Views on new Templecarrig admission policy

FirstIn

All of the above are normally disadvantaged by the fact that schooling in this state (and paid for by tbe state) is predominantly done by the RC church.

The COI are normally in that list of disadvantaged/discriminated against

It's smashing to see them not disadvantaged here.

recedite

None of the above have ever been disadvantaged in a state-owned school, including the protestants.

recedite

Suppose you had a school or a museum in state ownership, and they gave the café/canteen to an outside contractor to manage. And the manager introduced a policy that people of a certain religion or colour would only get a seat whenever there were empty seats not required by certain other people. There is no question that the State is obliged to say to the manager either the policy goes or you go. There is no point in the manager trying to argue that the problem is due to the cafe being too small, and the problem only arises because there aren't enough seats.

Annasopra

recedite wrote: »

Suppose you had a school or a museum in state ownership, and they gave the café/canteen to an outside contractor to manage. And the manager introduced a policy that people of a certain religion or colour would only get a seat whenever there were empty seats not required by certain other people. There is no question that the State is obliged to say to the manager either the policy goes or you go. There is no point in the manager trying to argue that the problem is due to the cafe being too small, and the problem only arises because there aren't enough seats.

Firstly the contractor is a private entity and would almost certainly be legally obliged completely regardless of what the state say as owners to remove such a policy under the equal status act.

On the other hand if there was a legal basis on which the contractor was allowed to do what they are doing then the contractor regardless of the facility being state owned or not can continue their practice.

I really fail to see anywhere where it is stated in law that there are extra responsibilities assigned to state owned facilities.

I understand your opinion that you think a state owned facility should be held upto higher standards but I don't believe your opinion has any legal basis.

liamf

Does anyone have a copy of the admissions policy which applied for the 2014 intake? This has been removed from the school website.

I would like to do a comparison.

But in general I agree with what several people on this thread state: while people may be somewhat upset about the specifics of the admissions policy as published now, it is not in violation of any statute and (very probably) close inspection will show that it is not in violation of anything which was actually put in writing during the run up to the award of the patronage.

potpourri

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
''Link to this: Individually | In context199. ''To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if schools can amend admissions policies to prioritise children of a particular faith in instances where their applications for patronage stated they will embrace children of all faiths and none; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52923/13]''



Ruairi Quinn (Minister, Department of Education and Skills; Dublin South East, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context''It is the responsibility of the managerial authorities of schools to implement an enrolment policy in accordance with the Education Act, 1998. In this regard a board of management may find it necessary to restrict enrolment to children from a particular area or a particular age group or, occasionally, on the basis of some other criterion. This selection process and the enrolment policy on which it is based must be non-discriminatory and must be applied fairly in respect of all applicants. New schools are expected to formulate enrolment policies consistent with the criteria that applied with the award of patronage.
Where a school is awarded patronage it is expected to prioritise children from the area where the school is located on this basis. I would not expect to see any prioritisation for a particular faith group in the enrolment policy of such a school.''

Just came across the above on kildarestreet.com

Link provided below:

http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2013-12-10a.369&s=section%3Awrans+speaker%3A359#g370.q

Cheeky Chops

Is segregation not unconstitutional? Rosa Parks sitting at the back of the bus is utterly unacceptable in this day and age yet religious segregation is acceptable in a STATE SPONSORED school - albeit of COI patronage. Seriously? Unbelievable that a child could be refused a place at a school because of religion.

If this went to the EU it would be met with derision and serious consequences.

Annasopra

Cheeky Chops wrote: »

Is segregation not unconstitutional? Rosa Parks sitting at the back of the bus is utterly unacceptable in this day and age yet religious segregation is acceptable in a STATE SPONSORED school - albeit of COI patronage. Seriously? Unbelievable that a child could be refused a place at a school because of religion.

If this went to the EU it would be met with derision and serious consequences.

How is this segregation? The school has not said it is only open to COI pupils.

I can't see any serious EU consequences myself. Education policy is mostly set by the member states and not by the EU. Perhaps it could goto the European Court of Human Rights if all Irish legal avenues were exhausted but the EU and ECHR are entirely separate.

There is an interesting discussion paper here on it

www.ihrc.ie/publications/list/professor-gerry-whyte-paper-on-religion-and-educat/

Wineman

Statement from the board of management on the issue

http://www.templecarrigschool.ie/Board%20of%20Management%20response%20to%20concerns%20raised%20around%20the%202015%20Admissions%20Policy.pdf

recedite

potpourri wrote: »

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
''Link to this: Individually | In context199. ''To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if schools can amend admissions policies to prioritise children of a particular faith in instances where their applications for patronage stated they will embrace children of all faiths and none; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52923/13]''



Ruairi Quinn (Minister, Department of Education and Skills; Dublin South East, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context''It is the responsibility of the managerial authorities of schools to implement an enrolment policy in accordance with the Education Act, 1998. In this regard a board of management may find it necessary to restrict enrolment to children from a particular area or a particular age group or, occasionally, on the basis of some other criterion. This selection process and the enrolment policy on which it is based must be non-discriminatory and must be applied fairly in respect of all applicants. New schools are expected to formulate enrolment policies consistent with the criteria that applied with the award of patronage.
Where a school is awarded patronage it is expected to prioritise children from the area where the school is located on this basis. I would not expect to see any prioritisation for a particular faith group in the enrolment policy of such a school.''

Well done to Stephen Donnelly for being "on the ball".
The Minister for Education has given a very straight answer to the question.

FirstIn

Lots of expectations. However are they more than that, or just expectations?

Annasopra

recedite wrote: »

Well done to Stephen Donnelly for being "on the ball".
The Minister for Education has given a very straight answer to the question.

To be honest I'm not sure if the Ministers statement changes much.

recedite

Politicians tend to sniff the air and see what public opinion is before making definite pronouncements. Which is fair enough because they are after all, public representatives.
The outcome of something like this depends to some extent on what people want it to be.

In the past, people chose sectarianism and that's how we ended up with the privately owned school system with its in-built religious discrimination.

Do people really want religious discrimination transferred to the new system of state-owned schools? If not, now is the time to make your opinions known to the politicians.

MouseTail

The people of Greystones and Delgany chose quite conclusively a Faith based school over 2 more inclusive models. The CoI campaign never hid its colours, it spoke of prayers, faith based assemblies and priority (outside category 2) for CoI families at the Open Evening. Noone present asked the question of priority within category 2.

I agree that the Ministers statement changes little, this enrolment policy is in line with their application as long as they do not prioritise children outside the feeder schools.

zanador

MouseTail wrote: »

The people of Greystones and Delgany chose quite conclusively a Faith based school over 2 more inclusive models. The CoI campaign never hid its colours, it spoke of prayers, faith based assemblies and priority (outside category 2) for CoI families at the Open Evening. Noone present asked the question of priority within category 2.

I agree that the Ministers statement changes little, this enrolment policy is in line with their application as long as they do not prioritise children outside the feeder schools.

This is true - the original criterion was ambiguous as to priority, as long as the places offered were to children of the locality.

zanador

liamf wrote: »

Does anyone have a copy of the admissions policy which applied for the 2014 intake? This has been removed from the school website.

I would like to do a comparison.

Category 1 - Children from the 7 local national schools who live in the parish

Category 2 -Children from surrounding CoI parishes who go to listed schools
St.Patrick’s NS, Greystones Delgany NS, Delgany
St.Andrew’s NS, Bray Powerscourt NS, Enniskerry
St.Francis NS, Newcastle

Category 3 - Children residing in greystones parish who do not attend schools listed in Categories one or two

Category 4 - Children who live in CoI parishes of Bray, Newcastle, Enniskerry and attend national school in Greystones/Delgany

Category 5 - all other children

recedite

MouseTail wrote: »

The CoI campaign never hid its colours, it spoke of prayers, faith based assemblies and priority (outside category 2) for CoI families at the Open Evening. Noone present asked the question of priority within category 2.
I agree that the Ministers statement changes little, this enrolment policy is in line with their application as long as they do not prioritise children outside the feeder schools.

They have prioritised a certain amount of places for pupils from outside the feeder schools.
The original highest priority was for Cat 1, ie the 7 local primary schools. They were all supposed to have equal priority.

Now we have a new Cat 0 for staff, clergy, management, families with siblings. None of these have to be living locally.

We have 12 places (so far) from Cat 2 given priority over Cat I.

And to top it all, it turns out that when they said all 7 local schools would have equal priority, they meant that a protestant attending one of CoI schools would have equal priority to a protestant attending one of the other schools. Anyone who didn't spot that one, has only themselves to blame, apparently.

MouseTail

I doubt they stated in their application that all children in the feeder schools had equal priority.
As a Faith school, of couse they were going to prioritise CoI within that group.
The only problem they may have is with the 12 places.

FirstIn

My take:
The 12 from outside the area is wrong. Definitely not ahead of local kids.

Kids of clergy, i.e not local. That's wrong also.

Staff of the school and siblings already in the school, makes sense.

With the local kids if there is an over subscription priority should be given to COI, because it is a faith based school and that is the way state funded faith based schools operate the county over. I don't give a rats arse that this is state owned, it's state funded just like all the others. Also a COI kid that doesn't get in here has no local alternatives.

liamf

zanador wrote: »

Category 1 - Children from the 7 local national schools who live in the parish

Category 2 -Children from surrounding CoI parishes who go to listed schools
St.Patrick’s NS, Greystones Delgany NS, Delgany
St.Andrew’s NS, Bray Powerscourt NS, Enniskerry
St.Francis NS, Newcastle

Category 3 - Children residing in greystones parish who do not attend schools listed in Categories one or two

Category 4 - Children who live in CoI parishes of Bray, Newcastle, Enniskerry and attend national school in Greystones/Delgany

Category 5 - all other children

Thanks, that's what I thought it would say.

Wicklow Will

I think some posters here are being deliberately obtuse. They seem to forget that this is a two stage build and once completed will have a capacity of 800+ There will be more than sufficient capacity in it to accommodate CoI, RC, Hindu, Buddist, Muslim, those of other faiths and none when it is completed. People seem to forget that not all local Protestant parents will chose to send their kids to Temple Carrig. Some will have historical affiliations with other schools such as Andrews, St. Columba's etc and will send them to these. They also seem to neglect the other secondaries in the area which, when you take account of the increased capacity provided by TC, will have more capacity to enrol students.

As I said before, storm in a tea cup and I would respectfully suggest the scaremongers stopping stirring nasty unwarranted tensions!

recedite

Wicklow Will wrote: »

There will be more than sufficient capacity in it to accommodate CoI, RC, Hindu, Buddist, Muslim, those of other faiths and none when it is completed.

Then why this change in the admission policy?

Zoo4m8

Wicklow Will wrote: »

I think some posters here are being deliberately obtuse. They seem to forget that this is a two stage build and once completed will have a capacity of 800+ There will be more than sufficient capacity in it to accommodate CoI, RC, Hindu, Buddist, Muslim, those of other faiths and none when it is completed. People seem to forget that not all local Protestant parents will chose to send their kids to Temple Carrig. Some will have historical affiliations with other schools such as Andrews, St. Columba's etc and will send them to these. They also seem to neglect the other secondaries in the area which, when you take account of the increased capacity provided by TC, will have more capacity to enrol students.

As I said before, storm in a tea cup and I would respectfully suggest the scaremongers stopping stirring nasty unwarranted tensions!

Nail on the head...... Very well said!

recedite

Is asking for for equality in a State school really just "stirring nasty unwarranted tensions"?

Of the 12 places allocated to people from outside Greystones, each of these will be the eldest child of their family. Their younger siblings will all get a place in Cat 0. Assuming a small family size of average 1.5 children/family, that translates as 18 places including siblings. If those 12 nominal places are increased to 18 in 2016, that translates into 27 places, including siblings, which is basically a classroom full. It’s unlikely there will much more demand than that from the COI primary schools in Newcastle and Enniskerry to attend a secondary school in Greystones, so the idea that Cat 2 is below Cat 1 in terms of priority is not realistic.

Why not call a spade a spade? Here is the proposed admission policy categorised as it is described;

Cat 1 First Priority
Applicants who are the children of staff, clergy and management. Also other COI applicants from Greystones, Delgany and the surrounding parishes of Bray, Newcastle and Enniskerry who can produce a written Affirmation of Active Parish involvement.

Cat 2 Second Priority
Miscellaneous other protestants, “lapsed” COI persons, offspring of “mixed marriages” etc. who were attending any of the seven feeder schools in Greystones/Delgany.

Cat 3 Third Priority
Anyone else attending any of the seven feeder schools in Greystones/Delgany.

Further categories are irrelevant, because the school will be full before all those in Cat 3 get a place.

potpourri

recedite wrote: »

Is asking for for equality in a State school really just "stirring nasty unwarranted tensions"?

Of the 12 places allocated to people from outside Greystones, each of these will be the eldest child of their family. Their younger siblings will all get a place in Cat 0. Assuming a small family size of average 1.5 children/family, that translates as 18 places including siblings. If those 12 nominal places are increased to 18 in 2016, that translates into 27 places, including siblings, which is basically a classroom full. It’s unlikely there will much more demand than that from the COI primary schools in Newcastle and Enniskerry to attend a secondary school in Greystones, so the idea that Cat 2 is below Cat 1 in terms of priority is not realistic.

Why not call a spade a spade? Here is the proposed admission policy categorised as it is described;

Cat 1 First Priority
Applicants who are the children of staff, clergy and management. Also other COI applicants from Greystones, Delgany and the surrounding parishes of Bray, Newcastle and Enniskerry who can produce a written Affirmation of Active Parish involvement.

Cat 2 Second Priority
Miscellaneous other protestants, “lapsed” COI persons, offspring of “mixed marriages” etc. who were attending any of the seven feeder schools in Greystones/Delgany.

Cat 3 Third Priority
Anyone else attending any of the seven feeder schools in Greystones/Delgany.

Further categories are irrelevant, because the school will be full before all those in Cat 3 get a place.

Add on to what you have outlined above, the fact that the new Education Act may allow pre-existing admission policies to remain in force, so it would make sense to get enshrined in your policy measures that might fall outside accepted practice later on!

FirstIn

Recedite, I agree with you re the 12 places from outside the locality is wrong, also I think the clergy allowance form outside is wrong. Those places should all be for local children.

However you are scaremongering. You have too many if this and assume this. You are painting a picture , predicated on non facts, that is far worse than it actually is.

By the way, is there something that says these 12 places will go to eldest children? Now that would be something!

recedite

FirstIn wrote: »

By the way, is there something that says these 12 places will go to eldest children? Now that would be something!

Yes, any siblings already get priority by being in what they are now calling Cat 0. They don't need to be handpicked out of Cat 2 in order to skip ahead of so called Cat 1.
That is not exactly highlighted in the policy, but when it happens they will say they are complying exactly with what the stated policy was in Dec 2013, and they will be right.

FirstIn

recedite wrote: »

Yes, any siblings already get priority by being in what they are now calling Cat 0. They don't need to be handpicked out of Cat 2 in order to skip ahead of so called Cat 1.
That is not exactly highlighted in the policy, but when it happens they will say they are complying exactly with what the stated policy was in Dec 2013, and they will be right.

Sorry. You've lost me there. The eldest child part. The 12 extra (wrongly in my opinion preferential places) what says they will go to the eldest child of a fsmily as you said? Surely these places could go to a families youngest or second or whatever child.

Wicklow Will

Could I just point out, with regard to the allocation to CoI clergy's children from Parishes other than Greystones and Delgany, that we are talking about maximum of three permanent clergy! I hardly think that this allocation is excessive.

If people think back to the time of the original bid for patronage of the school the results speak for themselves. The people who voted for the CoI knew exactly for what they were voting - the clue is in the name of the organisation! Could I be permitted to be so patronising to put it as bluntly as this - people hardly expected a faith based organisation to discriminate AGAINST members of its own congregations did they?

As for panicking that there won't be any places left for non-protestants, I again repeat: Can anyone show me a protestant run secondary school in this country that doesn't have pupils of other religions and none on its roll? The answer is No - the truth is that there simply are not sufficient protestant children in the country to exclude other children from the schools.

I also wonder why none of those taking issue with the Temple Carrig BOM 2015 enrollment policy have bothered to post a link to their reply to their detractors? I think they make their case most clearly and comprehensively as you will see here:
http://www.templecarrigschool.ie/Board%20of%20Management%20response%20to%20concerns%20raised%20around%20the%202015%20Admissions%20Policy.pdf

Finally, as far as I can see, quite a number of those taking issue with TC and its BOM are the same as those who began to take issue with the awarding of the Patronage to the Church of Ireland last year. Seems to be a bit of a bug bear with many of you .... makes me wonder Why!?!?!

zanador

The main anger is coming from some of the Catholic parents as they feel as though they signed up under false pretenses as during the campaign the CoI said that they wouldn't prioritise children of their own faith and yet they are.

The issue of whether or not there will be enough places for everyone, well only time will tell - but if even just 121 children apply for 120 places then 20 are gone straight away to CoI (ignoring the additional 12 for the moment).

Personally it doesn't effect me, but the question of prioritising on religious grounds does interest me - I believe it is discriminatory, yet it seems to be accepted here as the way things should be. It's interesting in sociological and cultural terms - and is something I don't believe will last beyond the next 30 years. So, yes TC are doing it, as are everybody else - but should they (or anyone) be allowed to? That's the important question for me.

I am very interested to see what happens once the furore dies down and people realise their children will get in. You can bet many of the ideological arguments will stop once they have a place.