Primary schools in or near Booterstown

Sameer

Hi,

We are moving to Booterstown next month. I was looking for a school for our 4 yo daughter for session starting Sep'18. I have tried looking online and I have found Our Lady of Mercy and St. Andrews to be relatively close. Are there any other primary school options that we should consider?

Unfortunately I don't see any of the Educate Together schools serving this area. Are you aware of any of the ETNS schools that consider children from Booterstown?

Tx,
Sam

Awaaf

Sameer wrote: »

Hi,

We are moving to Booterstown next month. I was looking for a school for our 4 yo daughter for session starting Sep'18. I have tried looking online and I have found Our Lady of Mercy and St. Andrews to be relatively close. Are there any other primary school options that we should consider?

Unfortunately I don't see any of the Educate Together schools serving this area. Are you aware of any of the ETNS schools that consider children from Booterstown?

Tx,
Sam

Every school has its own rules so I would apply to every school that makes sense for you regardless of what general advice you are given. Ideally your child attends a local school but very many children commute to school for various reasons (e.g. access to ET/Irish Speaking or because its on parent's commute route. I have known people to be offered a place on Sept 1st of the year of entry so on that basis I would apply for whatever makes sense and keep in touch with the schools of main interest to see how things are playing out. I should note that surely we could have a better system but it is what it is. It usually gets easier for subsequent children as you normally gain an advantage under a siblings rule. Some schools (including some ET schools) don't do this however. Best of luck.

tuisginideach

Mercy and St Andrew';s may be relatively close geographically but would be two very different types of school. Mercy is a Catholic National School and so, does not charge fees. I presume the St Andrew's you refer to is the private Junior School attached to St Andrew's College - it would be fee-paying (€8455 p.a. according to their website). Monkstown ET or Shellybanks ET would probably be the nearest two ETs.

There's also St Philip and St James’ School on Cross Avenue - a co-educational primary (national) school under Church of Ireland Management (Board of Management)

gnf_ireland

I know this is an old post, but did you get yourself sorted @Sameer ?

As has been said above, you need to decide between a religious primary education or a multi-denominational education. The difference between the two is one provides religious instruction on a particular faith (with opt out available) and the other provides religious education on all the worlds religions. I do not believe any state funded primary school provides no religious education as it is part of the core curriculum.

If it is a Catholic school, you need to check the parish boundary but its likely to be Our Lady of Mercy. If it is CoI its likely to be Philip & James on Cross Avenue. Andrews is Presbyterian and fee paying for both junior and senior schools.
Catholic schools outside the parish which you may have a level of luck getting into (but are generally pretty over-subscribed) include
Carysfort - Blackrock
Guardian Angels - Newtown Park
Marys - Donnybrook
Scoil San Treasa - Mount Merrion

Educate together schools are normally done on a first come first serve basis so the chances of getting in at this stage would be quite low. Many would have their names down from birth. The three closest would be:
Monkstown
Shellybanks (Ballsbridge)
Dun Laoghaire

There is also an Irish language school - Scoil Lorcan - in Monkstown, but again you would have to have your child's name down for years unless you were a fluent Irish speaker !

Please also give consideration to (a) secondary school you would like to send your child to if you are planning to stay around that long and (b) afterschool care options, as some of the schools are relatively limited.

PM me if you would like any more detail on some of them but on OLOM in particular. My eldest goes there at the moment and the second one is starting in September as well