Anseo.net - If I were the Minister for Education

Although it's nearly June 2021, it feels like it's August 2020, with another lot of documents published late in the week from the Department of Education. This week it was cleaning grants and ventila…

In this special episode I take the guidelines from this year's summer programme and try and explain how it will all work to any school thinking of doing it. My school has been running a summer progra…

Did you know it costs the State €2m every year to post out payslips to school staff? In this episode I look at examples of wasting money in the Department of Education and what could be achieved if w…

In part 2 of this episode, I spend about an hour going through the 9 recommendations from the National Principals' Forum in their report on Additional Educational Needs. Part 1 was an introduction to…

In this special episode, I look at the report written by the National Principals' Forum, titled: Critical Analysis of Supports for Pupils with Additional Educational Needs and their School Leaders in…

In my first school it cost us 7c per page to photocopy a black and white sheet. It taught me to try and not use the photocopier very often and when I moved to a different school where there were no l…

Have you ever heard anyone give out about radio presenters with their cushy jobs only working 2 hours a day? In this episode I try to explore what teachers do with all their spare time after working …

You might not know that if a principal relinquishes his or her position, they are relegated to the most junior member of staff in a school. This is different to every other postholder in a school. Fo…

The pandemic shone a strong light on the last decade of cuts to the education system and Congress is usually a time where members can voice their dismay at them with a hope that the media will help h…

After all the platitudes about how important schools are and all the promises that we'd be prioritised for a vaccine, sure what better way to show that gratitude by pulling it all away? However, how …

In this episode I celebrate the rise of Hibernia College into the Education System but then wonder whether it's time for it to either bow out or be bought over to become a public college.

If you’re a regular listener to this podcast, you’ll know that I did my teaching qualification in the UK and qualified with a PGCE. However, my PGCE was different from some of my colleagues that got …

When a child requires OT or SLT support, they join a very long waiting list with the HSE and when they finally get an appointment, they might be taken on for a short block of sessions in whatever the…

Ireland has a long, proud history of drama. Drama is the only literary arts subject in the primary curriculum that is a subject in its own right. Poetry has to resolve itself as a very minor player i…

If there’s one way to rouse the inner nationalist in any citizen of this country, it’s to bring up the subject of Gaeilge in schools. The most laid back, chilled out, horizontal, mellow, easy-going p…

Before I even start, I realise that this episode will alienate a whole bunch of people. The reaction I’ll get to this episode will be more violent than any other episode I’ve covered so far. It seems…

For the last decade, it has been next to impossible to get substitute teachers when someone is out of work. While there have been moves to address this issue in the last 3 years, in this episode I’ll…

After a month of bickering, taking sides and spinning public health advice, the unions and the DES got back to the table to try and partially reopen schools. Guidance was issued last night and I go t…

At first glance, if you read the INTO documentation, the new PSSA finally achieves pay equality and benchmarking for principals. However, very quickly you realise, it actually doesn't. In this slight…

In this episode I try and explain why Live Zoom Lessons are not the holy grail many people think they are. I also ponder as to why the very people wanting them tend to be the same people that were gi…