I'm a primary teacher, and have observed and taught in the UK and Australia. I must say that our system has far less bureaucracy involved than those I've seen abroad. Contrary to what people think, we do spend a lot of time, outside the school day, on paperwork and notes. Every subject has to have a yearly scheme, termly schemes, and fortnightly schemes for each class. These have to include content, objectives, methodologies, linkages etc. These usually take a few hours a day for a few weeks of the summer to go through, draft, and write up. Then they usually end up being changed regularly as different events happen during the year/class level differs etc. They have to be available for inspection by the inspector at all times, and the fortnightly schemes are signed and given to the principal.

For now, thank God, we are not teaching to tests, as in other countries. Anywhere I've been, or have read studies about, where standardised league tables of schools are in use religiously, has gone down a different road. We still have the freedom here to teach using our own personal methodologies, although all teachers use the same curriculum. The whole idea of teaching to tests seems ludicrous - what better way to turn people off learning in general than force facts into them, and scare even very young children by even unwittingly letting them feel the pressure of these tests. We do have standardised tests here, from senior infants on, but these are used to help draw up lists for learning support or other forms of intervention for the child, not for bureaucratic reasons.

The burden on principal teachers, on the other hand, is completely ridiculous, and it seems to me, from an observer's point of view, to be getting worse each year.