11 October 2023 - Budget 2024: Some gains but missed opportunities to support school leadership
Budget 2024 is a mixture of some gains and significant frustration at the missed opportunity to more adequately support school leadership.
As you’ll recall, IPPN’s Budget 2024 submission focused on four key areas:
- enhancing leadership capacity in schools
- the resourcing of schools to meet SEN needs
- the need for a review of the current governance structure
- the provision of adequate funding to schools.
There has been some progress in all four areas. There remains significant scope for further progress.
17th Nov 2022: There can be no further prevarication on the unsustainability of primary school leadership. The time to act is now.
In his input at the IPPN annual principals' conference in Killarney today, IPPN President Brian O’Doherty focused on the current reality of primary school leadership setting out a roadmap to allow school leaders to focus on their core purpose of ‘leading teaching and learning’.
Launching a report based on research undertaken over the past two years by IPPN on the issue of sustainable leadership, he assured those present that ‘This is not an exercise in ‘woe is us’. On the contrary, the objective of the project is to enhance school leadership, which leads to more effective schools, which leads to better outcomes for children. It’s one of those rare opportunities where everyone could be a winner.’
Staffing Schedule and SET Allocations – IPPN Response
The unfortunate inadvertent and premature release of the SET allocations appendices on Friday night has led to confusion and upset among school leaders, which is very regrettable. IPPN issued a communication to members via SMS on Saturday afternoon relating to the DE clarification that it had been issued in error.
IPPN has lobbied intensely for an early release of the staffing schedule, given the impact on schools of the much later issuing of the circular in previous years, and therefore welcomes the early publication of the staffing schedule and SET allocations for the 2024/25 school year. The publication of the circular in early February is commendable given that a process of reprofiling of schools for SET allocations had to be completed. The publication of the circular at this juncture of the school year will better facilitate the timely completion of redeployment and recruitment processes.
As you are aware, IPPN published a position paper on SEN Resources, Allocations & Appeals last June. The position paper was developed by the Advocacy & Communications committee of the National Council and highlighted challenges relating to the allocation of resources to schools to meet additional needs, including:
23 August 2023 - IPPN's Statement on Teacher Supply
IPPN is acutely aware of and concerned about the challenges schools are facing with regard to recruiting their full complement of teachers for the new school year. As you know, over the last number of years, IPPN has consistently highlighted the issues school leaders have faced in securing substitute cover for teacher absence and we have sought and secured measures that would alleviate those issues. This year however, the issue of teacher supply seems to be reaching crisis level, especially in urban areas.
