ACCS CPD and resources available to schools

This month ACCS has hosted three webinars on the following areas:

·     ACCS Briefing for Boards of Management and School Leaders: Education Updates/Current Issues - Thursday 27th October 2022

·     ACCS Governance in Schools Webinar series: (1). Health & Safety in Schools & Data Protection - Thursday 20th October 2022 (2). Human Resources – Board of Management’s Responsibilities - Thursday 27th October 2022

Please see attached the PowerPoint presentations for the two webinars hosted yesterday.  

The briefing PowerPoint contains a number of useful reminders and also links to the DE website pages re: the most up-to-date templates for Child Protection and Anti Bullying.  

Recordings of each of the three webinars will be available early next week and will be accessible on the members’ area of the website www.accs.ie  

There are new resources available on the ACCS website in the Health and Safety area including the new Work Experience Guidelines and the FAQ section. Other resources on the website which may be useful for schools include the updated Leadership and Management templates in the Human Resources area and finally the training videos for those school personnel engaged in processing Garda Vetting applications. 

Following the stakeholder meeting with the Department of Education yesterday, it has been agreed that all Assessment of Need (AON) applications currently in the system will now be managed by NCSE/Inspectorate personnel in an effort to ascertain the parameters of this work. No new applications will be released into the system until this body of work has been completed. Following this, the DE plans to host another stakeholder meeting to discuss the obligations of schools in this process. Schools which have received applications should await further communication regarding these arrangements from the NCSE. 

Thank you to all our Boards and school leaders for your engagement with the ACCS CPD events. The individual Board training is being facilitated by the regional trainers to great success and we are delighted to receive the very positive feedback from Boards and from the trainers. We would encourage all Board members to engage with the training (Head Office webinars and Individual Board training) in order to keep abreast of the many governance and oversight obligations. Any Boards wishing to access Individual training should contact Sarahlynn at sbyrne@accs.ie. The training and resources are now available in Irish also. 

Finally, from our President, James Duignan, and all of us in Head Office, we hope that you will have a restful and happy midterm break away from school life and that you will get an opportunity to spend time with your friends and families. 

John Irwin, General Secretary, ACCS

Addenda

1.      ACCS Briefing for Boards of Management and School Leaders – Education Updates/Current Issues

2.      ACCS Governance in Schools – Human Resources – Board of Management’s Responsibilities