Secondary school teachers are to hold a one-day strike on Tuesday 2 December in protest over proposed changes to the Junior Cycle
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) November 14, 2014
Secondary school teachers have agreed on a one day strike on December 2nd with a second date in January over reforms to Junior Cert
— Today FM News (@TodayFMNews) November 14, 2014
Teachers to strike on 2 December over Junior Cycle changes (RTÉ)
UPDATE:
Via Páraic Gallagher
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I’m a lazy yoov. Can someone explain why the teachers oppose the new JC cycle?
More continuous assessment in the JC as opposed to heavy emphasis on end-of-year exams is the main thrust of the reform. All very well and approved by most, but this proposal is also demanding that marking up projects will be internally carried out per school – and not externally marked as it currently is for all State exams. This was initially to be 100% as proposed by Ruairi Quinn but since clawed back to 40% by O’Sullivan. Still, the Unions oppose internal marking – mainly for resource reasons and risk of bias – plus I think they’re generally peeved about the to-ing and fro-ing on this and lack of…wait for it…CLARITY.
Teachers will correct their own students exams. That’s a big part of it, as far as I recall….
They’re some shower pretending that this is about the students and educational standards.
It’s 100% about taking their exam marking nixers away from them.
I used to be inclined to agree with you. It was explained to me that the current Junior Cert at prepares the students mentally for a national examination. Without it, once the Leaving Cert comes along, they wouldn’t really know what to expect. Maybe the ceremony of a national examination sort of drills home it’s importance, rather than a per school examination. I know we didn’t give sh1t about Christmas Tests, as they were called in my school, bu the Junior Cert did sort of make us go ‘fupp, I better get my sh1t together or the aul pair will fuppin kill me’ etc. I’m not sure what to think about the whole thing, but I think that’s a fair enough point.
A 100% you say. Do tell where you get your information from?
I think they just miss the old 8th of December day off and need to get to the shops before Christmas. The January strike will be an ideal moment to hit the sales.
From today’s IT: “40 per cent of junior cycle marks would be awarded for project or portfolio work during 2nd and 3rd year. This 40 per cent would be assessed by classroom teachers”.
In a society that judges schools by exam marks, what could possibly go wrong with this scenario?
Yeah it’s societies fault not the teachers who fear losing the exam marking cash…
+1
And this will also lead to so much unnecessary to-ing and fro-ing about “The teacher doesn’t like my little Johnny, so that’s why he did so disappointingly…”, never mind that little Johnny is too dumb to figure out which side of a stamp to lick.
Great! Just what the current JC & LC students need…..
“What do we want?”
“The 8th of December back as a Christmas shopping day, but until then the 2nd will do”
“When do we want it?”
“Now!”
In my experience, exams of permanent record / certified/ certificate, at any level of the examable discipline or subject paper, be they academic, professional etc, are only reliable if corrected and assessed by external correctors.