Primary School in Dublin
Irish children usually attend primary school from the age of 5 to 12. Children learn Irish and English from the first year but don’t worry if your children are over 11 when they move to Ireland; they can stick with English.
The initial two years are Infants: Junior and Senior.
The older years are called Classes; from first to sixth in the final year.
Primary Class Sizes
This is one area of concern to many Irish parents. The website Schooldays.ie recently reported: ‘In total, more than 92,000 schoolchildren in Ireland are in classes that consist of 30 or more students, which makes classrooms in the country some of the most overcrowded in Europe.’
This is in spite of an influx of new teachers over the last few years and is directly related to funding shortages in the education sector. Parents get around this by finding smaller local schools or specialised schools like those teaching through the medium of Irish.
Subjects in Irish Primary Schools
The primary education is a general one with all subjects covered during the week by a generalist teacher. Some schools will bring in a specialist for sport or maybe religion. The main subjects are: English, Irish, Maths, History, Geography, General Sciences (for the older years), Music and Sport. Some schools offer European languages also.
Types of School
The Irish Times newspaper reported in January 2010 that 90% of the 3,169 schools in the country were under the patronage of the Catholic Church. This means the local bishop appoints the Head Teacher, nominates two of the board members and in theory must approve all appointments made by the board. However the same report revealed that 61% of parents want this to change. And the teacher’s union, the INTO is also in favour of creating community schools.
Primary school teachers also report that this impact is often theoretical with many teachers saying they never see the local clergy. Religion is taught daily. But it is up to the individual teacher whether or not they educate the children on other religions during this time.
Educate Together is a growing group of multi-denominational primary schools.
www.schooldays.ie
