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LAST UPDATE | 10 Feb 2021
THE TEACHERS’ UNION of Ireland has said its members will facilitate the reopening of special classes in post-primary schools from Monday 22 February.
An agreement has been reached between TUI, Fórsa and the Department of Education.
The union also said it will facilitate the return of Leaving Certificate students from some point in the same week, subject to public health advice.
It comes after Taoiseach Micheál Martin told a Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting this evening that Covid variants are making it harder to ease restrictions but that the priority is schools returning and housing construction recommencing.
It is anticipated that Level 5 restrictions will not be lifted on 5 March with the exception of a phased return to schools and the recommencement of housing construction but that restrictions will be eased slowly, with additional easing unlikely to take place until May.
Speaking this evening, TUI President Martin Marjoram said: “While emergency remote teaching and learning continues, the TUI has engaged intensively and positively with all education stakeholders to work towards the safe re-opening of schools for priority groups in line with public health advice and as early as is possible.
“In this regard, the Union’s Executive Committee this evening decided that its members would facilitate the re-opening of special classes in Post-Primary schools from Monday, 22nd February given that a number of concerns expressed by the Union have been addressed.
“In taking this decision, the Union acknowledges the vital importance of face-to-face provision for this cohort of students and took note of the range of additional supports and measures that have been agreed to protect students and staff.
“These measures, which had been sought by TUI, include full contact tracing and fast-track testing, provision of high grade PPE for special education teachers and arrangements for staff in high risk health categories and pregnant teachers to continue to provide remote learning.
“Clearly, all risk mitigation measures and safeguards will need to be strictly adhered to at school level. At national level, all measures must be kept under ongoing review, not least to take account of the emerging new variants of Covid-19. The health and safety of students, staff and their families cannot be compromised.”
In a statement, the Department of Education said students attending these classes will return for in-person teaching and learning from Monday 22 February, the same day on which primary school special classes will return.
“It remains a priority for the Department to agree a shared pathway to in-school learning for children with special educational needs in mainstream classes in mainstream schools as soon as possible.
“Recognising that remote learning is particularly challenging for some students with complex needs, the Department of Education has also put in place a supplementary programme to support the education and/or care needs of students with complex needs at post-primary level.
“Intensive engagement is continuing with education stakeholders, towards a full return of all students to in-person teaching and learning in primary and post primary schools as soon as possible and when it is safe to do so, the Department said.
Minister for Education Norma Foley said: “I am pleased that students in special classes at post-primary level will now return to in-person teaching and learning on the same day as primary school students in special classes.
“These special classes support some of our most vulnerable students. The return to in-person teaching and learning is vital to these students and I want to thank everyone who has engaged in this process to reach a solution which is aimed at meeting their needs.
“The supplementary programme will also provide a real benefit for students over the coming weeks as they adjust to returning to in-person teaching and learning and I urge everyone to make full use of this.
“In our ongoing engagement with education partners, we continue to seek a way forward to support the return of in-person teaching and learning for children with special educational needs in mainstream settings.
“The Government is committed to the full and safe reopening of schools for all students as soon as possible, and will continue to work with all stakeholders, in line with public health advice, to achieve this,” said Foley.
Meanwhile, at a Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting this evening a motion by TDs Eoghan Murphy and Jennifer Carroll MacNeill on sustaining education during the Covid crisis was passed. The motion requested a review into consistency of remote learning while schools are closed.
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Govt rents out the Convention Centre at €25,000 per day because it’s not safe for TDs to attend the Dáil, yet they want to cram school kids into a classroom?
@Dean: yes they should be in the dail
@Dean: Let’s be honest teachers’ are doing this because they can. The most entitled out of touch section of irish society….
@Declan: Are you actually serious? People become teachers because its a job they want to do. Do you really think its acceptable for Teachers to return to classrooms and risk bringing back the virus into their own homes, while most if us luckily can work from home?
@Declan: totally agree, headmaster across road let his kids and those he “took in to mind” run riot up and down street where most residents are elderly!
@PF: So you’re judging the whole profession on the behavior of one teacher who lives across the road from you? That seems logical.
@Declan: yeah you’re attempt at honesty fell flat on its face there.
@Anthony Edward Healy: I remember being back in school and the only person who new what career path they wanted straight off the bat was a School teacher. They wanted the mid term breaks and the Summer holidays. Glorified profession by the teachers themselves. Ask them to work this Summer to cover lost time and watch the back lash.
@Anthony Edward Healy: There’ll be a risk of bringing the virus home for the rest of our lives, just like there’ll always be risks in other areas of life. We accept these risks because they’re worth the benefits. This is 2000 approx special needs students. Hardly crammed into a classroom.
@Ann Mc Shane: BS…no one in school wants to be a teacher. And there’ll be no “backlash”. We’ll just say no.
@Thomas O’ Donnell: your numbers are a tad off.
@Dean: found out today that my mother won’t get the vacine until the earliest at the 8th of March. Yet they think it’s safe to open schools.
@Graham Manning: I think your trolling
@Ann Mc Shane: The clue is your comment, back when you were in school, times have changed!
@Declan: I’m not sure people who deal with children every day from every type of background can be described as out of touch.
@Ann Mc Shane: fair enough. I’m not. Never wanted to be a teacher when I was in school or for years afterwards. I still am one though.
@Graham Manning: quite right to say no too, already working, teaching from home is working no??!!
Also teachers in normal times do way more than 9-3 Mon-Fri or the 22 hours they are paid for some doing 3-4 hours at home in the evening correcting work, preparing lessons etc.
Holidays are well earned if you ask me!!
Im not a teacher either!
@Tessa Madden: thats how a successful career works. You put the man hours in whether on or off the job. You can’t show up to work and have no preparation done other wise you just have a job.
I take it school will run into the summer to help catch up.
@Darren Mc Mahon: you crack me up, you really do.
@Darren Mc Mahon: you take it wrong. Teachers are working and have been since the schools closed.
@Darren Mc Mahon: nope.
@Darren Mc Mahon: Why? Have your children’s teachers not been engaging online? Maybe all people working from home should now forgo holidays by your logic.
@Proinsias Ó Fearghail: ha ha ha ha and so the narrative changes. Jog on pal!
@Darren Mc Mahon: is that an answer? Brilliant!
There has been no consistency in online teaching. What have the non teaching principals been doing for their €100,000 salaries? They should have been monitoring the others. I have seen them out jogging around during the day when they should have been online teaching. They will soon find a reason not go to work again and their militant unions will back them and the govt. will succumb.
@Jim Connolly: Nonsense
@Jim Connolly: Our principals were in all summer transforming the building making it safe for students. I know because I was sitting at the table with them in July. They work extremely hard and are on the phone to parents and teachers late at night doing everything and anything they can to keep the school going at great cost to their own mental health and their own families. You’re very welcome to send in your CV Jim of you want to try your hand at being a school leader. I’d happily follow you around with a camera and we could sell it to RTE. We could call it “Head Monitor Jim” :)
@Jim Connolly: no principles are on 100k. But I have experienced both primary which gets work and 30min online class per week pathetic. Post primary are online like a normal class . So I can see where you are coming from
@Jim Connolly: spa
@Jim Connolly: you have been whinging about teachers since lockdown started. I am a teaching principal and SEN teacher and have taught my classes via Teams every day. So have all my colleagues. With all due respect,what do you do? Please tell us. What qualifies you to dump all over my profession?
@john s: I’m a primary principal. Have you complained to your principal or Board of Management about this? If not,why not?
@Daniel Murray: Jim seems to be the Victor Meldrew of the Journal,generally mutters that Reagan would sort those cheeky teachers out!
@Jim Connolly: sounds legit Jim. Its pretty impressive that you know multiple principals teaching timetable.
@Jim Connolly: where did you get 100,000????
@Jim Connolly: where did you get 100,000????
@Lorraine Mac Rory: The European Commission state that principals in Ireland pull €112,035 a year, twice what they get in Spain and Italy and four times that of Greece. Hope they will be willing to do the real work in the schools during June, July and August where they can be monitored and that they will not be complaining about the lack of air conditioning in the rooms!
@Jim Connolly: a primary school principal averages an annual salary of €50,766. There are a small handful of principals at private schools who earn around €100,000, but they are very much the exception.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: I’m pretty sure you are low balling the average there! I would expect a principal to have at least 10 years (€47k) + principal allowance (mid range €27k) + qualification allowances. It’s not the norm, but big school principals like the INTO general secretary would not have a big difference between Union head (€127k) and high end principal salary.
@millsd: not only does he know multiple principals but also knows they are ALL out jogging. What kind of handy job does Jim have that he can spend his time monitoring rich (100k) principals.
@john s: 30mins more online than mine get! Count yourself lucky. But we did get one of our teachers post to all her class this week, for the first time ever, multiple pictures of her playing with her kids in the snow (I am not kidding).
With over 1000 cases & 54 deaths? We’ll be back to square 1.
@mr magoo: so you think the schools contributed to the 8,000 cases a day? Get off it
@mr magoo: no we won’t there was no noticeable increase in covid from sept – Dec last time
@john s: I presume no noticeable increase in schools because there certainly was a noticeable increase in general.
The reason the schools were closed after Christmas was partly to do with the new variants and also to reduce the movement of people in society, on their way to and from schools.
Of course, once they were inside the school, that magical environment meant the chances of catching or transmitting the virus drastically decreased. The problem was what happened on the way to this magical place.
@john s: there was actually. There was a steady increase, however nothing compared to what happened in December
@john s: there was a literally peak in cases from the second week in September until the second lock down? Its in the stats – are you ignoring them, or think it didn’t happen because elderly infections stayed low? Almost as if it spread amongst a younger, average teacher age demographic?
@Brynþór Patrekursson: There was a large increase over Christmas when schools were closed also. There are so many contributing factors to the numbers that it’s over simplistic to attach one event to one trend. It will take years of data to find out why activities contribute to on what extent. In some cases it may be impossible – for example when they’re contact tracing does everyone tell the truth about the house party they were at or the foreign holiday they were on?
@Thomas O’ Donnell: no doubt that the Xmas balls up was not school related, but the second peak in September after the last minute panic to pump money to make schools safe had no other exceptional factors. The demographic, the spread in rural areas, as well as the border holiday issue all played a part. We’re only know coping on to the border, but the head is firmly in sand over schools.
Exam years being back by themselves means nearly all remote learning for other years will have to happen from the school building. I wonder if all schools have that kind of network infrastructure in place. That’s quite a bit of upstream bandwidth on one dish for larger schools. I’d advise all schools test this well in advance to avoid disaster.
@Daniel Murray: Yes it should be tested in all schools but I can’t see it being an issue to be honest. Zoom and other conference calls run pretty well on a normal 3g connection and the video resolution doesn’t need to be full hd for students to learn. Most other uploads are very small files. If the connection in the school isn’t up to scratch it should be remedied.
So, online ‘teaching’ is coming to an end at last!
@sean o’dhubhghaill: As a teacher, here’s hoping!
@Eoghan Joyce: that’s for sure. It will be great for everyone to get back. Being at home is no good for parents, teachers and children alike.
@Niall Gannon: while some parents look forward to getting the kids out of the house again, it would be good to see how the kids performed remotely. My kids enjoyed being more in control of their study in secondary, 2nd and 5th year, and you can see it in their attitude to homework. They miss the friends, but in the outside school environment.
Its almost as if this whole getting schools open is for everyone else, bar the kids.
@Brynþór Patrekursson: mine are in secondary school and hate the online schooling. They feel isolated and are getting more fed up by the day. Teenagers need contact with peers, and this stay-at-home stuff doesn’t work for most.
@Brynþór Patrekursson: it works for some but the majority of students are longing to be back in school.
@Brynþór Patrekursson: My neices and nephews have reacted the same.
@Jakie McLean: Can we get some factual stats on that, please?
In other words « vulnerable kids and the kids of health service workers finally get cared for after Ireland becomes the last European country to decide they’re actually worth giving a shi1t about, realising it has no other choice and eventually deciding to get its finger out « Wow, just wow. I feel so, so sorry for parents. To be let down so badly by the state is truly gobsmacking.
3 1/2 more mts of lockdown so
@sandra clifford: foxtrot Oscar
What’s the point if there is no economy left when they finish school. The UK will be open, Europe will be open, the us will be open. Aus and nz are prisons so won’t want you and Ireland will just be coming out of lockdown. Lockdown is killing Irelands future – but hey, we gained immortality in prison.
Once again the teachers Union sell out … special needs kids going back to school ( 99% have underlying health problems)
Well done Me Hole, Leo the Leak & Sleepy.
The way this country is… there will be a mutation of the UK & Sth African virus together… which will end up making vaccines null & void
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