Which School Would you Pick?

Laurenpedro

Our dd1 is due to start school in Sept this year. She has been accepted in 2 Gaelscoils (Maynooth and Dunboyne). At the moment we live 30 minutes’ drive from Maynooth and 12 minutes drive from Dunboyne.

Option A:
Both schools seem to be really good but our gut instinct is to go with the school in Maynooth (everything we’ve heard about this school has been really good and we’ve met with them and are very impressed). Also for when dd1 goes to secondary school, there is an all-Irish secondary school in Maynooth or alternatively a well established national school with a very good reputation. However, if we go for the school in Maynooth, we would realisticially have to move to the area before September (we’re expecting a new baby in a couple of months’ time and I don’t think I could handle 2 hours drive every day back and forth to Maynooth with new baby, dd2 and dd1 plus I’d like dd1 to have school friends close by). On the plus side though it would mean that all our kids would be sorted for pre-school, primary school and secondary school.

Option B:
If we were to send dd1 to Dunboyne, it would mean that we wouldn’t have to move house as we are just 12 minutes drive. However, the dilemma then happens when we look at secondary schools. I’d like dd1 to have the option of an Irish secondary school but the nearest one would be Maynooth or Lucan (both around 30 mins drive). We're very stuck for secondary schools where we live at the moment. Also if she decides on that, when she would be going to secondary school in Maynooth or Lucan (we’d have to drive her there and back), we would also have two children that would have to be driven and collected from the Dunboyne school.


Can anyone help us with this dilemma. I know we are probably looking a bit too far forward into the future but I really want to avoid having to take kids out of school or move house etc when they are older. I really don’t know what to do and we need to inform the schools of our decision (I don’t want to tie up a school place that we mightn’t take as there is long waiting lists in both schools and I want to be fair to everyone).

Please help. What would you do? Option A, Option B or do you have any other advice or suggestions? (also if anyone has any feedback on any of the schools, please feel free to pm me). Thanks so much.

sean_17

As far as I'm aware there is no Gaelscoil Méanscoil in Maynooth at present...