Contributed to the blog by parents and teachers
“A recent conversation with two very disenfranchised teachers in Post Primary schools in the Mid Ulster Area again highlight the corruption that continues in CCMS schools in the North of Ireland.
What started out as a discussion on recruitment of staff – anyone connected in any way with education in this region knows extremely well that nepotism and favouritism still exist. Indeed, in one of these schools, blatant disregard for employment law continues as a substitute teacher is covering for a teacher out on secondment, without the post being advertised. Is this not illegal?
However, talk soon turned to a newly established facility in one of these schools. A teacher was employed with no additional qualifications and experience in this specialist field.
It is no coincidence that when the job was advertised, teachers with 12-15 years’ experience applied and were subsequently turned down for this specialised post, only for this inexperienced 20 + -year-old to get the job. Alarm bells rang throughout the school and local community, leaving everyone involved shocked and in dismay that such a newly established facility had been jeopardised by providing a job ’for the boys’.
Decisions pertaining to the future education of the children of this area are in the hands of an ageing, narrow-minded, and biased Board of Governors whose only concern is the advancement of the GAA within the school. It is worth noting that in one school of approximately 1100 pupils, approximately 75% of the pupils are in no way involved in GAA sports, yet the school was able to pay a £9000 fee to a high-profile trainer to work with the current losing MacRory Cup team. Where did this money come from? Given that at least one current Tyrone senior player teaches in the school and several of the management are ex-players, they would have enough knowledge, collectively, to train a team to play school football.
Bizarrely, the Chair of this Board is also a member of another Board for a school in a rural area and is also a highly paid education official. He and another BOG member attend all sorts of meetings to do with Board of Governor business, during school hours including, but not limited to, fundraising initiatives where local companies are being bullied into donating up to £50k, mostly to set up a state-of-the-art GAA facility on site. The breakdown of donations is readily available to be perused on the college website. An audit is required immediately.
In this same school, bullying is rife among the principal and staff. This Principal has waged a lengthy campaign of bullying with many teachers with years of expertise in their field, leaving them with no option but to take time off with WRS. The moral is extremely low in this school. The staff and pupils have lost all confidence and respect for this principal. The Catholic ethos projected by the CCMS is certainly in evidence in this school. Instead, discipline problems continue to spill over, day in day out, with the local PSNI repeatedly calling at this so-called school of excellence.
This Principal has been told on more than one occasion that she will be sued for staff victimisation, but she continues regardless.
Meanwhile in another CCMS school in the area, some very strange goings-on are plain to all staff and the disquiet among them regarding these shady practises is growing daily. Image temporary staff being paid cash from school fund (we hope).
He also has a penchant to bully staff when it suits him, but any new appointees have all been from his native locality.
Another scandalous affair from the same school has been brushed under the carpet, but such is the gravity of the Child Protection issue is that it should be highlighted. At a recent school formal, which was supervised by teachers, the pupils were allowed to disembark the buses – in which they had been freely drinking copious amounts of alcohol en route to the venue in-front of the staff- once they reached their destination normally disembarking takes place at the school gates, but no, not this time. Leaving kids off in the centre of the town meant they did not have far to walk to their after-party venue.
I have photographic evidence that at 12.55am 4 female teachers entered this bar to the shouts and roars of the students, whilst there these “teachers” themselves behaved as though they were “celebrities” drinking and having their pictures taken with already very drunk students. Surely this is a breach of child protection laws and should be investigated as such. To be clear, all four are still teaching in the school. I wonder what would have happened if four young male teachers did the same thing.? That is a disciplinary matter, and I will watch closely to see what happens next, I may have to inform Bishop Mc Keown, top man in CCMS to gauge his opinion on these shucking developments.
I would value members of this profession to comment below on the current state of play in their school. So that we can try to collate all the issues out there to strengthen our case that CCMS is not working for the teaching staff of any school, and they could not care less about the education of the children we are entrusting to care for and educate. The time has come to blow this red herring of an organisation out of the water, finally. “
PAT SAYS
I have had personal experience of the CCMS and Chairman McKeown.
In the early 80s, I was also secretary of the board of governors of 5 primary schools.
I certainly saw nepotism and favouritism running rampant.
In my opinion, the CCMS should be immediately disbanded and sectarian education brought to an end in Northern Ireland.
We need to keep RC bishops and priests and their lay hench men and women totally away from all children – and indeed teachers.
ALL SCHOOLS SHOULD BE NON SECTARIAN STATE SCHOOLS.
The RCC should be confined to its own business – religion- and not allowed near state institutions – except as private citizens.
THE STATE SECTOR
The state education sector in Northern Ireland is corrupt too.
We need a whole raft of new education legislation and a very strict overseeing government body.
I’d be interested in the views of teachers…..
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 