Primary Schools without foreign children???

lostinnappies

Snowman123 wrote: »

This is quite a controversial question.
I have a son who I need to enrol in a school shortly. I would ideally like to send him to an all boys’ Catholic school. But, as we now live in Balbriggan there is no such school.

There are local mixed school that my nieces and nephews attend and I have been told that the classes are 50% Irish kids and 50% foreign kids. I don’t have a problem with foreigners and I am by no means racist, but they hold the whole class back.

Is the only way of getting around this sending him to a private school? Or an Irish school? I don’t want him to be held back by other kids who cant speak the language.
I just want him to have the best education available.

I think private school is the answer but my OH disagrees and says he hates everything about private schools are he believes they are very elitist. But what other option do we have?

I can understand where you are coming from. Children from outside english speeking countries will not only have to learn english (and some will find it difficult and will hold back the class because they dont understand) but will also have to adjust to a whole new culture, climate and way of life. This will pose problems and a teacher will have to spend more time with those students to the detrament of the other students.

However, to remove your child from a school because of foriegn children will not help your children in life. They will have to deal with adults of differing intellects, manorisms and backrounds. Best to get them used to it now. If however there is an obvious deterioration in standards and your childs progression then yes absolutly move you child.

m'lady

And what would happen if a child with say, a hearing impairment arrived into your all Irish boys school? Could that affect your childs education? My child has had both foreign children and a child with downs in her class and I personally think its fantastic. It teaches them things no text book is capable of, understanding, patience and awareness. This is in my opinion is far more important for a child, and will carry through to adulthood.

Moonbeam

I live in Balbriggan too and from what I hear there are issues in some of the schools due to non national children not speaking english.The schools are not getting the Teaching and language assistance that they need.
To the best of my knowledge there are no all boys catholic schools here either.
It is my personal opinion that the ethnic diversity here is a good thing,to us in school an english person was a strange foreigner!I wouldn't send my kids to a single sex or religious school either given the choice as I want their experience in school to be real and as close to reality on the outside as possible while of course remaining sheltered due to their age.
Education is also more about going to school,the extra time you spend with your child reading and doing homework can really make a difference too and maybe make up for in the areas where the education system fails.
I don't think any of the local schools are an option for you to begin with.

ArthurDent

I think the m'lady made some good points. Particularly at primary school there is a huge spectrum of learning abilities in a class - there are people who don't have English as a first language, there are those that have specific learning problems like dyslexia, there are children with behavioural problems...young kids are the most adaptable/accomodating. In my kids school there are some classes where almost 50% of the kids have parents who weren't born here - and you know what after a few weeks not only are they fine in English but they're fine in Irish too.....keeping the children apart doesn't work - if all children who don't speak English as a first language are lumped together they don't learn - by immersing them in a class where English is spoken all the time they learn very quickly. And all of them also receive extra English lessons in very small groups too.
If I was looking at reasons for choosing or not cxhoosing a particular school - the nationalities of the kids wouldn't be top of my list - how the teachers are, what the resources are like, what the general atmosphere is, how approachable the principal is would all be higher up on my list of what I'd want.

Gabsdot

My son is in JI in a very international school. I think it's great. His school is lucky to have 6 support teachers and my son gets time with the support teacher because he has a speech delay, it's not only for the children who have difficulty with English. However with the education cuts his school may lose 4 of these support teachers. I guess that's another topic altogether.
In my son's class there are 23 children, 6 or 7 have Irish parents. Big deal.

I would recommend to the OP that they go and visit some of the schools in the area, talk to the principal and see what you think when you actually go into the school. Don't just count the black faces in the yard, talk to other parents and get their views. There are lots of things that make a school good or bad. And cultural diversity is wonderfully educational

BTW In my experience there are a lot of families who think that having lots of 'foreign' kids in the class is a bad thing . I have a couple of friends who live beside my son's school who choose to drive 30 mins in Dublin traffic to send their kids to a different school with less foreigners. This disgusts me actually particularly as an adoptive parent to a 'foreign' child. I just hope the children themselves will grow up to be a bit more tolerant.

di11on

I wish we could replace half our DD's class with foreigners in place of the Irish kids who are causing discipline problems to the point of creating a dyfunctional learning environment. The whole class has been held back because of a few kids who run riot and can't be controlled.

Can we please trade these lovely all Irish boys for your foreigners please?

Críochnaithe

iwo wrote: »

No - they are unintelligent...

That is an unfair generalisation to make. My children go to an all-Irish school with children who are non-nationals but speak English, and Irish, fluently. I'm certain the OP would be okay with this situation.
As I do not experience what the OP is asking about, I feel I do not have a right to comment. But I have more of an understanding because of the problems my work colleagues (who happen to be non-nationals) are experiencing, and I felt I had to mention it in this thread because posters were quick to call the OP racist!
My colleagues are not "unintelligent", they are only concerned about their children's education.

Dades

Macros42 wrote: »

Ah - the all excusing 'but'. :rolleyes:

The "but" wouldn't be necessary if the OP didn't have to try and pre-empt the hysterical shouts of racism that are inevitable as soon as someone types "foreign".

I'd agree with the point that was made about foreign kids' language difficulties occurring in early primary school, where education is more about social interaction than academic achievement. If kids were being held back later in the system, that would perhaps be an issue. But it can only be beneficial to the child to go to school in a real world environment from a young age.

esmeralda

Reading this thread it just strikes me as ironic that I work in a postgraduate educational establishment where students pay €50,000 Euros a year for the privilege of learning in a highly diverse environment with over 80 nationalities on campus.

Diversity gets a lot of bad press, but when it works it is an amazing force.

OP your child will probably be far better equipped for the world he is going to live and work in at a school where diversity is the norm, than in a primary school version of an old boy’s club.

dare I say there is a big difference between a la de da 3rd level college and a primary school in a new surburb in Dublin.

"There was a very strong sense across all of the groups at the lack of social skills exhibited by some newcomer children when they come to school. However, this was not universally applicable across all newcomer groups. It was felt that this was particularly an issue with some African children and particularly boys. Again and again, teachers in Junior schools
pointed to the fact that many of their African children in the early years did not have the social skills to take part in class-groups of 29 children. This perceived lack of social skills, the teachers indicated, leads to considerable disruption. While teachers were somewhat reticent about ‘naming’ such concerns for fear of stereotyping particular ethnic groups, there was a
strong sense also that remaining silent on the issue would allow it to fester below the surface, where it would be likely to become a throbbing racist sore".

A report on primary schooling in Dublin 15, well worth a read

http://bap.ie/dloads/intercultural_education_report.pdf

one gets a sense of schools being overwhelmed, struggling with a lack of resources

oh well

my son attends boys local school and daughter a local girls school, both catholic run, both have quite a few children in their classes who wouldn't be native english speakers but it doesn't hold the class back in any way. to the contrary they have learn so much words and phrases in other languages, sampled foods from other countries, and celebrated other country's traditions all at the same time keeping up with their traditional education. The only private primary school near us has alot of foreign nationals in it too - are you assuming that non English speakers wouldn't be able to afford the fees !!!!!

I wonder if the OPs own child would ever need learning support would he/she withdraw their child from the class as it might hold the rest of the class back.

planetX

Unfortunately where I live I had no choice but to send my son to an all-native Catholic school. I would prefer your problem...

amen

remove irish from the Curriculumn(spelling?) and loads of time for teaching english

planetX

planetX wrote: »

Unfortunately where I live I had no choice but to send my son to an all-native Catholic school. I would prefer your problem...

I wouldn't worry too much, I know loads of Irish Catholics, and the're mostly grand

Dades

oh well wrote: »

The only private primary school near us has alot of foreign nationals in it too - are you assuming that non English speakers wouldn't be able to afford the fees !!!!!

I'd imagine the OP is assuming there would be less foreign nationals in RC schools, given their 'right' to take catholic kids in first, in the common event of over-subscription.

Dades

Dades wrote: »

I'd imagine the OP is assuming there would be less foreign nationals in RC schools, given their 'right' to take catholic kids in first, in the common event of over-subscription.

really?

"In one Educate Together school on Dublin's northside, there isn't a single foreign-national child in the junior infants class starting this September, despite the school's multidenominational ethos"

also

"Meanwhile Catholic schools in the same area are catering for large numbers of non-English-speaking children living locally"



http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2008/aug/10/minister-considers-new-law-to-prevent-schools-from/

donut_whistle_b

I'm afraid I agree with the OP.
Does this mean I am prejudiced ?
Probably
Should I be considered racist ?
Probably - note: I should point out that I do not have any problems educating my child with other Europeans or Asians however I do not wish my child to spend her day being schooled with children from a specific continent where the average IQ is 60.
.
However it is not illegal to hold such an opinion and my child's academic progress comes first.
The difference is I am being brutally honest about it.

In answer to the OPs question you have 3 alternatives:
Educate your child in either a (1) Private, (2) Protestant or (3) Irish school.
- Private will be unaffordable.
- Protestant schools prioritise proper religions i.e. Protestant Reformation churches (i.e. no wibbly-wobbly Pentecostal / evangelicals / church of the apocalytic lawnmower etc let in)
- Irish schools they wont be able to meet the language criteria.

Putting up my umbrella now for the inevitable deluge of indignant replies...

embee

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

I do not wish my child to spend her day being schooled with children from a specific continent where the average IQ is 60.

Can you back that up with proof, or is that just an ignorant sweeping generalisation?

donut_whistle_b

> Can you back that up with proof, or is that just an ignorant sweeping generalisation?

Here are some statistics from a book written by 2 professors of psychology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

Essentially, south of the sahara there appears to be a remarkable coincidence in the statistics.

beth-lou

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

I'm afraid I agree with the OP.
Does this mean I am prejudiced ? ...

Yes, and ill informed and ignorant of the reality. But it's your choice to be that way, so who am I to judge.

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

Should I be considered racist ?
Probably - note: I should point out that I do not have any problems educating my child with other Europeans or Asians however I do not wish my child to spend her day being schooled with children from a specific continent where the average IQ is 60.

Again, ill informed and ignorant of the reality. Funny how the current American president is a direct descendant of the continent you so subtley refer to. :rolleyes:
.

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

However it is not illegal to hold such an opinion and my child's academic progress comes first.

Your child would be a more well rounded individual if they were exposed to different cultures and learned patience, understanding and acceptance, as opposed to the close minded attitude you are exhibiting. But that's your choice.

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

The difference is I am being brutally honest about it..

Just because you are being honest, it does not make your stand right or truthful or fair. And your child will not be brighter or better educated because it is not in a class with other nationalities. What if there is a kid with dyslexia in the class? Will you move your child from the school. Or a child with Downs? Your child will do well in school with encouragement from you, a good teacher, a keen interest and the intellectual ability it is born with. They are the factors that will determine how well it does acedemically. Socially, it would certainly benefit from meeting other cultures and a child with a lower IQ will not hold back yours.

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

In answer to the OPs question you have 3 alternatives:
Educate your child in either a (1) Private, (2) Protestant or (3) Irish school.
- Private will be unaffordable.
- Protestant schools prioritise proper religions i.e. Protestant Reformation churches (i.e. no wibbly-wobbly Pentecostal / evangelicals / church of the apocalytic lawnmower etc let in)
- Irish schools they wont be able to meet the language criteria.

Putting up my umbrella now for the inevitable deluge of indignant replies...

The truth is you cannot escape foreign children in any school in the state. So I suggest you become better informed on the actual stats and stop reading Herald headlines and quoting them as truth. I have seen absolutely no negative effects in my childs education because of other nationalities being in her class. Quite the opposite. She is fluorishing and is even getting extra work to do at home because she ahead of the rest of her class. Her best friend in the class, who is Irish, has dyslexia and needs extra tuitopn, and this probably slows the teacher down a bit, but so what. They're all in it together and to be getting so hot and bothered about primary school education based on ill informed statistics and opinions is dangerous and harmful to those poor kids who just want an education like yours.

Mena

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

> Can you back that up with proof, or is that just an ignorant sweeping generalisation?

Here are some statistics from a book written by 2 professors of psychology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

Essentially, south of the sahara there appears to be a remarkable coincidence in the statistics.

That's utter crap to be fair. Firstly, an IQ of 60 indicates mild mental retardation. Having lived in Africa my entire life, I can tell you this is not nearly accurate. Hell, the last time I had my IQ checked it was 121, and I was born and bred in Africa and consider myself pretty average.

dbar

Do the best for your child. If that means being called whatever, so be it. Its going to get harder for people to get Jobs in the future, do whatever is necessary within your means to get whatever edge you can. This is the reality of the situation we are in.
Having all that said, It would be a huge concern for me for my child to be happy as well, If they have friends made etc I would be slow to move them, I would be more inclined to edge towards their general happyness if you know what I mean.

donut_whistle_b

Beth-Lou,
Firstly I never claimed to be fair or right.
I am being selfish, that is all.
As for being "well-rounded" - I repeat my priority is academic.

> Again, ill informed and ignorant of the reality. Funny how the current American president is a direct descendant of the continent you so subtley refer to.

You misspelled subtley.
I trust he does a better job than Robert Mugabe and the other dictators that have destroyed the most resource rich continent on the planet.

> That's utter crap to be fair. Firstly, an IQ of 60 indicates mild mental retardation. Having lived in Africa my entire life, I can tell you this is not nearly accurate. Hell, the last time I had my IQ checked it was 121, and I was born and bread in Africa and consider myself pretty average.

Born and bred.
Of course there are intelligent africans.
Intelligence in any population has a normal distribution.
However the statistics used are referenced.

beth-lou

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

Beth-Lou,
Firstly I never claimed to be fair or right.
I am being selfish, that is all.
As for being "well-rounded" - I repeat my priority is academic.

> Again, ill informed and ignorant of the reality. Funny how the current American president is a direct descendant of the continent you so subtley refer to.

You misspelled subtley.
I trust he does a better job than Robert Mugabe and the other dictators that have destroyed the most resource rich continent on the planet.

> That's utter crap to be fair. Firstly, an IQ of 60 indicates mild mental retardation. Having lived in Africa my entire life, I can tell you this is not nearly accurate. Hell, the last time I had my IQ checked it was 121, and I was born and bread in Africa and consider myself pretty average.

Born and bred.
Of course there are intelligent africans.
Intelligence in any population has a normal distribution.
However the statistics used are referenced.

Well you're doing a poor job of representing the Irish.
By the way I never claimed to be a genius but thanks for checking my spelling.
I can see that only concentrating on the acedemic, leaves a lot to be desired on the social front and where you may excel at spelling you fail on basic manners.

Your Mugabe / Obama comparison is laughable at best and I am going to bow out of this because you can't argue with ignorance. It will always throw up whatever misinformation it wants to suit it's argument.
But just to say your comment about the average IQ of an African is disgraceful, ignorant, rude and just plain stupid. Those stats that you refer to do not elaborate on the fact that the level of education on that continent is far below that of others, and given a proper chance at education I would imagine they will do as well as every other human being. Can you not see past statistics?

Mena

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

Born and bred.

That's what I said, what is your point?

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

Of course there are intelligent africans.
Intelligence in any population has a normal distribution.
However the statistics used are referenced.

If you read the rest of the article instead of stopping when you find the evidence that supports your dated view, you'd see that the findings are fundamentally flawed in a number of areas.

Since you're basing your reason behind said data, I'll simply copy and paste the rest of the article for you, so you don't have to do any more clicking.

1.
Criticism of Dubious Data Sets

The figures were obtained by taking unweighted averages of different IQ tests. The number of studies is very limited; the IQ figure is based on one study in 34 nations, two studies in 30 nations. There were actual tests for IQ in 81 nations. In 104 of the world's nations there were no IQ studies at all and IQ was estimated based on IQ in surrounding nations.[4] The number of participants in each study was usually limited, often numbering under a few hundred. The exceptions to this were the United States and Japan, for which studies using more than several thousand participants are available.
Many nations are very heterogeneous ethnically. This is true for many developing countries. It is very doubtful that an often limited number of participants from one or a few areas are representative for the population as a whole.
Studies that were averaged together often used different methods of IQ testing, different scales for IQ values and/or were done decades apart. IQ in children is different although correlated with IQ later in life and many of the studies tested only young children.
A test of 108 9-15-year olds in Barbados, of 50 13-16-year olds in Colombia, of 104 5-17-year olds in Ecuador, of 129 6-12-year olds in Egypt, of 48 10-14-year olds in Equatorial Guinea, and so on, all were taken as measures of 'national IQ'.[5]
The notion that there is such a thing as a culturally neutral intelligence test is disputed.[31][32][33][34][35] There are many difficulties when one is measuring IQ scores across cultures, and in multiple languages. Use of the same set of exams requires translation, with all its attendant difficulties and possible misunderstandings in other cultures.[36] To adapt to this, some IQ test rely on non-verbal approaches, which involve pictures, diagrams, and conceptual relationships (such as in-out, big-small, and so on).


2.
Criticism of Data Set Sources and their Accuracy

There are also errors in the raw data presented by authors. The results from Vinko Buj's 1981 study of 21 European cities and the Ghanaian capital Accra used different scaling from Lynn and Vanhanen's. A comparison of the reported to actual data from only a single study found 5 errors in 19 reported IQ scores.[37][38]
The national IQ of Ethiopia was estimated from a study done on 250, fifteen years old Ethiopian Jews one year after their migration to Israel. The research compares their level of performance with native Israelis using progressive matrices tests. It is strange that the data used to represent the "IQ of Ethiopia" are restricted to a tiny ethnic minority in Ethiopia, and that the tests were not even conducted in Ethiopia. Furthermore, one study showed that after intensive training, the cognitive ability of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants improved and caught up with that of their native Israeli peer groups.[39]


3.
Criticism of Subjective Statistical Manipulation by Authors

As noted earlier, in many cases arbitrary adjustments were made by authors to account for the Flynn effect or when the authors thought that the studies were not representative of the ethnic or social composition of the nation.
One critic writes: "Their scheme is to take the British Ravens IQ in 1979 as 100, and simply add or subtract 2 or 3 to the scores from other countries for each decade that the relevant date of test departs from that year. The assumptions of size, linearity and universal applicability of this correction across all countries are, of course, hugely questionable if not breathtaking. Flynn's original results were from only 14 (recently extended to twenty) industrialized nations, and even those gains varied substantially with test and country and were not linear. For example, recent studies report increases of eight points per decade among Danes; six points per decade in Spain; and 26 points over 14 years in Kenya (confirming the expectation that newly developing countries would show more rapid gains)."[5]
There is controversy about the definition and usage of IQ and intelligence. See also race and intelligence.
It is generally agreed that many factors, including environment, culture, demographics, wealth, pollution, and educational opportunities, affect measured IQ.[40] See also Health and intelligence.
Finally, the Flynn effect may well reduce or eliminate differences in IQ between nations in the future. One estimate is that the average IQ of the US was below 75 before factors like improved nutrition started to increase IQ scores. Some predict that considering that the Flynn effect started first in more affluent nations, it will also disappear first in these nations. Then the IQ gap between nations will diminish. However, even assuming that the IQ difference will disappear among the babies born today, the differences will remain for decades simply because of the composition of the current workforce. Steve Sailer noted as much when discussing the workforce in both India and China (see second diagram) [8].

Orion

I find it objectionable that you would even present that Pioneer Fund racist bull**** and use it as a an argument. It has been completely discredited and the organisation that funded it is regarded as a hate group. 3 posts on boards and all filled with that crap? :rolleyes: Go back to Stormfront - they must love you there.

[edit]Embee/Thaed - I tried to report his posts but it just gives an error. I'm letting Cult know about it - doesn't seem to be working.

Dades

Deleted User wrote: »

really?

"In one Educate Together school on Dublin's northside, there isn't a single foreign-national child in the junior infants class starting this September, despite the school's multidenominational ethos"

also

"Meanwhile Catholic schools in the same area are catering for large numbers of non-English-speaking children living locally"

http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2008/aug/10/minister-considers-new-law-to-prevent-schools-from/

Did you actually read the entire article?

"In some of our schools in more established neighbourhoods, there are very few non-national children, simply because newcomers to the country aren't living there long enough to have their name down early. On the other hand our new schools in more recently established areas are almost the opposite with larger numbers of children who are new to the country."

Different locations have different issues.

Maybe you should read the report posted on this thread here. Try chapter IX if, again, you don't have time to read the whole thing.

Dades

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

- Private will be unaffordable.

Except for parents with high IQ's, perhaps?

tumnusmr

Mena and Macros, let me ask you a question is New Scientist also racist ?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7974

Here are 2 quotes from the above article concerning brain evolution:
The new mutation is also much more common among people from Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas than those from sub-Saharan Africa.

"Whatever advantage these genes give, some groups have it and some don't. This has to be the worst nightmare for people who believe strongly there are no differences in brain function between groups," says anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US.

Now, Mena and Macros
is Science racist ? Are numbers and Statistics also racist ?

embee

donut_whistle_b wrote: »

> Can you back that up with proof, or is that just an ignorant sweeping generalisation?

Here are some statistics from a book written by 2 professors of psychology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

Essentially, south of the sahara there appears to be a remarkable coincidence in the statistics.

It would also appear to me, somewhat remarkably, that you linked to that entire article but decided to gloss over the considerable criticism of that study that's further down the page. Your "proof" is dubious at best.

Macros42 wrote: »

[edit]Embee/Thaed - I tried to report his posts but it just gives an error. I'm letting Cult know about it - doesn't seem to be working.

Thanks for the heads up, Macros.

tumnusmr wrote: »

Mena and Macros, let me ask you a question is New Scientist also racist ?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7974

Here are 2 quotes from the above article concerning brain evolution:
The new mutation is also much more common among people from Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas than those from sub-Saharan Africa.

"Whatever advantage these genes give, some groups have it and some don't. This has to be the worst nightmare for people who believe strongly there are no differences in brain function between groups," says anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US.

Now, Mena and Macros
is Science racist ? Are numbers and Statistics also racist ?

You seem to have skipped over a small, but not insignificant sentence in that article :

But it is not apparent whether the new genetic adaptations discovered in human brains have any effect on brain size, or intelligence.

I would ask you all to stop posting rubbish regarding the IQ or intelligence levels of foreigners unless you have credible stats to back it up. I will begin infracting and/or banning if you don't back up your theories with credible, recognised data.