The Not-So-Secret Diary of a Summer Course Director

Ciara McGuane, Rahoo Summer Course Director based in Ennis, Co. Clare. Experienced teacher, school leader & teacher trainer in the UK & Ireland. Passionate about teacher development and potential. Mummy to little man, Matteo. Wife to Tiago, a Portuguese man exiled in Ireland. My party piece is Dolores Keane’s Caledonia which I will sing on repeat, if asked!

My alarm goes off…

… at 6.30 or 7am. If I am being good I will be up at 6.30 and out the door for spin class. If I am being not so good, I will be up later and try and sneak a shower and have the luxury of dressing myself calmly before my toddler wakes up! My husband and I rotate the morning get-ups and creche drop-offs so depending on the morning, I will be either perfectly preened (I wish!) or haphazardly pulled together!!

I am responsible for…

The administration and management of Rahoo Summer Courses. It is my role to ensure that everything is running smoothly and that Professional Tutors are supported adequately to do their jobs and that Course Participants can get through their course smoothly and get the most out of it. It is a huge responsibility and was a huge learning curve for me when I started this role in 2018. I work closely with the Inspectorate within the Department of Education to make sure we are adhering to our responsibilities.

My typical day…          

It all depends on the day but here goes! Rahoo has recently moved into a new office space in the centre of Ennis so I drive in and pop to my favourite coffee bar Mondo (with my keep-cup!) to get my daily Americano.

I head to the office for 8.30am and log into the learning platform straight away to check the Q&A threads and ensure that our course participants are okay. I check my email immediately afterwards to see if there were any queries from participants or the team I work with.

It’s really important to Rahoo that queries are responded to promptly and that people aren’t left hanging so that is always my number one priority and I will check boards and emails a few times a day.

Otherwise it depends on what is on my to-do list and I will try to be as productive as possible – it could vary from course development, research and responding to queries. As part of my duties as Course Director it is important that I monitor course engagement and interaction so this will happen at different intervals in the day too.

I like to meet up with people for lunch or coffee; or pop to a yoga class to break up the day!

I finish up at 4.30pm to collect my son from Montessori. And then the real work begins!!

The best part of my job…

Working with teachers.

The core belief of Rahoo is that a teacher is the most important person in the classroom and it is our mission to support and empower them to make the best decisions for them and their students. It is extremely rewarding when we get feedback about how our courses have made a difference to teachers professional and personal lives.

The most challenging part of my job is…

Not being able to do it all – we get so many requests from teachers but at the moment we don’t have the capacity to deal with them all. We have a long list of courses which have been requested by teachers who have worked with us already and are waiting on new additions to the CPD menu. The challenge is to prioritise and decide on where to focus.

I am inspired by…

I am inspired by people who help others and one of those people is Sr. Orla Tracey who runs a girl’s school called Loreto Rumbek School in South Sudan. Across the country of South Sudan only 2% of girls enrol in secondary school and over half are married before they turn 18 so Sr. Tracey’s work around keeping girls in education and preventing forced marriage is in my opinion heroic. As a mother and a teacher, and now founder of an education platform, access to education is of course really close to my heart.

After work…

I pick up my son and get home to prepare dinner. After dinner it is play-time which ranges from building LEGO towers, going to the playground or going for a cycle. After Matteo is bathed and put to bed, it’s usually “adult stuff” like cleaning, organising food or clothes and life admin – oh the glamour! My husband and I will watch a box-set. We are watching Homeland at the moment. Then book and bed!

The motto I live by…

“You can do anything but you can’t do everything”!

Rahoo Summer Courses run until the end of August. Please see www.rahoo.ie/summercourses for more information.