Anseo.net - If I were the Minister for Education

For our Seachtain na Gaeilge special, I brought in some passionate Gaelgóirí to speak to me about the Irish language and the education system. I really wanted to delve in deeply to a number of areas …

According to ChatGPT, the key differences between ET schools and Catholic schools are related to their religious ethos, curriculum, inclusivity, and management structures. ET schools prioritize equal…

Schools are complex places and teaching and learning can only take place when the classroom is in a place where this is able to happen. In the bad old days, a teacher’s job was to dole out discipline…

There are so many rumours and myths about multidenominational schools, Educate Together ones in particular, it really was no surprise, to me, why many parents, even if they reject the tenets of the C…

Whatever our feelings on wellbeing in schools, it will become part of the new curriculum. I was lucky to be approached by Úna Ryan and Denise Enright from REMind Ed™ who shared their wealth of knowle…

The last story of 2022 concerned the reduction of religious instruction from 2.5 hours per week to 2 hours per week in the upcoming new primary curriculum. Lobby groups such as Education Equality and…

With the number of people in Ireland identifying as Christian decreasing in the last decade, (CSO, 2016), with notable increases in the population of Muslims and Hindus, (95% and 135.6% increase resp…

Don't be put off by the title: to me, the Children's School Lives reports are some of the most fascinating insights to primary education produced. This report focuses on the transition between presch…

The long awaited IPPN report on their Roadmap to Sustainability was released at their annual conference in Killarney, Co. Kerry last week. I finally managed to delve into its 130+ pages and see what …

In part 2 of this exploration of the Finnish Education System, I discover just what it is that sets them apart from Ireland.

I fulfilled an educational ambition to visit Finland and learn about what's known as the "Finnish Miracle" - that is, how did Finland become the best education system in the world. Over the next two …

In Part 1, we explored why Father Sheehy did nothing wrong when he preached from the altar and why what he did is no better than what isn't taught in Irish primary schools - i.e. what I call sin by o…

Recently a sermon from a Catholic priest was live-streamed and recorded from a church in Listowel and it went viral. The sermon was from a priest called Father Sheehy and in his sermon, he decried sa…

In the final part of this episode, we reach the end of the debacle where the partners agree to "pause" the process. I almost finish reading the INTO response before I can't take any more spin and giv…

In Part 2 of this episode, we look at the latecomers to the opposition to the AON debacle and wonder why it took them so long.

This is the story of one week in the education system, not an average week, but one which demonstrates the contempt that representative bodies have for teachers, school staff and children. In this pa…

This rather innocent looking Information Note landed in principals' inboxes not more than a couple of hours ago. However, its sole job is to land more work on the desks of schools. Because the HSE ca…

This week there was an article in the Irish Times featuring two people that recently stepped away from principalship. In this week's episode I look at the evidence and analyse why so many principals …

The new Irish Exemption Circular was released to great fanfare back in 2019 with almost everyone annoyed at it for different reasons. Gaelgóirí were annoyed because it was too easy for anyone to get …

Like most children with an Irish mammy, I heard the phrase “self-praise is no praise” enough times to know that one simply shouldn’t do it because it makes the person sound conceited and, well… stupi…