No I agree with you re good teachers don’t make good principals but it does happen in lots of places. I suppose dealing with people’s kids makes the impact greater
From rte.ie
“Shortly before lunchtime, Adjudicator Breffni O’Neill interrupted proceedings to address Ms Quinn who was present. He said he had noticed her “smirking” more than once.”
both sides have tooled up with reputable barristers
A CEO will have other C-Levels or a Board around them to keep them in check. Vice Principals appear to have no real power relative to a Principal and Boards of Management have authority in name only.
I admire anyone who wants to be a principal because it’s not for the financial rewards or easy life they’re doing it.
I wouldn’t do it for Gold
It’s actually sorta crazy how in many cases your reward for being a great teacher is to be taken out of the classroom, it’s a completely different job in fairness
2 Likes
Careful now or you’ll have lads starting threads on things you wouldn’t do for Gold!
1 Like
Putting Ukrainians in my back room would be a popular entry 
3 Likes
Depends on how big the school is, there’d be a lot of lads on 80 or 90k doing it with schools of 600 odd
1 Like
I’d say the ones that care find it tricky , others are probably skilled at hiding behind department circulars and other collective policies .
1 Like
When you’ve an belligerent parent on the phone/accross the desk, there ain’t shit all places to go really
1 Like
I know quite a few.
Secondary principal is a very difficult job while there are cushy numbers in smaller national schools.
Teachers at the top end would around 65k-ish? So it’s an extra 20k (10k after tax). Say 200 a week you get to never switch off, have no long holidays and be ultimately accountable for every small mess that happens in the school. You’re accountable to every parent, every student and every staff member. For 40 quid a day. I think that’s bonkers.
6 Likes
True enough, you’d be in a good bit during the summer, definitely in the first few years anyway or if there was any big capital project going on.
Its very hard get a grasp on what constitutes big money in Ireland today, there’s lads absolutely flying it.
The class you have, students and teachers you work with from year to year makes a huge difference.
Can be a beautiful job, but if something goes wrong and the shit hits the fan; not good.
Principal is the worst paid job relative to responsibility in Ireland. As you said you are managing maybe 50 staff, 600 children and 1200 parents. All the financial running of the school, child protection, health and safety etc. All that responsibility is yours. For basically 100k. Most lads do it so they don’t have to teach kids any more I’d say.
2 Likes
Is 100k not twice the average industrial wage? There’s lads would take the high hard one for 100k. This country is fucked if 100k ain’t coining it.
Worst part of the job is being in the class with volatile young lads who could hurt themselves or others at any moment over absolutely nothing. Just yourself and the class and a headbanger.
1 Like
It’s ridiculous levels of responsibility though. The managing 50 adults alone in the private sector would get you at least that. Someone else would probably be managing the finances too. Throw in just the child protection stuff and it’s some headache.
A lot of them are good to delegate, a lot of schools, the VP would be over all behaviour for example. You’d have the postholders as well. The principal takes the aul high level view I’d have thought and gets stuck in when things go wrong on a lot of stuff.
Overall responsibility is theirs though. Can’t think of a remotely comparable job. The parents alone 
What do Board of management do?