually is but I can't tell you how important it is to keep it up to date. Secondary teachers don't need lesson plans - except the stupid ones you have to do for the class the inspector comes into. However, your subject co-ordinator should have a copy of your schedule of work for the year and you should have everything up to date in your teacher's diary - homework given, results, dates copies marked, roll kept etc. The roll in particular is a legal document and has to be accurate. I found it very useful to be able to prove to a woman that her son was mitching when I had a clearly well-kept roll for the class. And keep a note in it of all sanctions and no-homeworks because they make all the difference at parent teacher meetings. Having all this shouldn't impede your creativity but it has many advantages - a sub can take over from you with ease, legally your back is covered with the roll and you have a record for the inspection of principal, parent or inspector of the work that you've done. If your subject head doesn't require the schedule and class lists, you should find a sympathetic partner and be overheard worrying about a prospective inspection in your subjects.

Have you seen any inspection reports? They're worth having a look at...

Quote :

I changed schools last year and went through a very difficult year, by far the most difficult one yet in terms of teaching. I don`t really enjoy the school where I`m teaching now. The hostility of the kids towards work or towards education is shocking.The blindness of their own parents is really disturbing. Bring back the Dubs, I missed thems terribly.

We must all bloom where we're planted, anmajornarthainig, even if it's on stony ground and even if we're more used to fertile soils. At the back of it all, all kids are kids with all that that entails - the swagger and the tears, the fears and the failures as well as the successes. They have the same souls as the kids you taught in Dublin - you just have to get at them differently.

The SLSS ran a course for a couple of years - a diploma in positive behaviour management. It's excellent, not in terms of teaching teachers how to discipline -it's not something you necessarily do because you're having discipline problems - it's a course in practical and theoretical systems of behaviour, the psychologies, etc and the sharing with colleagues is a great bonus. They had some great speakers when I did it a couple of years ago. It would be worth looking at. I got a huge amount from it.

Quote :

I am sticking with the teaching though, for three basic reasons 1. I do like and respect the scamps despite their laziness, selfishness, spinelessness, shallowness, violence and alcoholism. 2. I can`t think of what else I`d like to do 3.The thought of going back to college genuinely horrifies me. I was never a great studier myself which is, possibly, one of the reasons why I`m sympathetic to the messers. The problem is now, as I`ve mentioned on another thread is that my job will be gone next year. My girlfriend is in a similar position. I`m genuinely worried now about the future. My plan to get married in the next couple of years, settle in the west and raise little anmajornarthainigs is in trouble.

I'm sorry to hear you think the prospects seem gloomy.

There will always be jobs for teachers, whether for maternity leave or other reasons, so all you and your girlfriend can do for now is to make sure that when those jobs come up, you're first in line for them. That means being the best teachers at the interview. Sharpen up your CV with a few courses that will make you a better teacher and more employable - the dyslexia association run an invaluable course (it profoundly changed my teaching life), the SLSS have loads of one day and other courses in useful areas, your local education centre has an autumn-winter schedule of things on in the evenings and during the day.

You're now working for your reference. All you can control now is making sure that you get the absolute best one that you can.

It is interesting we rarely had individual roll call in secondary school. Perhaps it was taken by the teacher silently while s/he was preparing but it was rare that we had a roll call in every class. We always had it in first class of the day as it was from this roll that the daily absentee report was taken. When I got to my last couple of years we were super high tech with swipe cards and swiped into school

Usually a teacher can tell at a glance who's missing and doesn't need to do a formal roll call - though obviously if there was an issue such as someone having an accident or being involved in something untoward while they should have been in class and you didn't notice, calling the roll formally at the beginning is more reliable. Some teachers (and indeed sometimes for some classes), use the roll to demarcate the move between wandering in time and down to work time.

Swiping into school sounds very swanky - but there's still a legal obligation on teachers to know who is in their classroom at any time, so a roll should be taken in every class.

johnfás wrote:

It is interesting we rarely had individual roll call in secondary school. Perhaps it was taken by the teacher silently while s/he was preparing but it was rare that we had a roll call in every class. We always had it in first class of the day as it was from this roll that the daily absentee report was taken. When I got to my last couple of years we were super high tech with swipe cards and swiped into school

It depended on the teacher with my school. Some of them would take one, others would simply look at the seating plan, see who was missing from their seat, and mark them absent. We had reg at the start of the day and, in Leaving Cert cycle, reg at the afternoon. I was a good boy so was very rarely late or absent.

Did you ever get detention, Ard? I never did . There is a small nerdy possee of my friends in that particular category

johnfás wrote:

Did you ever get detention, Ard? I never did . There is a small nerdy possee of my friends in that particular category

I never did either johnfás, I was one of the more bookish, studious types in school so I wasn't in detention I think ever.

Anyone else joining our club?

johnfás wrote:

Anyone else joining our club?

I wonder. You must've got good points in the Leaving to do Law in UCD johnfás.

I did History and Politics in UCD, Ard, which was my second choice. Law has been an afterthought and I did it in Postgraduate form at DIT. I had two close family members die in the weeks before and then during my Leaving, which was a fair old pain in the neck and led to me doing alot worse in my Leaving than my mocks. But I don't believe in repeating.

johnfás wrote:

I did History and Politics in UCD, Ard, which was my second choice. Law has been an afterthought and I did it in Postgraduate form at DIT. I had two close family members die in the weeks before and then during my Leaving, which was a fair old pain in the neck and led to me doing alot worse in my Leaving than my mocks. But I don't believe in repeating.

Oh right. I thought you did it straight after the Leaving but History and Politics would also be interesting subjects and quite engaging. I'm doing Political Science as part of a course at Trinity and it's loads of fun. Having family members die around the Leaving must be quite a shock, thank God I didn't have that experience. It's interesting that you say that you don't believe in repeating.

Well I mean, I didn't believe in repeating my Leaving Cert. Obviously if you have something you are completely set on then you do. But if I have a minor failure (I still did very well in the Leaving Cert, just I was aiming for mid 500s) I would rather pick myself up and power on til the next hurdle than start the race again. I can do alot more that way than had I spent a year repeating.