Factors to consider in enrolling my boy in a Galway West school

MeaCuppa

My child is almost at his first birthday and I realize that I might be a late (already) in enrolling him into a school - with the baby boom and all.

Salerno in Taylors hill seem to have a good repute but is Girls only at senior levels.

Another one I am interested is :Colaiste Iognáid, because of its Jesuit educational roots. It is Irish only at primary levels that rules me out but might be interesting when moving to Secondary levels.

Is there any way we can compare these and other schools in academics etc? is there any directly comparable data? I am confused..

Cheshire Cat

My sons went to St. James in Bushypark and I and they was/were very happy with the school. It has a very dedicated principal and great teachers; about 50/50 male/female which I thought was great.
I also had very positive comments from our secondary school teachers on pupils coming from that school.

Further information on schools can be found either on their websites. The Whole School Evaluation reports make for interesting reading, too.

http://www.education.ie/home/home.jsp?pcategory=32818&ecategory=36092&language=EN

Good luck with your decision!

antoobrien

MeaCuppa wrote: »

My child is almost at his first birthday and I realize that I might be a late (already) in enrolling him into a school - with the baby boom and all.

Salerno in Taylors hill seem to have a good repute but is Girls only at senior levels.

Another one I am interested is :Colaiste Iognáid, because of its Jesuit educational roots. It is Irish only at primary levels that rules me out but might be interesting when moving to Secondary levels.

Is there any way we can compare these and other schools in academics etc? is there any directly comparable data? I am confused..

I wouldn't let the school being lán gaelge at primary level dissuade you. I have a colleague who has no Irish at all who has sent her son to a gaelscoil. She seems to be enjoying the experience.

Das Kitty

My parents don't speak Irish but I went to Gaelscoileanna.

It's unlikely your child would get into the Jes secondary if he hadn't gone to the primary.

He won't be going to them for another 12 years so reputations change all the time.

Dan_Solo

MeaCuppa wrote: »

Another one I am interested is :Colaiste Iognáid, because of its Jesuit educational roots.

MeaCuppa wrote: »

It is Irish only at primary levels that rules me out but might be interesting when moving to Secondary levels.

I don't get this, but at least I think I can understand why you think this might be an issue. It isn't. Parents aren't asked nicely to learn some Irish, but believe me the kids will leave you for dust As Gaeilge after two minutes in a Gaelscoil and won't even realise they're at one.
Not that I agree with Irish in schools at all as a mandatory subject, but it just isn't an issue in choosing which school to go to.
Purely as an observation.
Being a Gaelscoil tends to keep non-Irish ethnicities out. They must be perceived as non-Irish friendly by the parents but they most certainly are fully multi-denominational.

Mrs OBumble

Dan_Solo wrote: »

I don't get this, but at least I think I can understand why you think this might be an issue. It isn't. Parents aren't asked nicely to learn some Irish, but believe me the kids will leave you for dust As Gaeilge after two minutes in a Gaelscoil and won't even realise they're at one.

I think whether it's an issue or not depends on your parenting philosophy. There's no way I'd allow a kid of mine to become fluent in a language that I didn't have at least the basics off - far too dangerous if they fall in with a bad crowd and you cannot keep tabs on what they and friends are up to.

Agree that other people's approaches may vary. But I can understand the OPs point.

confuseddotcom

I would like to think in another 6-7 years time or so a lot more / most Primary Schools will be Irish-speaking to be honest, and this view is coming from some-one with no kids in school at all! :P There isn't anywhere near enough Irish spoke in the country. I know it may be more logical to learn French for the Business-world rather than Irish, but Irish is still our language and it's just a waste of being Irish and not utilising the language or speaking it.

Germans speak English, Polish are taught English from an early age in school, but like they mainly speak their own languages German and Polish. Scots speak English, but if ya heard them talking over in Scotland it would be in Scottish. I loved Irish in Primary school and was lucky to have 1 teacher who was stone-mad about it lol! But I still didn't think it was spoke half-enough. I reckon by the time a lot get to secondary-school age Irish has become nothing more than an intensely hated subject simply because all that was learnt in Primary was grammar, tenses, and verbs. I'm not from an Irish-speaking area and I never went to Coláiste Samhraidh / Irish Summer College. But I would love to have more people to speak the language with.

People move to Gaeltacht areas all the time, and they are forced to pick it up with no other choice in the matter lol.

If you were moving to Germany or Poland you would have to pick up German and Polish. As a consequence of Ireland being seriously behind the times in absolutely everything even speaking their own language, (God that sounds ridiculous to have to say but imagine we don't even speak our own language!) - it's a cop-out and as a result we and you would/will be lucky that English is the other option. A total cop-out. If Ireland got off its' backside and saw that companies set-up HQ's here it might actually help in getting the ole wheels turning and assist in ensuring Irish becomes more of a widely-used European language.

I really do hope speaking Irish becomes more popular in Primary Schools not fade away to nothing.

/Rant



Actually lol, rant not over! If ya even just think about it for a second, if the country was viewed as 1 big whole entire Gaeltacht, and not just Connemara, Corca Dhuibhne, or parts of the north etc., and maybe English as the second language taught, it's pretty-damn plain clear to see how easy and straight-forward it would be to implement it more into the Business-world.

But I suppose the fact that we don't even speak our own language more widely, is a telling sign of exactly what is in store for the country who does nothing!

I applaud the great work GaelScoil's do in bringing the language into young kid's lives, and look forward to hearing about many more to come! At least they did something about it, but it's fairly obvious relying on this country for / to do s.f.a. won't get you very far! :rolleyes:

GAEILGE GO DEO!

the untitled user

Probably completely irrelevant to your decision, but on the gealscoil point, I just thought I'd point out that there's a school of thought that bilingualism in kids leads to slightly accelerated cognitive development (i.e. having two words to express a concept leads the children to think more deeply about the concept behind the word than they would ordinarily, resulting in them having more complex thought patterns than monolinguals). Perhaps something to investigate.

And JustMary, your observation isn't really relevant to the gealscoileanna discussion given that children of gealscoileanna tend to be from better income families, less likely to have behavioural problems as a result. Besides, kids are very good at being deceptive anyway if they want to be regardless of the language spoken.

scholar007

MeaCuppa wrote: »

My child is almost at his first birthday and I realize that I might be a late (already) in enrolling him into a school - with the baby boom and all.

Salerno in Taylors hill seem to have a good repute but is Girls only at senior levels.

Another one I am interested is :Colaiste Iognáid, because of its Jesuit educational roots. It is Irish only at primary levels that rules me out but might be interesting when moving to Secondary levels.

Is there any way we can compare these and other schools in academics etc? is there any directly comparable data? I am confused..

Salerno is in Threadnedle road - Girls school so your young fella won't be going there.

Jes - When I went there you had to keep ur head down or you would get it knocked off (by the teachers) - Apparently its become more civilised since.

beardybrewer

confuseddotcom wrote: »

I would like to think in another 6-7 years time or so a lot more / most Primary Schools will be Irish-speaking to be honest, and this view is coming from some-one with no kids in school at all! :P
...
I really do hope speaking Irish becomes more popular in Primary Schools not fade away to nothing.

Wow, your views couldn't be more opposite than my own. I think if Ireland returns to prosperity and sees immigration as it was before we went bust we will need to seriously address an increasingly 2-tier system. The Irish speaking elite schools will get the best funding, smallest class sizes, and attract the best teachers while the English speaking schools will attract immigrants, poor funding, and become increasingly disenfranchised.