Walking the Dog in a Hi-Viz Talking About Education

In today's episode, I talk about strikes from the unions, social media and e-scooters, and we wrap up the week of unconvention on the Irish language.

In this video, I welcome everyone back for Season 2 of the podcast and celebrate my 25th year in teaching, as well as going through the plans for the unconvention and what's been happening otherwise in my life over the summer.

The SNA ballot was defeated this week, and I explored the disappointment from some people and the reasons from those who voted against it. I have lots and lots of questions.

In this video, I wish everyone a happy summer, and I discuss a couple of interesting statistics from the Primary School Survey. Finally, I talk about special education and the unconvention and what we're going to do next.

Every year I'm asked to go on the radio to talk about gifts for teachers, but every year I talk about just being thanked. I'm wondering how often you're thanked by your pupils and parents and guardians, and has that changed over the years?

I got a great comment on social media about prioritising the highest level of need. He said, "Every parent thinks their child has the highest level of need." How do we communicate to the people who made up that phrase that it's a nonsense? I'd love your thoughts.

In this episode, I talk about my favourite subject to teach, which was visual arts, and a little bit on how there's a risk of losing creative thinking in the arts. I preview next month's podcast with Grace Brennan, who is running some interesting summer courses. I try to make a creative analogy of what it's like to be a teacher and why they're always tired at this time of the year.

Are special classes the answer? That is the question I asked at the Un-convention last night, and most of the answers were no. In this video, which you can watch or listen to as a podcast, I ask more questions than I have any answers for, and I would love to hear your thoughts on them. Again, you can have a look at this video at anseo.net/walk or listen on your favourite podcasting platform.

One of the biggest responses to the unconvention so far is whether teachers need specialised training in SET, and why is it not a requirement? In this ramble on my walk with my dog, I look at the two most popular answers and give some thoughts of my own.

Today we're getting solar panels installed on our house, and it made me think about the solar panel scheme for schools that happened last year and how it's a symbol for a lot of things in education.

This is probably my most incoherent video, where I talk about how exhausted I am and how exhausted I'm sure all teachers must feel at this time of the year, with a couple of tips around report writing and pacing yourself as we hit the wall.