All Blog Posts
Educate Together: We don't teach atheism, we teach about atheism
- 07/11/2013
I was travelling in the UK last month and came back to quite a furore about an article in the Guardian newspaper and on the Guardian website. The writer had asserted that Educate Together had "won the right" to teach "that God doesn't exist" in Ireland! In the end the paper printed a correction and published a letter I wrote to the editor but not before social media sites had echoed with quite a...
Féilte, World Teachers Day 2013
- 30/10/2013
On Saturday 5 October, I attended Féilte, the Teaching Council-organised Festival of Education in Learning and Teaching Excellence which was held at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham. Over 300 hundred teachers were there, a great turnout. The day itself was billed as an opportunity for teachers to explore, discuss and celebrate professional practice, and with over 30 innovative teaching projects...
Educate Together CEO Paul Rowe Reacts to Budget 2014
- 16/10/2013
After long months awaiting a fearful round of cuts and reductions in Budget 2014, we are very relieved to see that there have been no further reductions in resources for front-line services in schools. I think we have to say that this is a tremendous achievement at a very difficult financial time. The significant increases in teacher employment to meet demographic increases and resource hours...
St Patrick V St Brigid
- 16/10/2013
For the past couple of years, I've put together a Teacher Calendar highlighting the main religious festivals as well as general days of interest that teachers may or may not be aware of. These days fit nicely into the Learn Together e.g. World Refugee Day, Fairtrade Fortnight, Tree Week etc. The calendar has to reflect the six main world religions, as fairly or as near to fairly as possible, and...
Conference on Religious Education in UCC
- 20/09/2013
These conferences can often be made up of the usual suspects - ourselves included! But this really had an international feel, with delegates from Russia, the UK, Japan and Denmark amongst other countries. A speaker from Canada presented on the West's perception of Hinduism and other Asian belief systems. Basically, he argued that we in the West tend to have a very Judaeo-Christian view of...
Postgraduate Cert in Ethical and Multi-denominational Education
- 12/09/2013
Once again, we're running our postgraduate certificate in Ethical and Multi-denominational Education in St Patrick's College of Education, from September 2013. Last year's course was a great success with one of the participants commenting that the course 'really encouraged deep reflection on current ethical issues in education'. Modules deal with: Philosophies of Ethical and Multi-denominational...
Three New Schools Opening Next Week!
- 26/08/2013
Intensive work going on all week preparing for the three primary new schools due to open on September 2nd in Portobello (Dublin), Firhouse (Dublin) and Rochestown (Cork). Really hard work done over the summer and a lot more to do next week. Tremendous credit to the effort being put in by volunteers, the recently appointed Principals and teachers and our national office staff. Thanks also to the...
Remembering Seán Murphy
- 20/08/2013
Very sad to hear of Seán Murphy's passing away over the weekend. I first met Seán at one of the very earliest meetings for the Lucan Educate Together school. We had received a request from a residents association and I travelled with Deirdre O'Donoghue, our National Coordinator, to try an find an address in the new suburbs. It was the days of "Lucan Planning" there were no street names or...
CEO Blog: The Leaving Cert poorly prepares students for the realities they now face
- 15/08/2013
Once again this year, the sword of Damocles has fallen over a generation of young Irish adults. By now, the Leaving Certificate results have been published, tweeted and texted the world over. There have been whoops of joy and cries of angst as students examined their marks. This is a rite of passage that comes with an almost cathartic sense of relief from students and parents alike. It is time...
CEO Blog: Gender and Schools
- 01/08/2013
There was great news this week with the appointment of two more women Supreme Court judges in Ireland. One is Mary Laffoy, the judge who took a strong stand in the early years of the institutional abuse inquiry and resigned when the Department of Education stonewalled the inquiry’s demands for access to documentary evidence. This brings to three the number of female supreme court judges. Today in...