Report from 26^th PACCS Annual Conference
 held on 5^th/6^th March in Tipperary Institute, Thurles.

The conference was opened on Friday night by Eileen Aiken, founder member of PACCS who spoke about the formation of PACCS 26 years ago, the struggles the parents had and how much they have leaned along the way. Eileen is the mother of Iseult Aiken one of the Art teachers here in ACS.

We then had the different reports for the year and voting on the constitutional motions.

On Saturday morning our keynote speaker was Barnie Callaghan, CEO of Gaisce who spoke on the President’s Awards. He was an extremely interesting speaker and explained the importance of the Gaisce awards and their relevance today to young people. He described the awards as “ Ireland’s best kept secret”.
Ciaran Flynn, former principal of ACS and now general secretary of the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools spoke about lessons in parenting – our ideas -  their lives. He mentioned ACS which helps the profile of the school. He stated that with all the cutbacks and the recession etc people are still our best resource.

The workshops were:

Project Maths – given by Shane Scanlon, NCCA

He explained the role of Project Maths and gave parents some examples of worksheets which showed how teaching maths will be changing – there were a lot of questions from parents re training teachers and informing parents.

Mental health for teenagers – given by Bernie Carroll, a resource officer for suicide prevention with the HSE.She was an excellent speaker, going through mental health, mental illness, causes of suicide and early warning signs for suicide. She generated much discussion.

The motions for conference were then put forward and voted on. Most were adopted and will be followed up but the PACCS national executive.

The open forums was then held with the presidents of the TUI, ASTI, NPCpp, NAPD, the general secretary of ACCS, Ciaran Flynn and a representative from the NCCA. There was a good discussion but once again not enough time was given.