Gaelscoil interview

Dubstar07

Hi, We have an interview coming up shortly for our daughter to go to the local gaelscoil. She is currently in the naionra attached to the gaelscoil. Does anyone have any experience of these interviews? If so, what sort of questions were asked? How was the interview conducted through Gaeilge nó Bearla? I speak as much Irish as I can to my daughter (have a basic level of Irish and mostly remember it from secondary school) and I can see a big improvement in her level of Irish since September last, when she started attending the naionra. She is mostly reluctant to speak it any will usually talk in english with me responding in Irish, although this is improving I feel due to the naionra. My other half has much less Irish than me but we are trying to up it, prior to the interview.

Feirsteach

The príomhoide will normally follow your lead. If you have conversed as Gaeilge he/she will do likewise. The aim of Gaelscoileanna when they were first set up was to provide Irish medium education for families whose home language was Irish. Since then they've attracted parents who are sympatethic towards the language and want their children to become young bilinguals and have all of the benefits that this entails.

The aim of the interview is normally two-fold:
1. If the school has an enrolment policy that favours Irish speaking families, this is were the príomhoide finds out if that is the case.
2. To get to know the parents, to explain the policies and ethos of the school.

Dubstar07

Go raibh maith agat Feirsteach. So it's not really a set fromat and you just need to paint a picture of how your Gaeilge is used abhaile. We'll see how it goes so....

Moonbeam

Talk to the Naíonra teacher and ask them.

Despite my 3 year old having good irish she will often reply in english and we were told this is pretty normal until about 1st class.

Grawns

Just wondering how your interview went? Hope you were sucessful! I'm goIng the same route and will hopefully have an interview in dec? My Irish was okay but I haven't used it in years.

Dubstar07

Hi,

Interview went well, we got a place out of only 6 up for grabs! 32 places overall and there were 20 people trying to get one of the places we got.

We were quite nervous, as it seemed all the people we were waiting with had much better Gaeilge than us. We were called in an interviewed by two board members. There were other tables set up for other people, but all were out of earshot, but we were too busy with our own efforts to notice anyone else.

We had filled in an application form initially and they interview was based around that. Some of the information was outdated, so we made revisions as we went along. We explained from the off that we were nervous.

We had practiced things to say that expalined what we do to speak Irish everyday to our daughter and how see gets to hear Irish other than from us. We had intended to bring some books and dvds that we have but forget them.

We had no indication from the board members as to what imression we made, but I suppose that's the nature of it.

To prepare for your upcoming event, just list out what you do,, translate it and practice saying it out loud. Get someone to cjeck what you've prepared is correct grammatically but don't worry if you forget one or two words and input english istead, these things happen if you are nervous or under a little presure.

Good luck with it, Dub

Grawns

Go raibh math agat! That's brilliant that you got the place and thanks for the info about the interview. I shall be practicing hard between now and December.

Grawns

We got a place!!!! Very good advice in this thread , thanks guys!

Moonbeam

congrats:)
I wish our school had interviews then we might have a better chance of a place.

Grawns

Thanks Moonbeam. The relief is incredible and I know how you must be stressing and I hope you are successful. I will be migrating to the Irish threads no doubt, hope to see you there!

Moonbeam

My written Irish is terrible . I would love to be over the school place stress but soon hopefully .

Dubstar07

Iontach Grawns. Maith thú!!!

Tombo2001

Congrats to those who got in.

We were in a similar situation this year; local gaeilscoil had a handful of places....they wouldnt tell us how many.

We spent the whole year worrying about it/ preparing for an interview......in the end, it wasnt an interview; I got a call on the phone which caught me on the hop completely. Anyway, we didnt get a place and we were absolutely gutted.

To be honest, if I was doing it again I'd question whether I would bother with the gaeilscoil, its just so uncertain and subjective and completely down to the interpretation of the school as to which parents are "rearing their children in Irish".....the reality that we heard from parents with kids in the school is that no parents rear their kids in Irish.....so I did feel to some degree that we lost out because our fibs werent as big as other peoples fibs. It caused us a huge amount of stress and in the end we got nothing out of it.

And the worst thing is, we dont even know if its a good school or not....because its so difficult to get into, you are afraid to tackle them about school policy, or what do you do if a child is being bullied or gets sick, all that stuff......

Moonbeam

depending on how far down the list you are then there is still a chance of getting a place.
Ours is strictly 1st come 1st served and only 60 places.

Tombo2001

Moonbeam wrote: »

depending on how far down the list you are then there is still a chance of getting a place.
Ours is strictly 1st come 1st served and only 60 places.

Our local one is not first come first serve.

They take in applications 12 months before school start date, then they interview you over the phone to assess your level of Irish and to determine whether the kids are being reared in Irish.

So its completely subjective really on the part of the school, once you can speak enough Irish to hold a conversation, which we can.

It doesnt matter where you live, or where you are on the list.

I believe a lot of gaeilscoileanna work in this way, and its opaque in the extreme.

We asked them where we are on the waiting list, but they wouldnt tell us, but frustratingly told us to keep hoping, you never know what will happen etc etc etc.....

Sorry having a bit of a rant here, but it was a lot of emotional energy wasted for us.

Moonbeam

I got in every week to ask where we are on ours and they have always told us.
The one nice hting about it being 1st come 1st served is there are multiple nationalities,the other gaeil scoil that is about 7/8 km away gives priority to irish speaking families then siblings and then naíonra kids.
We are on the waiting list there too.
I don't know if would like my child going to a school that operates that level of secrecy ,it owuld make me feel they were trying to hide something.

byhookorbycrook

Our policy is on the website and is perfectly clear. Please don't tar all schools with the same brush.

Tombo2001

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Our policy is on the website and is perfectly clear. Please don't tar all schools with the same brush.

If you are referring to my comments, which I think you are...

Firstly, I didnt tar all schools with the same brush. I was referring to one school only, I made that very clear.

Second,

The following policy is very clear

"Our school prioritises children who are being reared in Irish in the family home".

What is completely unclear is how that judgment is made.

Thats what I am referring to.

If a school employs a sibling policy, the school can say "look, that kid has an older sister in senior infants"......and thats fair enough.

If a school has a date of application policy, also absolutely clearcut. They can open up the spreadsheet. You can see where you are on the list.

But with the whole 'rearing children in Irish'....you just dont know what you are up against.

I dont want to get in a big row with anyone about this. However I do think the process is unclear, and in our case, with the school we dealt with, we did absolutely everything we possibly could to get our kid into the school and we didnt get in, and ultimately we didnt really know why.

Grawns

That's rotten, would you think about making an appeal. You weren't given a proper chance to show your ability and use of Irish.

byhookorbycrook

Tombo, I have highlighted the part of your post where you refer to wide numbers of schools.