proposed closure of smaller schools- why?

[Tombo]

my friend teaches there and it has only has 2 teachers

Wow,

I'll bet there are a lot of parents who wouldn't mind their kids being in a class of 8, rather than the 30+ which is common.

[Analyzer]

Wise idiots who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Ever get the sense that the education system will be turned into the HSE 2.0 ???

[yellowfish]

The recent budget has resulted in the chance that some smaller schools will close and others will lose teachers. If small schools are to close , has anyone costed this? There are about 30 1 teacher schools in the whole country. 2/3 are minority religions so they won't be effected. 8/9 are on islands so they won't close. Therefore all this cut will result in is the closure of about 18 schools. The teachers will be redeployed so no real saving there. The schools that the students will go to will have to make room so a potential cost there and maybe a new teacher depending on numbers . One of the highest costs will be from the cost of transport which will be ongoing. Seems a little shortsighted but maybe there is more to it.

Sorry to bang the old drum but those 2/3 minority schools should not be kept going for that reason alone if the pooling of recourses is better for all involved. If the kids can go to a larger school (Probably in a local village) then let it be so, just make the larger school a secular one. Everyone wins, the larger school improves its pupil teacher ratio, the smaller schools costs are mostly saved/ reallocated, the teacher gets some support and the kids from the smaller school benefit from the greater mix of teachers and new friends.
I would consider up to 150 pupils a reasonable number for a national school, our local one has just over 100, there are at least 3 schools within a short stretch that could be amalgamated and not exceed the 150 mark. As it happens they are all catholic, but no reason why the opportunity to make the school more open to all can not be taken.

[locke]

Wise idiots who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Ever get the sense that the education system will be turned into the HSE 2.0 ???

Look at it this way then.

Why provide some kids with the benefit of a really low Pupil-Teacher ratio and have others in at 40 per class.

As I mentioned, you can make an exception for offshore islands, but otherwise, there's no call for unfairness like that.

[etak0723]

All they produce out of that school, which typically has three classes in each year, are hordes of well-adjusted, confident happy children - well prepared to take on secondary school. The school has coped with rapid social change - one of our children is in a class where one third of the pupils would not be Irish natives - and I'm glad our children are a part of it.

Again, I'm staying out of the small school issue per se in this thread. I just think images of larger schools as inhuman places needs to be challenged with a more balanced view. If they were truly so awful, we just wouldn't use them.

I teach in a "large" urban school of 410 pupils, I along with most of the teachers, the principal and the deputy principal know all the children by name. Our staff is extremely diligent, the car park is full most mornings by 8.30 and staff are still there after 4.30/5 most evenings. Ours is an excellent school I taught in a school that ofsted called outstanding in the UK I can honestly say that the school I teach in now would put that school to shame, it is far better in every way.
Last year we lost 6 teachers, we were jumping up and down calling the media yet nobody cared we are considered by the department of education to be a middle class school yet for the last 10 years (even through the boom)the demographics have contradicted this theory up to 60% are unemployed, we have a huge number of non irish children and travelers yet we are expected to survive with 1.5 learning support teachers & 2 language teachers for 410 pupils, we have 102 boys yet we are considered to be an all girls school. The boys leave at the end of 1st class.

[uriah]

Ruairí says these smaller schools should 'consider their future', i.e. consider amalgamation.
Grand idea.
The trouble is, he also says he will not sanction the building of extra classrooms.
Where does he think the children from the newly closed school will be accommodated when they arrive in their new school with which they have 'amalgamated'?
You see, there is NO PLAN for amalgamations.
There are several schools throughout the country which have agreed to amalgamation and have been waiting for years for the DES to sanction this.
There are two schools in this area which have been waiting for ten years for the DES to sanction the amalgamation to which they have agreed.

The teachers will be removed from the small, rural schools, but there will be no rationalisation, no amalgamations.
Because the DES has no such plan, and will not facilitate amalgamations.
This is a complete con job on the part of Ruairí I Made a Mistake Quinn.
Ruairí has absolutely no idea how things work on the ground, and it appears his advisers are equally ill-informed.
I sometimes wonder if any one of them has ever travelled outside Dublin City.

[davidcameron]

Jerome Reilly: Take away the school, kill the local community - Analysis, Opinion - Independent.ie

For Liam O'Neill there can be no surrender. He believes the battle to save the country's primary schools and their teachers is part of a larger conflict -- a fight for the survival of rural Ireland.

The school principal at Scoil Naisiunta Thromaire, a small Irish-speaking national school in Trumera in rural Co Laois just a few miles outside Mountrath, is also the incoming GAA president.

He believes the education cutbacks contained in the Budget austerity plan, which will increase the number of pupils needed for the retention of teachers, is tantamount to a death sentence for many small parish communities.

The purpose of schools is to educate children, not keep small parish communities alive. The small schools divert vital resources from larger schools. Therefore, the pupils of larger schools face more difficulties. This is typical of parish-pump politics. The people of these parishes must wake up to this country's predicament.

[Mushroom]

my friend teaches there and it has only has 2 teachers

Is/are there SNA(s) or a cleaner?

[Telemachus]

I teach in a "large" urban school of 410 pupils, I along with most of the teachers, the principal and the deputy principal know all the children by name. Our staff is extreemly diligent, the car park is full most mornings by 8.30 and staff are still there after 4.30/5 most evenings. Ours is an excellent school I taught in a school that ofsted called outstanding in the UK I can honestly say that the school I teach in now would put that school to shame, it is far better in every way.
Last year we lost 6 teachers, we were jumping up and down calling the media yet nobody cared we are considered by the department of education to be a middle class school yet for the last 10 years (even through the boom)the demographics have contradicted this theory up to 60% are unemployed, we have a huge number of non irish children and travelers yet we are expected to survive with 1.5 learning support teachers & 2 language teachers for 410 pupils, we have 102 boys yet we are considered to be an all girls school. The boys leave at the end of 1st class.

What percentage of non irish are in the starting year classes?

[Bhagavad Gita]

So small schools are for keeping rural communities alive. As anyone ever evaluated what benefit these rural communities give to the country?

The truth is that many years of misguided policy has left rural Ireland dependant on the teat of the state. Its high time it was weaned. The amount of transfers from the south and east to north and west is staggering. This rural policy has prevented cities from reaching critical mass while wasting money providing infrastructure for a rural Ireland on state life support.