Top Schools In Suburbs of Dublin

Hepsie

Hello Everyone

I know this is a big question and has many factors to account for, but I'm wondering if a few of you can give me some names of the top schools outside of Dublin City Centre?

Our family is exploring moving to the Dublin area for my husband's work. He'll be in the city centre, but will commute by train or DART. We will find a rental house for a year or so based on where our children will attend school.... as I'll be staying home with them, I would like to be fairly close.

So about us. Almost 4 year old and almost 6 year old - currently living in the UK so both are in school. Our little one is in Nursery 3 hours a day for 5 days. Son is in year 1 and already far ahead of his peers. I'm American and hubby is Dutch, so EU and EEA Family - not that it matters. I did read on another post someone said Skerrie has a lot of "foreigners" ... what does that mean?

Our children are not Catholic either so I'm not sure if that will pose a problem for admission to some schools. We're okay with them attending a parochial school, if that is our only choice and it's a good school.

When doing some searching, I've found the areas of Malahide, Skerrie and Dalkey pretty attractive, though I am only going off photos online. We would like to be close to the seaside and ideally within a village so we can walk to various amenities.

We're planning to come to Dublin for a long weekend to look around and see what areas are like.

Anyway, any tips, suggestions, ideas, etc. are all welcome.

thesimpsons

I can't help you with schools in Dublin area but if you post in the Dublin threads instead of Education, you might get better response. Look under the the "Region" tab at the top of page and then East and choose a Dublin area. Education tab here tends to be general educational queries. best of luck

byhookorbycrook

How do you define "top" schools?

beauf

http://www.schooldays.ie/articles/about-school-league-tables#l

byhookorbycrook

Beauf, this is primary school forum, thankfully, primary schools don't get ranked on children going on to selected further education.

Moonbeam

Private schools or non fee paying schools?

Here normally children start school @ about 5 but depending on what month the childs birthday falls and the childs ability.
Children here also get a free preschool year called the Ecce scheme.

You are probably looking at senior infants for the older child (Primary year 2) and The Ecce year of junior infants for the other child.

Dalkey and Malahide would be considered very upmarket areas. Skerries would not be on the Dart line but the commuter train line.

A lot of the good/popular schools require your childrens names to be down by the time they are 6 months old but others only accept enrollment the year before.

beauf

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Beauf, this is primary school forum, thankfully, primary schools don't get ranked on children going on to selected further education.

Sorry I didn't realise.

While I understand we don't want to turn primary schools into a rat race, we don't want under performing schools (by some metric) to be missed either.

If a primary school is a feeder to secondary, (which will be indicated in the enrolment policy of the secondary school), then they are unavoidably linked. It may not be nearest by distance either.

spurious

Parents and the home environment are by far the most important factor in determining how well a child does in education. A child with supportive interested parents will do well in any school, fee-paying or not.

A child whose parents put no value on education and who do not support him/her will do badly anywhere, fee-paying or not.

Until school league tables show what children the schools did not take ('better with his hands', 'didn't have a sibling here', 'better catered for elsewhere') they are of little use.

beauf

A consistently under performing school or class, cannot be solely the parents fault. Its that which parent wish to avoid.

If you asked whats a good restaurant, would you expect a reply about the quality of the customers?

While school leagues are a flawed metric, no alternative is suggested.

Mr.Wemmick

spurious wrote: »

Parents and the home environment are by far the most important factor in determining how well a child does in education. A child with supportive interested parents will do well in any school, fee-paying or not.

A child whose parents put no value on education and who do not support him/her will do badly anywhere, fee-paying or not.

Until school league tables show what children the schools did not take ('better with his hands', 'didn't have a sibling here', 'better catered for elsewhere') they are of little use.

What absolute nonsense! Sometimes, the things I read on here regarding education/teaching are really baffling..
Parents and the home environment are a contributory factor to how well your child does, but a parent's good intentions re education can not make up for the shortfall of an underperforming or uninterested teacher, or a failing school for that matter..

Teachers are really important to a child's education: they create a classroom environment whereby a child can feel safe amongst his/her peers, allowing time for productive and happy social development; teachers listen and acknowledge each individual child; they offer guidance, build self esteem/confidence, encourage, motivate, enlighten, strengthen ways/ methods of learning, instil a love of learning etc. and they do all this in an effective way a parent can never do outside of a classroom. Parents should be encouraged, and find it easy, to support their school/teacher by building/enhancing their child's learning at home and out in the wider community.. Parents should not feel that it is they who are solely responsible for their child's education especially if they have gone to the bother of sending their children to school for 5/6 hours a day

So please, OP, go find yourself a sound school with a good rep, one which has happy kids, happy parents and happy teachers, and chances are, you're on to a winner re your child's education.

Good luck!

Pixied

As an aside, OP have you looked at Greystones, Co.Wicklow?

It's on the DART line into the city, lots of good primary schools, coastal location and if you dont like the secondary schools some children commute to other/private schools on the DART line. (if thats what you're into) It also has lots of clubs ect for the kids and a nice village.

pinkbear

Hi Hepsie,
I live in Skerries, and would highly recommend it as a place to live and to bring up children. Housing is considerably cheaper than Malahide and Dalkey, and while the commute to Dublin is a bit longer (45 mins) it has a real community spirit and is an easy place to make friends. It always scores very highly or wins prizes in things like Tidy Towns, Pride of Place, Irish Times Best Place to Live in Ireland, so my opinion is not totally biased. There are 2 festivals a year, a Patrick's day parade, and the Rás. There are many clubs for children. Have a look at the Skerries town page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Skerries?fref=ts which will give you an idea of some of the community things going on. As regards many foreigners living here, I wouldn't know the numbers compared with the other places you have mentioned, but compared to Dublin in general there are very few. Most of the foreigners in Skerries are European, and they are well integrated. Please feel free to message me if you want me to answer specific questions, I would be happy to.
PinkBear

Riskep

Hi,

Have you considered The International School of Dublin? My daughter (also Dutch-speaking) goes there and there are lot of kids with dual nationalities. They're in Blackrock.

Hepsie

We have not considered that school, but I'll look into it. Thanks for the suggestions!

Splums

I've posted this in the relevant area forum but am still open for options in other areas such as C. Kildare and C. Wicklow.

I'm English and my DH is French, we're currently living in Brittany, France and I'm finding the difference in preschool and primary here really daunting. I like the International schools but would prefer my kids to be in the local community rather than outside (this is what we've done before in Barcelona and France). Are there any good sites to look up reviews of schools (by this I mean comments by parents)? I've looked at schooldays.ie but haven't found it that great.

TIA