Dept of Education restricting access to Educate Together Tramore

counterpointaud

Educate Together Tramore, which is a great (albeit underesourced) school with fantastic teachers, has recently received the news that it is no longer allowed to accept full classes from 2018.

Story here: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/children-turned-away-from-educate-together-schools-due-to-restrictions-1.3378138

Statement from Educate Together here: http://www.educatetogether.ie/media/national-news/restrictions-divested-schools

The Governments position appears to be that they do not want to affect numbers in the already existing schools. It seems they are fine with denying parents the choice to send their children to the only non-denominational school in the area to achieve that. :rolleyes:

I would encourage anybody reading to consider signing the following petition, in the interest of indicating to the mandarins in the DES that this is an unfair decision, and against the wishes of many in the area.

Thanks for reading.

https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/secure-the-future-of-tramore-educate-together-national-school

byhookorbycrook

Educate Together schools are not non-denominational.There are no non-denom primary schools in Ireland. Like many Gaelscoileanna , ETs are multi-denom.Tramore one of the towns surveyed under Ruairi Quinn's tenure as to changes of patronage.That found that:

There were expressions of parental preferences representing 46 pre-school children that stated they would avail of English medium multi-den
ominational school if that choice was available. That level of potential pupil intake indicates a long term projected size of at least half a single stream school (comprising of 4 classrooms) being required to accommodate such a level of demand

I think for petitions/surveys to carry weight, they need to be done using PPS numbers and restricted to pre-school/early primary age. Otherwise, they aren't really accurate in their results.

counterpointaud

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Educate Together schools are not non-denominational.There are no non-denom primary schools in Ireland. Like many Gaelscoileanna , ETs are multi-denom.

Yep, I meant multi-denom. It's telling in itself though, that the distinction between multi-denom and non-denom is kind of slight if, like me, you just want a school that:

- does not discriminate applications based on religion
- does not insist that non-religious students sit in (while being segregated/asked not to partake) in the one religion taught
- does not teach one religion as The One Truth (kind of hard to do if you are multi-denom)

I think for petitions/surveys to carry weight, they need to be done using PPS numbers and restricted to pre-school/early primary age. Otherwise, they aren't really accurate in their results.

I kind of disagree with this. While they are not accurate, they are informative to politicians and media anyway, and easy to get engagement. Sure they can be gamed easily, but someone still has to care enough to do it.

Nobody believes they are accurate, but a canary in a coal-mine won't give you the exact location of a gas leak either.

Article from Hot Press on the issue: http://www.hotpress.com/Education-Minister-Urged-To-Remove-Cap-On-Educate-Together-Enrolment/21794579.html

EDIT: For clarity, the original survey which drove the establishment of these schools did indeed require PPS numbers from respondants

Harry Palmr

Someone needs to take the government to court, there must be an angle on restriction of parents and children to partake in a faith context of their choosing.

counterpointaud

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Someone needs to take the government to court, there must be an angle on restriction of parents and children to partake in a faith context of their choosing.

I believe this is where it will go if the decision is not reversed.

counterpointaud

counterpointaud wrote: »

I believe this is where it will go if the decision is not reversed.

I am from Waterford and dealing with a similar situation.

s7ryf3925pivug

http://www.thejournal.ie/uncrc-report-ireland-2585139-Feb2016/

UN criticism of this issue in Ireland.

Saw another report placing us in the Same category as Russia for religious discrimination in education.

It’s outrageous. But A lot of people interpret it as personal criticism if you talk about it. Misses the point that it’s not about people who want to send their kids to Catholic schools.

Harry Palmr

Restrictions lifted.