Irish v English Primary Teachers/School... Wildly different experiences.

[bunnybabies]

I am a Primary Teacher working in Ireland. I go to work at 910 and finish/leave at 250. If a parent wants to speak to me, they ring the secretary and make an appointment to do so, either by phone or in person.Always during school hours. If a parentt has a grievance, they first speak with me and then if not satisfied arrange another meeting with Principal Teacher and Class Teacher. I am a regular user of MN and am genuinely stunned at the access that parents have to Class Teacher and the school in England, generally.Parents at the school in which I work are not allowed into the building randomly.Again, a meeting is set up if needed. There is no such thing as emailing, social media contact or otherwise outside of working hours. From what I read on here, my experiences in the school I teach in, are wildly different.I am interested to know how things work at your children's school or indeed at your place of work, as a teaching staff member.Thanks.

www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/primary-principals-have-no-faith-in-governments-special-education-body-survey-1401296.html

My children go to school in Ireland.
Slightly different from OP in that teacher/patent communication is via email or Seesaw.
24-30 children per class but each class seems to have SET ( learning support) teacher assigned who is mostly in class room most also have SEN 'teacher'
Parents do not go into the school, gates open 8.30 children line up yard for when school opens 8.50 at desk ready to start 9.
Also I notice on MN schools have What App groups ! An app Aladdin used by our school. Some parents set up what app groups for parents in class.

Most children over 5 starting which seems older than English schools.

I would not go near an Irish primary mainstream school for SEN at present. The children with SEN are treated horrendously,No resources worth talking about.The children who really need special schools are being encouraged to go to mainstream, but resources are thin on the ground and they are being misplaced.I have kids with AN so Im being deadly honest here.The MO is get all kids into mainstream with no resources and untrained teachers and see how we all get on.DONT DO IT.

I want a job at these schools...8 til 4ish would be wonderful compared to what I'm used to...car park opens at 7.00 and there are people waiting and closes at 18.30 and the caretaker is waiting to lock up!

I've 2 dc in primary in Dublin. 28 and 30 in their classes, every class has a TA and most have either a designated SNA for a named child or a shared SNA as an additional resource. There are dedicated learning tesource teachers shared between classes for eg maths, spelling, reading groups. The SNA and learning resource teachers seem very well protected in their roles - ds's teacher has been out for 4 weeks since September (very legitimate reasons) but a learning resource teacher wasn't moved in as the main teacher, they were juggled between subs, whoever on staff could cover that day and being split up to other classes I still remember the excitement of bring split up, glorious days.

We have direct email addresses for teachers and they seem to reply within about a day. Meetings outside of the parent teacher meeting week are organised at the teacher's convenience in my experience - we were told by one teacher he could only do calls between 8 and 8.20 (school starts at 8.30) so right when parents are trying to wrangle the kids to school

Am Irish. Was a teacher in UK system. You are not wrong. Uk is weird. Firstly, the pay (esp at the start) is peanuts. Then there is this HUGE distrust of teachers. So a massive layer of middle management and accountability (hence the ‘planning’ ‘deep dives’ bloody nonsense that all has to be ‘evidenced’). There’s also this hatred of text books. Each teacher ‘plans’ all their lessons from scratch. Which in practice means a lot of downloading from twinkl. Completely daft. And yes - parents are granted a massive amount of access. Honestly it all comes down to the same thing - devaluing of the teacher.

Ireland seems slightly more respectful of teaching as a profession. Teaching is a fairly high points thing to do. You need good results in leaving plus a degree for primary as opposed to a 2’1/ 2’2 in any degree from any university plus 1 yr pgce. I think the idea in Ireland is employ a highly qualified person, give them resources like text books written by highly qualified people, and leave them to it. I’m hopeful Ireland doesn’t follow UK into the managerial accountability and ‘evidencing’ ‘deep dives’.

But then again OP - you prob really should be in the gate before 8 and not leaving till 6 and answering all those dojos with a sense of urgency and all that!

As someone who was recently living in Ireland and experience both systems, I absolutely prefer the English system.

There was no communication with the Irish school, I had no idea what was happening with my DCs, including one regressing and spiralling out of control. There was no way to have an informal chat at the school gate as teacher in England do. An example, today my 5yo DD injured herself, the HT happened to be spending time in her class so brought her out to me explained what happened and also handed me an injury form. Took all of 20seconds as I had no questions. In Ireland I got one of my DDs to the car and looked over at her to see her entire ear bruised, there was dried blood too, so not a small injury, an ear dose not bruise and bleed easily. I went back into the school to find out what happened, but the teacher had already gone by the time I walked from my car which was parked in the school grounds, back to the reception area. I had to wait until the following day for their account. My DD just said she hurt herself. This is the same DD who went from a vivacious outgoing child to a nervous wreck within 12 months in the Irish school system. The school were not telling my about very important incidents which had I known about I could have helped my DD earlier.

I didn’t even know what my DDs teachers looked like, they were no where to be seen at the start of the new school year and at the end of the school day, there would be over 500 pupils pouring out with an odd adult standing right at the back of the yard before rushing off to their cars. In England the HT or another senior staff member would be at the school gates every morning. On the first day of the year the teachers come out smiling and introduce themselves if they haven’t met any parents. And are always available if a parents need them after school.

One of my friends 5yo DD was locked outside of school, a different school. She was only discovered when her older sisters class had their playtime over 30mins later and only by her sister and friends who took the poor wet cold child inside. Her parents weren’t told at pickup. It was only when her older child finished over an hour later did my friend find out by her older DD. Again, the younger child’s teachers were nowhere to be seen to find out what happened.

There was no system in place for children’s mental health to be monitored at all and the fact teachers don’t communicate with parents makes this very worrying for many parents as so many mental health issues are being missed in Irish schools.

When we left 5 other children from one of my DDs classes also left.

Talking to other parents from other schools, these are not isolated incidents, but a systemic problem in many schools.

Communicating with parents is and should be a very important part of their job. Of course if parents are constantly hogging a teachers time then this needs addressing with the parents. Class dojo is great for communicating. After moving back, I got updates from all my children’s teachers after the first 2 weeks to see how they were settling in and to let me know the outcome of their assessments to see what if any areas needed working on. However, I do understand how this could be abused by some parents.

I don’t need a long chat everyday at the school gate, but as a parent I do want to be communicated with, I don’t want to wait till the end of school parents evening.

Also for the children climbing the school walls. This is a very common complaint from Irish parents I met, no before or after school club availability, something which most parents rely on here. Our school here teams with another school, our school runs the breakfast club with staff taking children from the other school to school, then the other school dose the after school club, again our school drop children off.

Clock in and clock out times might be good for Irish teachers, but not necessarily for the children and their parents.

I'm Irish in Ireland and my toddlers will start school in 2.5 years.
I'm delighted to read that teachers in Ireland are well-paid, respected and have decent work hours.
I've no real exposure to Irish schools (not since the 70s/80s when I was in school), so was a bit worried hearing the MN teachers in the UK talking of burnout from long hours etc. I'd want the teachers of my kids to be happy and not overworked.

That does sound less than ideal. Some sort of happy medium surely is needed; I don’t understand why English schools let parents constantly harangue teachers, but a bit of basic communication is essential.

I do wish English schools used textbooks though. I am in a school system with textbooks, and massively prefer it. Teachers have time for working 1-1 with kids who are struggling or need help with a particular module, because the teachers are not spending all their time reinventing the wheel by trawling around the ‘net finding things to print out and photocopy. Also, textbooks come home and parents can support kids’ learning or fill in gaps if you take any time off school. If you don’t understand the calculation method for maths, “OK, let’s see what your textbook says.” Having a universal curriculum progression also means that each year’s learning builds on top of the next one, and kids relocating from one area to another can simply pick up where they left off—no gaps or redundancies, or teachers trying to teach one area to kids only to find that they can’t understand it because they didn’t do the foundational aspects in previous years.

and which union are you in OP?

That surely depends on the school though. I've experience of two Irish primary schools who are both very different to what you describe. In the town school the principal stood at the gate every morning, greeting each child by name, was very approachable for parents. Text messages/ phone calls from the secretary happened for any injury/ illness with a paper copy of the form if a bump on the head happened. In their current village school, 2 staff members greet the kids in the morning and their teachers bring them to the gate after school where they often have a quick word with parents. Again messages are sent for any bumps/ bruises. All staff have been very approachable.

My boys are in a local primary school in ireland and each of their classes has an SNA. There are a number of Ukrainian children being housed locally, and language support is provided. Parent-teacher meetings were held a few weeks ago. Teachers in my school are contactable by email, and messaging to parents is via Aladdin or email.

the teachers who choose to do so offer affordable (€10/hour) after-school clubs Monday to Thursday, from drama to chess to maths, and they have enough energy and enthusiasm at 2.30 to do so. I pay about €200 per child for school books (which can be ordered through the school, and the school gets a commission kick-back), and for supplies/music. There are about 400 pupils in the school.

Me and my husband work in the education sector. He is part of the senior team and it's become such BS. Long hours, half 7 til half 5. I'm doing the same hours and do some work on the weekend. We are always available to talk to parents in the mornings/after school and build a good rapport as this is important for us. They only schedule meetings if it's something more serious and needs a proper sit down conversation.

One thing that annoys me the most is some parents demanding to be contacted on their terms (not urgent and out of school hours to rant and rave instead of waiting on a meeting), and this isn't denied, and has happened so much with DH as he is senior. Once we were having a family meal and he couldn't join us until he had called this parent. I don't understand why anyone should have to do things like this beyond their hours and it really puts me off the profession. Not saying this happens everywhere.

@bunnybabies so when you say ‘don’t do it’, where should a child who is bright, able, wirh probable adhd go to school then? He would have no need to be in a special school. And I would rather stick pins in my eyes than HE, so that’s not happening. 😅

The school we’re looking at has a class for SEN from the surrounding area, so I’m hopeful they’re pretty on pick-up of SEN by comparison with when I was in school. Guess we’ll just have to see how he gets on then.

My kids went to RC elementary school in the US, catering to ages 3 and 4 (preschool) to 13 (8th grade). Oldest started school in 1995 and youngest finished in 2015 so our experience there spanned the development of email, the internet, etc

Like your school, OP, parents said their goodbyes outside the school, classes lined up from ten minutes before the doors opened (so at 7:50am) and at 3pm the kids were taken out to the sidewalk by teachers and released to parents. School hours obv 8-3.

Nobody could buttonhole the teachers at the school door and surprise them with questions. If you had a concern back in the 90s you phoned the secretary and asked for a chat, which would usually take place in school hours. When email became a thing, the teachers could be contacted via individual school email accounts. The school guaranteed a phone response or email response within 24 hours.

Many of the teachers left the school soon after 3, though one or two stayed til later to do marking, etc. One teacher ran an after school drama club, and currently there's that plus a coding and robotics club too, with both parents and teachers volunteering time to run them.

Parent volunteers coached various sports teams and one or two teachers came to home games if they were big events. The Principal came to a lot of home games.

All school notices used to go home on Thursday in a folder with oldest or only family member. This meant no constant avalanche of paperwork. When email got better, school notices arrived by email on Thursdays, and individual teachers could keep parents up to date on individual class news, reminders about appropriate winter gear, etc.

Private schools in the US are run entirely on tuition and fundraising, with no financial support from any local or state government. There is a state schoolbook loan scheme meaning kids all got loaner schoolbooks which were given back at the end of the year. However, parents buy all school supplies - all paper, pencils, markers, art stuff, boxes of tissues and paper towels for the classroom, etc. The annual bill can be steep. Lists are sent out in mid summer.

The same rules about parents in school are in force in the local state elementary, middle, and high school. Teachers answer emails and send out notifications by email, and they skedaddle out of the buildings within half an hour of the 3 o'clock bell.

Oh and school hours for 3 and 4 yos are basically 2.5 hours, morning or afternoon, 3 or 4 days a week. When my DCs were in kindergarten(age 5) they went for a half day 5 days a week. All learned to read, write, do maths, etc. There's no need to rush this.

Hmmm, my experience of teaching in Ireland is rather different to the OP's. I've 37 years under my belt at this stage. I arrive in to school at 7.45 or 7.50 each morning to prepare for the day ahead. I have a post of responsibility so am out in the yard to supervise the children from 8.30 until school starts at 8.50. School finishes at 2.30 but I rarely leave before 3.45 as I have planning/correcting/putting up displays/sorting class materials etc to do. Every Wednesday we have a whole school meeting for 1hour (part of a compulsory Croke Park hour agreement that all schools are supposed to do.) I invariably have an hour or so of planning and getting resources ready each night and I also put in a few hours at the weekend. I work efficiently and don't do things unless they are worthwhile, but there's no way that I could function effectively working the hours that the OP works. So, while I don't put in all the crazy hours that teachers in the UK seen to do, I do considerably more than the OP!

I'm not a teacher but work at university that has a very strong education programme (for both primary and secondary teaching) and I'm also a parent of 3 DC.

This is much more like my experience too of how teachers in Ireland work, compared to OP's description.

Also regarding contact with teachers, any time a teacher has needed to contact me, they've done so after their teaching day, and have been very flexible about doing so.

I would not go near an Irish primary mainstream school for SEN at present. The children with SEN are treated horrendously,No resources worth talking about.

That's a pretty outrageous statement. My DC primary school has opened classes for children with autism this year, and it's going really well. Previously children with autism were in the mainstream classes with SNA support and this also worked well for some children.

In the school there are a variety of children with additional needs, including Down Syndrome, and long term health conditions, like Muscular Dystrophy. The school are fantastic and so are the kids.

In my DC secondary school, there is also a unit for children with additional needs, which is integrated with the mainstream classes. I have less direct experience with this, but I'm on the PTA, and we spend a lot of time fundraising and supporting the unit.

My DC primary don't close the school early for p/t meetings. They are scheduled for 10 minutes, after or before school, and are more thorough than you describe, even when all well. We are shown their work, given marks for their weekly tests and the teachers my DC have had, over 12 years now, have been excellent at providing specific feedback, including positive comments.

If you need a longer meeting, you can arrange that.

Not having textbooks written to reflect the national curriculum means greater variability in quality at the chalkface. It would save lots of time as well.
I went to a private school in the States. All textbooks had to be purchased and cost $ 800-1500 per year now. An art history textbook for high schoolers was $ 600- five years ago.

Teaching is not the same across the UK. The Scottish and Welsh systems are very different to England's.

I've taught in England and it was barking mad. The system is broken. I really miss teaching in Scotland.

@bunnybabies The way you refer to parents in your posts suggests a lack of respect, with their nonsense and horse shit. I wonder about the quality of pastoral care in your school as it sounds like this attitude is coming from the top down. I would suggest a culture of mutual respect provides a healthier and happier learning environment for children. Parents shouldn't be treated as an inconvenience, it is part of the teachers job to communicate with them and with technology now there's really no excuse for not sending/replying to emails.
99.9% of parents just want what's best for their children. They are not your enemy.

@Ridelikethewindypops I agree, the OP's attitude to parents seems quite antagonist.

From DH's experience teaching in England it does seem that some parents can be too demanding, particularly in better off areas,and school leadership don't seem to back up their staff. He now works in an area with a different demographic and a more supportive head and its no longer a problem.

However as parents we can see it from the other side. It is nice to feel that your child's teacher is approachable. (not every day or week but occasionally). Surely there should be a happy medium as pps have suggested? Both parents and teachers want the best for the kids.