Courses Archive

During this workshop we will examine differentiation techniques and resources that will help students with dyslexia to access the curriculum and to reach their full potential. We will take a practical approach to planning to meet needs of the students and will look at some of the resources available for students with dyslexia.

 REGISTER IN ADVANCE FOR THIS MEETING HERE 

You are invited to attend a short overview of our primary and secondary school program offerings.
This online Zoom demonstration will provide an insight into how Lexia software can support teachers in accelerating pupils’ literacy skills in a highly personalised and engaging manner without increasing workload.

Please note: places are limited, so please register as soon as possible (see below).

An outline of the session is as follows:

1. Lexia Overview (personalised learning)
2. Program demonstration (Primary & Secondary)
3. Using Lexia Reports & paper based resources
4. Evaluation Offer

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Click here to register for this webinar

To find out more about lexia please click here: https://www.lexiauk.co.uk/

 Online Learning Key Steps for Success – Primary School Parents: 

Zeeko Internet Safety Education have developed a step by step programme to support school Principals to safely implement online engagement in their school. Each webinar provides clear protocols and rules for teachers and parents. The webinars are complimented by 3 pdfs (i) Zoom default safety settings for principals and Zoom safety settings for teachers (ii) rules and protocols for parents and pupils, and (iii) class worksheet for pupils.

 Please click on the link below  to register:

ZEEKO FOR PARENTS

This online webinar will provide teachers with ideas for students to incorporate the ocean and marine environment into learning online. Using the Explorers Education Programme, Seashore Safari content, we will explore how to plan a theme of work for your students around the coastal environment. We will provide resources and materials and show a range of examples on how marine themes can be carried out with your students at home, including literacy, STEM, and visual art. 

Keeping the momentum going with younger students in the home.
We are creating a space for teachers of infants to share practices and support each other in these challenging times. The session will be guided by Denise Duffy and Emma Grufferty, both are experienced infant teachers and tutors in the field of early childhood education.

• Creating a shared repository for collating useful resources and ideas for infant teachers
• Encouraging young readers in the home

You will be given an opportunity to discuss practices and approaches which may be useful in maintaining distant learning with younger students in the coming weeks.

ONLINE TEACHING KEY STEPS FOR SUCCESS USING ZOOM

What are the opportunities from remote engagement and teaching?
How can schools safely engage with pupils online?
What rules and protocols need to be put in place for remote teaching for pupils?

This one hour webinar will help School Principals and Teachers:
- Understand the opportunities from remote teaching
- Identify and mitigate the risks for teachers and pupils when engaging online
- Describe the format and opportunities of a typical online class

About Zeeko
Zeeko is based at NovaUCD, University College Dublin’s Innovation Centre. Zeeko is creating a world where young people can safely benefit from Technology and the Internet. Zeeko is the market leader in Internet safety education in Ireland, having delivered seminars on Internet safety to over 199,000 children, 18,000 parents and 12,000 teachers. Zeeko has surveyed over 90,000 young people about their online behaviours to objectively inform  Zeeko’s content.

Click here to register

This presentation will seek to explore the use of visual and environmental supports with children with Special Educational Needs (SEN). A broad range of supports will be explored, with the aim of providing greater structure for children with SEN and aiding them to engage in more independent functioning. This presentation is aimed at teachers and Special Needs Assistants and will address visual and environmental supports for use in the classroom and at home by parents.

Biography

Claire Griffin is an Educational Psychologist and lecturer in Educational and Developmental Psychology at Mary Immaculate College (MIC), Limerick. Claire originally worked within primary and special education settings and in residential care centres for persons with intellectual disabilities. Claire completed her PhD in 2018 through University College London. This research explored the preparedness and deployment of Special Needs Assistance when supporting the behavioural care needs and independence development of children in primary schools. Claire’s research interests include inclusive education, psychological and educational assessment, positive behaviour support and the voice of the child in education.

The PDSL is delighted to be running in Tralee Education Centre this September and I was hoping you may bring it to your colleagues attention. The programme is open to those who aspire to leadership positions at both Primary and Post Primary level. It runs part time, 1 evening a week and part funded by the Department of Education and Skills and I believe is unique in having 2 leadership visits so students can shadow senior leaders during the spring and final semesters of the programme.

Registering for our online information session which takes place on May 27^th at 4pm https://pdslinfo.eventbrite.ie This will provide interested parties an opportunity to meet myself and my colleague and ask any questions they may have.

Alternatively interested colleagues can apply for the programme now

• Visiting www.ul.ie/pdsl which contains all the programme information the application links

The PDSL is a partnership programme between the University of Limerick, National University of Ireland Galway and University College Dublin and supported by the Centre for School Leadership and the Department of Education and Skills

Click Hibernia to register

What can be more important in a student’s life than to celebrate their graduation from school?
In this webinar, participants will be shown how to organise a virtual 6th Class graduation.

• How to use videoconferencing to conduct a live graduation and the pros and cons of different video conferencing methods and apps.
• How to make a video or slideshow for 6th class.
• How to create a photo collage of the graduating class.
• How to enable the whole school and wider community to send a message to wish the graduating class the best of luck

A link will be emailed to you on the day of the Webinar.

Specifically for Kerry Support Teachers. Continuation of the already established forum. Open to all SET teaching in Kerry schools only.

On the 12th of March, 2020, schools were mandated by Government to close to slow the spread of COVID-19.  Since this date, ‘Home Schooling’ has become a norm.  Anecdotal evidence, reported on social and print media, suggest that school management and all teachers quickly responded to support families in this endeavour and provided their students with ICT platforms to enhance teaching and learning in the home.  However, research suggests that students with additional needs are challenged by independent learning (Westwood 2015).  The lack of structure and routine that school provides to students may increase challenges for all student learning and in particular, for those with additional needs who would be supported by the Special Education Teacher in schools.  The next meeting of our SENCO Forum Primary CoP will discuss how you, the members of the Forum, are negotiating this space. The focus will be on what is working well and how we can support each other to support our students.

Make a Movie Home Project will host a live Q&A session for any teachers
partaking or wishing to partake in the Project.

The Zoom meeting will offer participants the chance to discuss progress to
date including any issues or tips they may have. Facilitator Ruairí Mac
Conduibh will also offer advice and ideas for classes on how they can progress
the project for distance learning with classes.

Teachers who were not able to participate in the first webinar can register and
attend to avail of the pre-recorded Zoom webinars to use with students at home.

This STEM Webinar will primarily focus on the Living Things strand of the the Science Curriculum. It will harness the teacher with a wide variety of starting points for investigations particularly focusing on online teaching.

Looking at the pupil's ideas as a starting point for scientific investigations alongside utilising books as an effective tool for initiating scientific investigations and to provide opportunities for thematic planning.

There will also be a focus on linking maths and developing the pupil's designing and making skills. Participants will also receive a pack of Living Things experiments.

This hour long interactive online meeting via Zoom will be faciliated by Jack Durkan a former Primary School Principal who is now an associate with both the IPPN and the PDST Leadership team. It will be an informal meeting discussing the key concerns and issues school face in the final term. It will give Principals the opportunity to share ideas and concerns amongst themselves and hopefully help them navigate the final term of the school year. 

Jack Durkan M.ED

Former Principal in Togher Boys’ Primary School; recently retired to take up a position with the Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN) on their Leadership Support Team. B.Ed Degree from Mary Immaculate College, Limerick and holds a Master’s Degree in School Leadership and School Management from University of Hull.

Associate with PDST on the Leadership Team. Lectures and Tutors on the PGDELM (Future Leaders Programme) with NUIM (Maynooth).

Jack is a trained Relationship Counsellor and is a qualified Executive Coach and Mentor. He also works with Ireland’s Centre for School Leadership (CSL).  

Current Chairperson BOM Blarney St CBS Cork.

A practical workshop examining the signs and symptoms of dyslexia and how teachers might recognise it in the classroom. We will look at the specific difficulties associated with the diagnosis and will use basic assessments and checklists suitable for classroom and school use to help teachers plan to help the children. 

Annette Ormond, Grad Dip. SEN, M.Ed ASN.

I am a primary teacher working in schools for the past fifteen years. I am a passionate lifelong learner and am currently completing a Masters in Educational Leadership in Waterford Institute of Technology. I have completed many different courses in the area of educating children with Special Educational Needs and I have significant and varied experience in the area also. I believe wholeheartedly in the difference we can make in the lives of people with many additional needs through our understanding and our knowledge. I have worked with the Dyslexia Association of Ireland for the past seven years and was awarded the IATSE Testimonial and Award for excellence in Support Teaching in 2017 when studying in University College Dublin.

This webinar will present information and eclectic methods on how young children with and without SEN can learn to read successfully. 

Information includes:

• Language development
• The essential nature of reading
• Alphabet knowledge
• The best order of reaching sounds
• Phonological Awareness Development
• The dual route approach to reading (Look and Say plus phonics)
• The triangular model of reading
• The three phases  of literacy acquisition
• Recruiting parents and grandparents for reading practice at home
• Recruiting the Peter Hatcher method
• The speed of teaching regarding literacy
• Developing reading comprehension
• Reading fluency, reading speed and reading prosody
• The three rules for teaching literacy
• Q&A (15 minutes)

Dr Pauline Cogan

Pauline Cogan (neé Kiely) is a native of Dungarvan, Co Waterford. She was educated at Mercy Convent, Dungarvan and trained as a Primary School Teacher in Carysfort Training College, Blackrock, Co Dublin in 1967.  She graduated with a BA in languages (1970) and a Higher Diploma in Education (1971) from University College Dublin.

Her marriage to Frank Cogan, a diplomat in the Department of Foreign Affairs brought her to New York, Geneva, Dublin, Brussels, Tehran, Rome and Vienna.  She worked as a teacher and studied Psychology, Neurology and Linguistics in these locations.  She obtained an MSc in Neurolinguistics from VUB (Free University of Brussels – Faculty of Medicine & Pharmacology) in 1995.

Pauline worked as a Neurolinguist in a multi-disciplinary medical/paramedical team at Brugmann Hospital in Brussels where she was engaged in rehabilitation of individuals with brain trauma and strokes, assisting  medical teams on the Locked-In Syndrome and she developed a test to help neurologists recognise the condition. 

Pauline has had a life-long interest in social and educational justice with a principal focus on learning difficulties.   For over a decade she has intensely studied the causes of literacy difficulties in children and has operationalised this knowledge into child and classroom friendly tasks.  She was awarded her PhD by Trinity College, Dublin, in 2012, through research in this field.

With the help of teachers, the school community, the DES and other bodies and driven by research, policy and practice, Pauline has developed TEST2r.  This is a comprehensive test used to screen and pin-point the emergent literacy skills which a 5 – 6 year old child needs to be taught.  It also provides an individual report on each child and pointers to intervention/resources.

Pauline is an honorary member of the Board of Dyslexia International Tools & Technologies which is a portal to UNESCO.  She is on the National Executive Committee of the Irish Learning Support Association (ILSA) and is the Editor of LEARN – the peer reviewed journal of that body.  She is also a Chartered Psychologist of the Psychological Society of Ireland.

Click Here to Register

This Webinar is organised by Navan, Monaghan, Tralee and Clare Education Centres. 

A link will be sent to you prior to Webinar.

No country, government, medical organisation, scientists, educational bodies or people could have been prepared for what has just happened in our world over the last number of weeks. As adults, parents, teachers, doctors, SNA’S, frontline workers or people who have closed their businesses or who cannot return to work, we all have been catapulted into shock.

We have spent years encouraging connection and relational knowledge to the children we work with and now they have been told to stay at home, wash their hands and keep away from many people. Children’s mental health difficulties have been the focus of attention over the last decade and we have made substantial progress in this area to-date.  This webinar will explore the impact of Covid-19 and outline how we can support the children who were under our care before this pandemic.

Register here: Edel Lawlor

Webinar for Parents

Life at home has been tricky for all of us these past few months, none more so than for parents of children with Dyspraxia/DCD.   This webinar aims to provide parents with oodles of both practical and fun ideas to help and support their children over the summer period (and possibly beyond!).

Biography of Presenter

Dr Sharon Drew has over 25 years of experience of working with children, young people and adults with Special Educational Needs. Although her professional background is in children’s Occupational Therapy Sharon works independently as an educational consultant, trainer and author with a special interest in children with developmental co-ordination disorders (DCD) and physical skills development in young children. Sharon has written and published a number of books and resources in relation to DCD for teachers and parents.

Sharon is also a senior lecturer within the University of South Wales where she co-teaches on the Masters Programme for Special Educational Needs and Post Graduate Certificate in Specific Learning Difficulties.