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 highlight these issues. Unfortunately, with the change in the vaccination schedule, all these issues were put to the side and the media ended up accusing us of jumping the queue and trying to kill our grannies. 

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 did we get into this situation where the government feel they can walk all over us and, in the end, will I turn out to be the April Fool?

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 the same qualification at the end of it. My qualification was with a specialisation in upper primary and theirs was with a specialisation on early years. This means that I did all my Teaching Practice with the equivalent of 2nd class upwards and many of my colleagues did the equivalent of 1st class downwards. While all of us came back to Ireland qualified to teach in any primary school classroom, it actually made huge sense to have two separate specialities for upper and lower primary years. The difference between teaching a 4 year old and a 12 year old is vast. In this episode, I’ll be arguing that if I were the Minister for Education, I’d have specialised qualifications for Infant teachers.

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 therapy is needed. However, it generally takes place during school, and often it’s difficult for parents to get out of work to bring them, and also they only last an arbitrary amount of time. While my idea won't revolutionise the system, it's one less thing to dismantle from the wreckage of how we treat children with additional needs.

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 in the English language curriculum. The UK curriculum has long since absorbed the subject of Drama into its English curriculum where it sits with other literary arts. In this episode, I will be arguing that if I were the Minister for Education I would scrap Drama as a subject from the primary curriculum.

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 person will suddenly rise up, turn greener than emeralds, pump his chest and stick fadas on every vowel in his name before repeatedly quoting Pádraig Pearce with a chant of Tír gan teanga, tir gan anam

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 I can rip apart the Catholic Church, the Union and others but this is probably the one that’s going to get me cancelled, as young folk say. However, I’ll try my best to talk through the issue and see if I do come to the conclusion that abolishing the supplementary panel does make sense.

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 be arguing that if I were the Minister for Education, I’d be properly resourcing supply panels.

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 through it page by page and figure out what has changed.