This year’s conference was a great success with over 100 attendees. The keynote address was given by former North Bay principal, former Educate Together director and co-author of the Learn Together, Dr Frieda McGovern on ‘Identity and Belonging in Multi-Ethnic Classrooms’.
There were workshops afterwards for Board of Management members, Parents and Teachers. The workshops for teachers dealt with sensitive issues, which sometimes crop up in schools. They had been specifically sent in by teachers and there definitely wasn’t enough time to deal with them all. With this in mind, an article on one of these topics – dealing with LGBT issues in school – is in this edition of Teacher News.
During the second workshop, Mary Brosnan, from Kilcolgan ETNS, presented on Student-Led Conferences. These conferences give pupils the opportunity to celebrate learning by showing off a portfolio of work to parents / guardians. A lot of organising is involved but pupils, parents and teachers couldn’t speak highly enough of the benefits accrued. Mary’s presentation is up on the Resource Bank, under the Equality and Justice.
There was also a focus group on the ethical education curriculum for our new second-level schools. It really doesn't get more ground-breaking than this and if ever there was a space to watch, this is it!
Sadly, everyone thought everyone else was taking photos of the Ethos Conference and we have nothing! And so, in an attempt to elicit reflection on all things ethos and ethics related and indeed on the nature of existence, itself, it was decided to go with a view of the magnificent Cooley Peninsula in Co Louth, (with apologies to people from Kerry, Donegal, Mayo, and pretty much everywhere else… or, who knows, maybe no apologies…)
