Unlocking Ireland - an unprecedented thread no. 6

[CherryValanc]

A sixth thread in Craicnet!!

Who thought that would ever happen!!? Has there even been a sixth page before?

I hadn't heard about that funeral @Iblinkedandiamold
Was there anything in particular that meant it was so large that they needed portaloos and a marque?
Why did it go ahead in that way?
I too think of @Lipz and her being fined in genuine circumstances..
It's bloody annoying.

It was a young lad, just 22 I think, from the travelling community. His family brought him back from the U.K to be burried.
It was all over my Facebook page today.
Very sad and all but from the photographs it was a huge funeral. The paper said "a number of people were found in breach of Covid travel restrictions but no fines were issued"
So if I break the travel rules to go for a walk and I get stopped can I use that and say well they weren't fined.

DS is December born so I'm starting him at 4 but I think he's a bit soft and would probably do better a bit older. DD is Feb and I anticipate she'll be running rings around us by 4 and I worry she'll be bored if I leave her to 5.
I have a very hard time imagining their ages and slotting them into plans I also can't work out time zones and wonder if it's the same sort of skill. I promise I'm not generally stupid, it all feels like spatial relations to me the bruises all over me prove that is not my forte.

Would anyone consider vaccine tourism? I think it sounds like too much effort , I'd probably raise an eyebrow at someone doing it but not really judge

I like the English system where all kids born 1 Sept to Aug start together. You know where you stand, and don't have to decide.
English mums seem obsessed by joined up writing though.

I dont understand why they are teaching cursive anymore. Yes it looks nice but sure by the time these kids finish school everything will be digital anyway.

I might have to brush up on the aul cursive myself. I used to have such beautiful script, I won prizes for my handwriting Now I can barely decipher my own notes. And I'm not even a doctor!

I can write really neatly, much better than the people I work with, but it isn't cursive. A lot of my inlaws have exactly the same writing, beaten into them by nuns.

@eggandonion

I like the English system where all kids born 1 Sept to Aug start together. You know where you stand, and don't have to decide. English mums seem obsessed by joined up writing though.

I don't think it's the mothers, I think it's the curriculum.

May have been mislead though, but I think the SATs thing isn't great. I get the idea the curriculum is quite narrow and restrictive and overtly tested.

My sil was super keen on preparing for sats. She had her poor kids tormented. An English friend was horrified by the length of holidays my kids got, and the idea of transition year. She asked why we were setting our kids up for failure.

Weird. But there's plenty of Irish mum's who are crazed about their children's results. Kniw a few, poor kids are so pressurised. Also loads think TY is a a waste of a year (usually the ones mad about results!!)

Though all the people I've spoken to about think it's great. (Not so positive about the long holidays- the reaction is how do you manage it with work. Which, quite frankly, I agree is a headache (if you work).)

Do England not have around the same amount of school days as us, they just have longer Hoildays throughout the year.
I am not a hundred percent sure but I think I had that conversation with my aunt and cousins who are living in England. This was primary school now.
I do think transition year is a waste of time. Wouldnt it be more beneficial after the leaving cert.
I'm not very academic and I found it so hard to get back into the swing of proper schooling after it. The same with my own son.
Yes it has it's advantages but there were more disadvantages for me looking back on it.

I’m a TY fan. My daughter is in 3rd year and I was so hoping she would get a place (lottery for places) and she did! Especially after the last year-with 2 school years interrupted, she is in no way ready to pick subjects for leaving cert or even think about college. So I’m hoping the breather will help her in lots of ways.

@eggandonion

I like the English system where all kids born 1 Sept to Aug start together. You know where you stand, and don't have to decide. English mums seem obsessed by joined up writing though.

You don’t have to decide - but - if your PFB is a Aug 31st baby that means they’re starting school along with the almost 5 year olds at ‘just turned 4’. There’s a huge difference. The school day is longer also - Reception class stays for a full lunch and goes home with the other classes at 3. There’s absolutely no flexibility for readiness of individual child. Straight into a very pressurised curriculum, particularly from Year 1. (Ex U.K. Teacher, now happily teaching in a tiny rural school in West Clare)

Pretty sure they do @Iblinkedandiamold. All works out as the same hours.

It's just the idea of the yawning weeks all together makes it seem more daunting in arranging childcare. The same with the shorter primary school day.

I agree @JollyGreenGiantess I know a little girl (in the UK).who stated when she was just, literally, four

I mean with the wider age range in Ireland you do get some mad ages gaps on classes. But honestly that little girl was way too young.

JollyGreenGiantess
As you've taught in the UK and Ireland I'd love to hear your views on how they compare.

Do England not have around the same amount of school days as us, they just have longer Hoildays throughout the year.

No, schools have more days and longer days in England.

Ireland primary = 183 days x 5 hours 40 mins per day (mandated, less in infants) = 1037 hours per year. It's about middling by European standards.

England primary = 190 days x 6 hours 30 mins (variable but usually between 6-7 hours) = 1235 hours per year.

And with all that, children in English schools come out worse than children in Irish schools on international comparisons of educational attainment. And they score worse on child happiness and wellbeing indexes.

More time in school does not equal better schooling or happier children.

(And don't get me started on the fixed age cohort thing in England that has a quarter of children on SEN registers because the curriculum and behavioural expectations are too advanced for their stage of development... which has huge impacts on their educational attainment and mental health right into adulthood...)

Oh the English curriculum is nuts. I'll never forget teaching senior infants and having a parent tying herself up in knots because her child's English cousins (same age) were learning multiplication and she couldn't understand why we were 'behind'. Funnily enough the same woman said to me years later that our approach was the right one as the cousins were balls of anxiety!

My niece is 40, and I have no idea how or why that happened. Anyway, my brother's children went to school in England, they were in very big schools. His dd1 is a spring baby, and when she started school they had a September intake and a January intake which seemed to avoid the huge range of age differences. They also had teaching assistants in class, and reception had a nursery nurse to assist with personal care.
I don't know how much of this is still available, with cuts.
I think sixth class was when the age range became an issue here. Some of the class are teenagers. Some are very hormonal, there was so much drama. They should have been in secondary school, with longer days and more teachers. (This may have been just unlucky).
Also our primary school had split classes, because of numbers. My kids were among the older in their year group, but with the split class ended up in a classroom with the year ahead. So part of second class was in with third, part in with first. There was some low level bullying by the older part of the class towards the 'interlopers '.

My senior infant, when we moved to England, was very excited when she discovered numbers existed beyond tens and units. She's in her twenties, it is her major memory of school in England. Along with international week, when local restaurants brought in food to try. It was all vegetarian.

Re: getting stopped at check points.

My friend and I both had hospital appointments on Monday (at different hospitals in the city) and I drove us both there. (Nature of friend’s illness means she is unable to drive long journeys safely.)
Approx 90 mins each way.

We got stopped 3 times in each direction and asked about our journey and truthfully replied about attending hospital appts. All the Gards cheerily waved us on our way and didn’t ask to check documentation.

I was thinking about Lipz and I wonder whether because she told them a Priest had OK’d the trip, whether that was what annoyed them and made them fine her? Whatever the reason, she was very unlucky that morning.

@eggandonion

My senior infant, when we moved to England, was very excited when she discovered numbers existed beyond tens and units. She's in her twenties, it is her major memory of school in England. Along with international week, when local restaurants brought in food to try. It was all vegetarian.

I was in primary school in England.

My earliest memories of primary school (about 5 years old) consist of going for a walk somewhere all in pairs. I was upfront and the teacher pointing out a pharmacy to me (I have no clue why) and my thinking that's a weird farm and that there were a lot of letters in the word.

Also, having to count trees and write the number in chalk on them, I had the hundredth and first tree and wasn't too sure how to do write it. I wasn't sure if it was 101 or 1001, I wrote 1001 and wasn't corrected. I only figured out it was wrong when the teacher wrote 102 on the next tree. (We'll just have to park the question why the hell were we counting trees for so long that it got to 101 (and beyond).)

I haven't met many checkpoints - but there were more when I had to go into the office in the city centre a few weeks back (I hadn't met any on previous trips in - roughly 20 between May and December). But there were some on my 2 trips in the past month, but once I said where I was going, I was quickly waved on.

We also met a checkpoint when we were out cycling the seafront cycle track a couple of Sundays ago - it was a lovely day and there were a LOT cycling, which was no issue once you were local but there were a few getting lots of questions having come out from the city centre. But the Garda car was parked literally across 1 track of the cycleway, so both directions were being squeezed together on the opposite side.....

I haven't seen any checks near us, dh has gone to pick up work stuff about once a month and hasn't seen any.
I saw more at lockdown one.

Happy one year anniversary, I was reminiscing with the children today about the announcement last year and closing down.
I was telling them about the lack of bread, pasta and flour, thevempty shelves in Tesco. It was like the end of the world.