ETEN The Electronic Newsletter from Educate Together
Volume 8, No. 4, August 6, 2008

12 New Educate Together Schools On Track to Open September 1st 2008

Thornleigh ETNS under construction in Swords, last week in July

These summer months are particularly busy for Educate Together. 12 new school projects are being managed. Given the very tight time-scale imposed by the current recognition process (decisions on new primary schools were only published in April of this year), progress has been complex and difficult. However, we are delighted to announce that we expect all 12 schools to open on time to accept students on September 1st. This will represent the largest expansion in Educate Together's history and an historic development in Irish education. All the new schools are planned to build up to a 16-classroom capacity; eight are in accommodation being provided directly by the Department of Education and Science. This development will add approximately 5,000 school places to the Educate Together network over the next eight years.

We would like to thank all those involved in helping us open these schools, Department of Education and Science officials, local government staff, architects, solicitors, local principals and teachers for their good will and assistance. We would ask all our supporters and friends to give these new schools any help they can in the run-up to the schools opening and in the critical first year of their operation. The list of schools can be seen on the Educate Together website. In particular, we would like to take this opportunity to thank the many principals and experienced board members who have assisted us in recruiting staff for schools during these busy summer months.

Here is a set of brief progress reports:

Aston Village, Drogheda
Located to the north of Drogheda in a new housing development, Aston Village ETNS will be completed and ready for business by mid August. The new principal, John Kelleher, and school manager, Suzanne Smith, are working closely with the local start-up group to ensure everything goes smoothly. The school will open with 80 plus pupils and a teaching staff of five.

Belmayne, Dublin 13
Sinead O’Meara, the new principal in Belmayne ETNS is eagerly awaiting a completion date for her new school building. There is also a lot of excitement and anticipation in the start-up group as they have been waiting for nearly three years for their school to open. The school manager, Sumit Mullick, is confident that the building will be completed by late August.

Carlow Town
Carlow Educate Together National School was sanctioned by the Department of Education and Science in April 2008 after two years of work undertaken by the local start-up group and Educate Together. The school will open on the 1st of September with two multi-grade classes. The Department of Education and Science is providing the school's accommodation at the Shamrock Business Park, Graiguecullen and the building is due for completion on August 16th. The school has hired a principal, Simon Lewis, and teacher, Aisling Quinn. Simon previously worked in Gorey ETNS.

Carrigaline, Co. Cork
On September 1st the Carrigaline school will open in the grounds of the local football club under the careful supervision of principal, Mel Thornton and her team. Mel is an experienced teacher and administrator and joins the school from another Educate Together school, Gaelscoil an Gort Álainn in Cork City.

Greystones, Co. Wicklow
Greystones ETNS will be opening in September with one junior infant class and a multi-grade class of senior infants and first class. Catherine Sadlier has been appointed as principal and Edel Bermingham is the school's first mainstream teacher. Despite some uncertainty early in the summer, the acquisition of the site has gone ahead. The school's accommodation is being provided by the Department of Education and Science. Two eight-classroom buildings are to be provided on the permanent site at Blacklion, this campus will be shared with a new Gaelscoil. The two schools will initially be sharing one eight-classroom building and then one of the schools will move into the second eight-classroom unit at the end of October.

Greystones ETNS under construction, last week in July

Kilcolgan, Co. Galway
Kilcolgan ETNS will start as a two-classroom school, housed in a retail unit in the centre of the village. The accommodation will be sufficient for 2 to 3 years, and the principal, Anne Loughman, and local committee are very excited about the school opening. Most of the start-up group have been trying to establish an Educate Together school in the South Galway area for the past 2 years and are delighted with this year's progress.

Kilcolgan ETNS being prepared for occupation, last week in July

Lucan East
Lucan East ETNS is opening in September in a purpose-built school building which will provide an excellent learning environment. The school is one of the "Generic Repeat Design" buildings being provided by the Department of Education & Science this autumn. Principal, Eddie Fox, joins the school from many years teaching in the Educate Together school in Ranelagh. The opening of this school will bring the number of Educate Together primary schools in the Lucan area to five with a combined capacity of 80 classrooms. This development underlines the need for a second-level Educate Together school in the area.

Lucan East ETNS under construction, last week in July

Midleton, Co. Cork
The new Midleton Educate Together National School opens on the local Rugby Football Club grounds on September 1st. The school will be opened by the principal Rhodri Mears and school manager Shirley O’Shea.

Maynooth
The new school building is progressing well. The start-up group, which was only formed last January, has worked extremely hard, and is looking forward to September. The new principal, Marie Hand, has just come on board and selection of teaching staff is now underway.

Maynooth ETNS under construction, last week in July

Thornleigh, Swords
Located in Applewood Village, Swords, Thornleigh ETNS has just appointed a principal, and the new building is on course for completion by the end of August. The start-up group hope to have an open day for new parents and pupils before the school opens. This school is the second of three Educate Together schools planned for Swords.

Skerries
Skerries ETNS will be located in the Kelly’s Bay area, and new principal, Tomas Hickey, is anticipating a busy month. The expected completion date of the new school building is late August.

Wexford
Wexford ETNS, will be opening in September with one multi-grade junior and senior infant class and a multi-grade first and second class. Recently there has been an agreement to rent rooms from Wexford School of Music at Summerhill in the town. The principal, Maria Redmond, was appointed in June and their first mainstream teacher has also been appointed.

Educate Together Issues Statement on Events in Carpenterstown, Dublin 15

Educate Together is disappointed to have to announce that its efforts to open a school in Carpenterstown, Dublin 15, this September have been unsuccessful. This school received more applications for places from parents than any school proposal in Educate Together's history. Within two hours of the launch of the pre-enrolment list on January 20 this year, 203 children had been registered. At the time of writing, the current figure of pre-enrolments stands at 263 children, 85 of whom are seeking places in the current year. The figures cover the next five years and show irrefutable evidence of sustained demand for this school from parents in this local area.

It is regrettable that the Minister for Education and Science at the time, Mary Hanafin, did not follow the recommendation of the independent body set up to review applications for new schools, the New School's Advisory Committee. This committee advised that the school should be recognized.

It is also regrettable that the board which heard Educate Together's appeal against this decision took a very narrow interpretation of the regulations and did not balance these regulations against the rights of parents involved or the fact that the Department was in the process of building extensive accommodation in the area which could house the school.

It is unfortunate that the final initiative of Educate Together, to propose that the school could be temporarily housed for the coming year in vacant classrooms in the new Castaheany Educate Together National School has not yet been responded to by the Department of Education and Science.

As a result of this and other Departmental delays, Educate Together does not consider that it will be able to open a school in Carpenterstown for this September and is reluctantly advising those parents seeking places this year to make other arrangements for their children's education.

However, we would like to stress that Educate Together and the local start-up group are fully committed to ensuring that parents in the Carpenterstown area have the option of an Educate Together school as soon as possible.

In the past week, Educate Together has lodged a formal notification of intent to apply to open the school in 2009 with the relevant departmental authority.

Policy Matters

Permanent Building or Prefabs for the Same Money - another Headache for Principals and Boards of Management

The recent decision of the Department of Education and Science to allow schools to choose to build permanent extensions in the place of prefabs but for the same amount of grant aid will put additional pressure on boards of schools.

The decision, published on July 13th, means that a school that has been approved for the purchase of a prefab, can opt to use the same amount of grant aid to build a permanent extension. According to the statement:

"The school authorities will be the project managers for the construction of the permanent classrooms and will be responsible for prioritisation, adherence to statutory regulations, including planning, building regulations and public procurement procedures, as well as control of costs and ensuring value for money."

Whilst this measure may result in an amount of devolved initiative, in the most part it, will place a huge burden on voluntary boards of management and in particular principal teachers and chairpersons. The school leadership will be faced with the obvious benefit of a permanent building but at the cost of significant amounts of additional voluntary work. In our experience, the bulk of this work will be during the school summer holidays and will generally be borne by the school principal. There is also a danger that this procedure will become socially divisive, as schools whose boards lack the necessary professional skills to manage such developments will be unable to do so.

A particularly worrying element of the proposal is the assumption that permanent buildings (including regulatory, procurement and project management functions) cost the same as light prefabricated buildings. The implication is that local school authorities will be able to extract better value than central government. However, the danger is that the school authorities will be pressurised to accept lower build standards to meet the grant available.

Educate Together believes that school accommodation should be the responsibility of the State. The Department should establish the administrative infrastructure to manage building projects through an efficient process which includes detailed consultation with local school management. We are particularly concerned at the escalating burden being placed on voluntary boards of management and principal teachers. The pressures on principals of developing schools, in particular, is unacceptable and is having a negative effect on the number of applications for these posts. The role of principal is being increasingly perceived as being difficult, lacking support and onerous rather than one of the most challenging, rewarding and attractive positions in the system.

The Department of Education and Science and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government have recently issued a Code of Practice for both departments and planning authorities to facilitate the provision of new schools. This is a far-reaching document that will require local authorities and the Department of Education and Science to work together to ensure that housing estates are properly planned with regard to the selection, reservation and acquisition of sites for new schools.

This code, issued under Section 28 of the Planning and Development Act (2000), is mandatory on planning authorities and is an important step in resolving the failures of the planning system that have resulted in school place shortages in recent years.

However, the government remains mute on the key question of the cost of sites for schools. Educate Together has consistently argued that it is against the public interest for one arm of government to pass decisions which massively inflate the value of land for housing estates and for another arm of the State to be penalised as a result.

The transfer of sufficient land to build essential educational infrastructure must be made a condition of re-zoning or granting of planning permission for housing estates. This view was upheld by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution in 2003 in its review of the property rights in the Constitution. With land prices in suburbs still hovering around the €2m per acre mark, such a step would radically reduce the cost of providing new schools. At a time when State finances are under serious pressure, it is clearly time to examine this proposal in detail.

Four More Established Educate Together Schools Moving into Permanent Buildings

Mullingar Educate Together National School
The Mullingar ETNS will move into a new "Generic Repeat Design" permanent building in time for September 1st. This school has steadily grown since its opening in 2004 and now has more than 200 pupils. The school started life in the Mullingar Rugby Club and has recently been housed in a complex of prefabs on those grounds. We are very grateful for the friendship and support given by the members and committee of the club over the past four years.

Tullamore Educate Together National School
Tullamore ETNS also opened in 2004. It opened in a small prefab at the rear of a terrace of houses in Church Street in the centre of Tullamore. The school will now be housed in purpose-built accommodation at Collins Lane. This new development, initially for eight classrooms, will at last give the school space to grow to its full potential.

Gorey Educate Together National School
For the past three years, Gorey ETNS has been accommodated in the old family house in St. Walerans estate just outside Gorey. This September the school will move to a permanent building in Kilnahue Lane, off the Carnew Road in the town. The school will welcome over 150 pupils this September.

Monkstown Educate Together National School
After ten years in a complex of prefabs near the centre of Monkstown, Monkstown ETNS will now move to a purpose-built building which is being developed as part of the campus of Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art and Design. Originally not scheduled for completion until mid-December, this project is running ahead of schedule and is due to be completed on August 29th. Monkstown ETNS was set up by Dalkey School Project, the original Educate Together patron, to address the huge waiting list for that school. The school has recently announced the retirement of Mary Stuart as principal after many year's service both in Dalkey School Project and at Monkstown. We wish Mary the very best in her retirement and hope that her replacement, Rosario Kealy, enjoys many happy years in the brand-new school building.

This will bring to five the number of established Educate Together schools moving into permanent buildings this year (Castaheany ETNS building was completed 10 weeks ahead of schedule in June). We would like to congratulate the Department of Education and Science and their project managers in the way in which these building works have been progressed.

For many years, Educate Together schools have been forced to open and exist in unsatisfactory temporary accommodation. In 2007, 70% of schools in the network had no permanent home, the highest ratio for any sector in primary education in Ireland. The successful projects this year will bring the percentage of Educate Together schools in temporary buildings down below 50% for the first time.

Despite these welcome developments, the number of Irish primary schools still in unsuitable, obsolete or cramped conditions remains unacceptably high. The use of short-term accommodation has become excessive. More often than not, these temporary solutions prove more expensive to the tax payer than properly planned permanent buildings. Far too many temporary buildings lack basic facilities such as sports halls and result in schools being unable to deliver the full curriculum.

Educate Together is committed to work with all primary partners to ensure that there remains a sustained investment in the primary school building programme so that all children in the country can be educated in high-quality, economic and safe buildings.

ETEN - Educate Together Email Newsletter is published by Educate Together, the national representative organisation for multi-denominational education in Ireland. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily the policy of Educate Together unless expressly stated. Any non-commercial organisation is free to copy the contents of this newsletter as long as the source is attributed. Educate Together supports the standards proposed by the ePhilanthropy Foundation. See Code of Ethics (http://www.ephilanthropy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ethics <http://www.ephilanthropy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ethics> )

© Educate Together, 2008