# secondary school teachers doing orals



## seantheman (3 May 2012)

Just looking for views and opinions on the following
My son is doing honours maths and french for the Leaving Cert, in the past couple of weeks he has been without classes in these subjects as his teachers have been off at neighbouring schools doing oral exams.
     Arising from the above, the teachers concerned probably get full salary and extra pay/allowances for the orals. Firstly, couldn't newly retired teachers not form a panel for the orals? If not, shouldn't the current teachers doing the orals only get paid 'extra' as regards mileage to and from the exam centre because they are already getting paid salary for the day's work?.....Discuss, as me aul master used to say


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## DB74 (3 May 2012)

Seems a bit ridiculous alright - what does your son's class do during those periods

Just something else to add to the list of things that could/should be done better with a bit of lateral thinking


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## airgead07 (3 May 2012)

it does seem ridiculous that they may be getting paid extra for doing extra work during normal hours.

What contingencies were put in place because these teachers were not able to give the class? Was there work left behind for the class to do?
How many classes has your son actual missed?

I would say all conscientious teachers do not like missing exam classes especially not this time of year.


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## suemoo1 (3 May 2012)

my daughter did her orals in irish and spanish there about two weeks ago.. seems to have been off early nearly everday since.. some days they were sent home as only 4 in the class! dont understand why they cant take a class even if only 4 pupils there, surely thats better for the child..days musical exams on they were sent home early also.


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## Complainer (5 May 2012)

Have you brought this up with the school? Find out who are the parents nominees on the Board of Management and talk to them.


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## STEINER (5 May 2012)

Current teachers wouldn't do the orals if they were not getting paid extra.  Retired teachers shouldn't be hired.  The exam curriculum should be well covered by April, its all repetition and revision by then.


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## Protocol (5 May 2012)

Teacher gets paid to do orals during class time after Easter break.

Sub gets hired.

Cost to State:

(1) teacher's normal wage
(2) fee + mileage to go to other school to do the oral
(3) cost to hire sub for the day(s)

*MADNESS*.

Why not hold the oral exams during Easter week, so saving the interruption to classes and the costs of the sub?


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## Protocol (5 May 2012)

Complainer said:


> Have you brought this up with the school? Find out who are the parents nominees on the Board of Management and talk to them.


 
Principal and Board of Mgt are not the "boss" of the teacher, not like in private sector.

DES sets date of orals.

I presume Principal / BoM can't stop the teacher leaving.

Unions too powerful.

Orals should be held during Easter week, same fees / mileage paid to teacher,  but no interruption of classes, no cost of sub.

Need strong Govt to dictate, not negotiate.


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## Complainer (6 May 2012)

Protocol said:


> Principal and Board of Mgt are not the "boss" of the teacher, not like in private sector.


Actually, they are. The BoM is the employer of the teacher, even though the Dept Education pays the salaries. This is how the Dept managed to avoid liability for abuse carried out by teachers, in the past.

I guess that many teachers would cringe slightly at the reference to 'unions too powerful' given the series of attacks on their terms and conditions that have gone through in recent years. But regardless, unless there is something in the teacher's contract that allows them to take absence, they should be in their own school teaching. 

It is certainly worth raising this at BoM level. It's also worth checking out whether this school benefits from 'incoming' teachers from other schools to do orals. If it's just a swapping of resources between schools with no net gain for teachers or schools, then that would be understandable.


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## Marion (6 May 2012)

Don't forget that some people work in the VEC sector and the BoM is not an employer in this sector.

Marion


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## BoscoTalking (7 May 2012)

The students would not be too impressed with your suggestion of no Easter Orals eating into their Easter study plans. 
Seems odd that you could be paid twice for working the same week, but I wouldn't be so sure that is infact the case, is it actually true?, I noted the OP said probably, 

Teacher bashing seems to be a public bloodsport these days. I wonder why other areas of front line services are not equally open to a good bash? Garda overtime, on call rates for firemen etc ? For what teachers do I honestly don't think they are paid in excess, that is if they are indeed all doing what they should be doing.


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## PaddyBloggit (7 May 2012)

jessikario said:


> Sometimes it seems to be funny and some times it seems to be ridiculous.



what does?


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## seantheman (10 May 2012)

Sorry guy's been outa action for a while. On reread i wasn't very clear on how this panned out, Around four weeks ago his French teacher went to local schools to do their orals and he missed four French lessons,then two weeks ago the Irish teacher missed five lessons at school by doing orals again.Both teachers left classwork for them to get on with supervised by sub teacher.
     Obviously kids have to have leaving orals but i simply never had to think about where the teachers came from until i had a child doing their leaving cert.I also understand that whoever does the orals should have a good connect with the leaving syllabus,but what would be so wrong with asking newly retired (1-3 years) to look after this? God knows there should be plenty in this boat just now.Have many other parents of leaving students seen this happening in their schools,or was my lad just unlucky to have two teachers involved?


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## Complainer (10 May 2012)

Do other teachers 'return the favour' by coming into your school to do these orals with your students?


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## seantheman (11 May 2012)

I wouldn't exactly actually call it 'returning a favour' but yes,a teacher from a neighbouring school came and did their oral exams


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## Complainer (13 May 2012)

seantheman said:


> I wouldn't exactly actually call it 'returning a favour' but yes,a teacher from a neighbouring school came and did their oral exams



So the school loans some resources, and then gets resources back on loan. It all comes out in the wash. Who do you expect to do the orals with your children, if not teachers on loan from other schools?


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## seantheman (13 May 2012)

Complainer said:


> So the school loans some resources, and then gets resources back on loan. It all comes out in the wash. Who do you expect to do the orals with your children, if not teachers on loan from other schools?


 
I'll refer you back to my previous posts where you will find your answer


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## Complainer (13 May 2012)

seantheman said:


> I'll refer you back to my previous posts where you will find your answer



So you're suggesting that 'newly retired teachers' be engaged to do the orals - which would be more expensive that using existing teachers. Given that we're living on borrowed money, can we really afford to be paying extra people to do this work at extra cost?


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## seantheman (13 May 2012)

Complainer said:


> So you're suggesting that 'newly retired teachers' be engaged to do the orals - which would be more expensive that using existing teachers.


 
I'm merely asking the question.Do you know,with any degree of certainty that retired teachers would cost more than current ones?
  Are you suggesting that current teachers get no more than their standard salary plus travel costs/expenses for carrying out these tasks?
  If so, then i would welcome this cost saving measure


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## Complainer (13 May 2012)

seantheman said:


> I'm merely asking the question.Do you know,with any degree of certainty that retired teachers would cost more than current ones?
> Are you suggesting that current teachers get no more than their standard salary plus travel costs/expenses for carrying out these tasks?
> If so, then i would welcome this cost saving measure



Maybe you should have checked out the answers to the questions before you jumped to conclusions? For the record, no - I don't know the current situation with any certainly, just like yourself.


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## seantheman (13 May 2012)

Complainer said:


> So you're suggesting that 'newly retired teachers' be engaged to do the orals - which would be more expensive that using existing teachers.


 
It sounds like that statement was written with certainty wheras i'll refer you back to my 'probable' in the OP


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## Complainer (13 May 2012)

seantheman said:


> It sounds like that statement was written with certainty wheras i'll refer you back to my 'probable' in the OP


No, I wouldn't use the term 'suggesting' where I want to mean 'certainty'. But really, shouldn't you have checked it out before casting aspersions?


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## armelodie (14 May 2012)

The whole idea of using retired teachers really sickens me. 
If they're retired then they're retired. Why would we want to bring them out of retirement. It's like hollywood flogging the movie sequels for fear of taking a risk on something new. 
What would be really prudent and 'just' is engaging in some way with the hundreds of recently qualified unemployed teachers who could be utilised in the area of superintending,marking,examining,supervision,substitution, orals/practicals etc...
The counter argument is usually 'someone more experienced would be more suitable' but really, even doctors are trusted with peoples lives straight after graduating. Do we not trust younger teachers?


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## seantheman (14 May 2012)

Complainer said:


> So you're suggesting that 'newly retired teachers' be engaged to do the orals - which would be more expensive that using existing teachers.


 
Re-read your quote
I suggest that 'newly retired teachers' be engaged to do orals.
You state that this would be more expensive than using existing teachers.


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## GoldWings (14 May 2012)

good point armelodie


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## BoscoTalking (14 May 2012)

+ 1 Armelodie, 

newly qualified language teachers can surely conduct an oral exam?


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## orka (15 May 2012)

Just noticed this thread now.  The Irish Times education supplement did a small piece on this a couple of weeks ago.  Teachers doing orals are paid €37 per hour extra on top of their salaries to do orals in a school other than their own.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, their own school has to do without classes for the missing teacher or pay a substitute.  Absolute madness.  It should be part of their contract that they have to do oral exams in other schools - or maybe they can get paid to do orals elsewhere but the (presumably lower) cost of a substitute gets netted off their own salary.


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## Complainer (15 May 2012)

orka said:


> Just noticed this thread now.  The Irish Times education supplement did a small piece on this a couple of weeks ago.  Teachers doing orals are paid €37 per hour extra on top of their salaries to do orals in a school other than their own.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, their own school has to do without classes for the missing teacher or pay a substitute.  Absolute madness.  It should be part of their contract that they have to do oral exams in other schools - or maybe they can get paid to do orals elsewhere but the (presumably lower) cost of a substitute gets netted off their own salary.



Assuming that [broken link removed], it says that teachers get "*up to *€37 per hour" (my emphasis) for doing these orals elsewhere. It does seem very strange that they are paid twice for doing the same day's work, particularly if they are also paid travel expenses for going to the other school. I can't see any details of these schemes in the Dept's list of circulars.

If anyone has specific details on this, I and others would be very interested to see them.


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## orka (16 May 2012)

Complainer said:


> Assuming that [broken link removed], it says that teachers get "*up to *€37 per hour" (my emphasis) for doing these orals elsewhere.


Fair enough - I just remember the figure of €37 per hour making me choke on my cornflakes.  But is 'up to' supposed to make us feel better? "It's okay, only some of them get €37"...  It's still the case that teachers are getting paid extra for work done during school hours when they should be doing the main job they are paid to do.
Schools/teachers should do as suggested earlier in this thread, although I think 'you do mine and I'll do yours' might not appear independent enough.   Maybe have it so that school A does school B, school B does school C, school C does school D and school D does school A.


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## Complainer (16 May 2012)

Yep, the €37 figure seems crazy, unless there is some particular reason for it. That's why I was looking for the Departmental circular to explain what is actually going on. Seems strange that it's not available.

I'd guess that they probably have a circular arrangement for rotating teachers, rather than a straight reciprocal arrangement, but again, you'd really need to see the circular to be sure.


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## Marion (16 May 2012)

It _might _be off topic but are consultants in our hospitals not in the same situation?

Do they receive income from private patients while they are in the care of a public hospital?

Perhaps all this double income might be addressed at the same time

I'm sure others will be able to point out other anomalies.

I haven't a clue what teachers earn while doing orals.

Marion


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## Complainer (16 May 2012)

Marion said:


> It _might _be off topic but are consultants in our hospitals not in the same situation?
> 
> Do they receive income from private patients while they are in the care of a public hospital?



I think it's a different scenario. If consultants were going to other public hospitals and being paid extra for treating public patients in those public hospitals, then it would be the same situation.


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## Marion (16 May 2012)

OK true. I suspect it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that a public funded teacher will end up doing orals in a private school? But I'm not sure of this.

Perhaps as I mentioned all this double income that occurs in some form in public institutions might be dealt with at the same time.


Marion


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## Complainer (16 May 2012)

Marion said:


> OK true. I suspect it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that a public funded teacher will end up doing orals in a private school? But I'm not sure of this.


Any idea on where we might find the detailed regulations to confirm or deny what actually happens?


Marion said:


> Perhaps as I mentioned all this double income that occurs in some form in public institutions might be dealt with at the same time.


Indeed.


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## Firefly (17 May 2012)

Complainer said:


> So the school loans some resources, and then gets resources back on loan. It all comes out in the wash.


 
No really. If one school "loses" a teacher to orals who is teaching 1st years whereas another school "loses" a teacher who is teaching 
a LC class, then the pupils in the latter school are worse off. Surely, an easy solution here is for the principal to only allow non-LC teachers to leave for orals?


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## orka (17 May 2012)

It's strange how difficult it is to find information on this but from some quick searches it looks like there is no scope for schools to have reciprocal or rotating arrangements for compulsory Leaving Cert orals. Assistant Examiners are recruited by the State Examination Commission ( see  ). The applicant's school (principal or deputy) must sign/stamp the application form to confirm they are okay with the teacher being absent from their post for the duration of the oral exams. Examiners are paid (there's no mention of rates but method of payment is discussed) and the following applicants are excluded:

*The following persons will not be eligible for appointment: *
*(a) Teachers who have taken early retirement under Strand 1 of the Early Retirement Scheme for teachers. *
*(b) Teachers who are on paid Statutory Maternity Leave at the time of Conferences and Oral Examining period. *
*(c) Teachers who are on paid/unpaid sick leave. *
*(d) Teachers in receipt of disability pension. * *

The only other major discussion is on the teachers unions websites where there seems to have been an issue with optional Junior Certificate orals NOT being eligible for payment and the unions wanted these paid similar to Leaving cert orals. For the optional JC orals, many schools seem to have done these themselves (against the wishes of the unions) or had reciprocal arrangements or paid external examiners themselves.


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