We would like to invite the entire Educate Together school community to our National Forum to be held at the Donabate Portrane ETNS on Saturday, 25th February. Click here for details!

We hope that your first two months as new boards of management have gone smoothly and that you are settling into your roles. The newsletter this month includes an update on the Board of Management training which so many of you have engaged with; news about the availability of public procurement services to purchase your electricity (initially) as well as an update on the Ethos Self-Evaluation process.

Educate Together would like to wish Good Luck to all the schools about to embark on their Ethos Self Evaluation. Most of the schools taking part had representatives at the briefing day and will be ready to go with their surveys very soon!

The first module of the board of management training (The Board as a Corporate Entity) has been very well received to date. The online module has attracted 155 participants and we have met 103 board members at the face-to-face sessions. We are due to meet a further 60 people in Portlaoise Education Centre, on March 3rd (only 15 places remaining on this course so please RSVP soon to info@educatetogether.ie if you would like to attend).

We are delighted to welcome Rachel Bachar to the Leadership and Governance Development Team – Rachel will be an Intern with us until the 16th of March, particularly supporting the development of a Volunteer Programme and helping with Ethos Evaluation sessions.

As many boards were undergoing significant personnel changes when this article was initially published (November 2011) I am repeating the information as it is very important and could provide for substantial savings for schools.

There is currently one teacher on the Educate Together Main panel. We believe that this teacher will be redeployed very shortly. If you have a permanent vacancy in your school please contact the national office. You will more than likely be allowed to fill this vacancy in a fixed term capacity until the end of the school year (June).

The National Procurement Service (NPS) was established by Government decision in 2009 to ensure maximum efficiency in the area of public service procurement of goods and services. Following discussion between Educate Together and the NPS this facility is now available to Educate Together schools. The NPS uses information provided by participating groups of the public service community (including schools, local authorities etc) to bargain with service providers/ suppliers for a better rate for all involved.

On behalf of everyone in the National Office, we’d like to acknowledge and draw attention to the extraordinary work of the volunteers on Boards of Management. As we are at the end of the recent term of office for Boards, there are a number of people who will not be returning to their roles.

Welcome to Emma Grainger our new Ethos Development Officer who is settling in nicely after her first fortnight in the role! Emma has come to us from the Youth Work Service of Léargas and has a background in training and facilitation with children, young people and adults as well as Educational Research and Evaluation.

The first module of the Board of Management training is now available online. A letter has been sent to all boards of management advising them how to access the course. The letter contains your enrolment key which will have to be entered by each board of management member in order to access the course

The Minister for Education and Skills recently announced that capital funding was being made available to provide a primary schools minor works grant of €28 million for the current school year. This will come as great news for many schools as it was rumoured that the grant would not be paid this year.

There are currently three teachers …

The first online Board of Management training module is nearly here! This module covers the statutory framework in which boards operate, the Constitution of Boards and Rules of Procedure and its impact on the role of the board. Watch this space!

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The number of SNAs in schools has been capped at 10,575. The NCSE published guidelines on this on February 18th.

Making a decision to close a school is a decision for the Board of Management. Click on ‘more’ on to see a list of useful questions, extracts from circulars, etc.

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