Educate Together Experiences

Qs

Seems to be a lot of talk here of new ET schools popping up and the need for more but I was wondering how many people here had kids in an ET school and how they found it. I'd much rather put my child in a secular school but its obviously not the only issue of concern when choosing a school. There seems to be a bit of a general notion that ET schools are a bit of a hippy throw back with all that no one wins and no one loses sort of stuff. I'm wondering is this true or is it just people reacting against anything new and different?

smacl

Both of my girls have been to RMDS in Renelagh, with the younger one still there. It is a great school and the kids love it, youngest is off to participate in the young scientist with her class this weekend. Not sure how to quantify 'hippy', but they do teach mindfulness, not much religion, and the youngest is currently doing some yoga.

My take on schools is that if the kids are happy, like the school, and are learning, the school is a good one. My eldest decided she wanted to go a Catholic all girls secondary because that was where her friends were going, and gets on very well there. While ethos is important, to my mind there are good and not so good schools independent of the stated ethos. Personally, I'd want to avoid a single sex RCC school like the plague, but different strokes for different folks. The right school for one kid may not be the best for another.

Qs

All the RCC schools here have abandoned single sex now so thats not an issue for me.

Can you expand on the mindfulness things maybe? Yoga sounds like a wonderful thing for kids to be doing.

Cabaal

Qs wrote: »

All the RCC schools here have abandoned single sex now so thats not an issue for me.

Maybe they have at primary level but they sure as hell haven't at secondary level,

smacl

Qs wrote: »

Can you expand on the mindfulness things maybe?

According to the school, taking time out to reflect. According to youngest, sitting on her ass quietly twiddling her thumbs

They do have quite a few kids in the school with special needs, which works surprisingly well in terms of helping all the kids bind as a community. I think the wider ethnic and cultural mix also makes the kids more rounded, which is something you'd potentially miss out on in a more mono-cultural environment. Being taught to enjoy diversity is something I would consider valuable.

No idea how well my kids experiences would generalise to other ET schools.

legspin

Qs wrote: »

Seems to be a lot of talk here of new ET schools popping up and the need for more but I was wondering how many people here had kids in an ET school and how they found it. I'd much rather put my child in a secular school but its obviously not the only issue of concern when choosing a school. There seems to be a bit of a general notion that ET schools are a bit of a hippy throw back with all that no one wins and no one loses sort of stuff. I'm wondering is this true or is it just people reacting against anything new and different?

I have my kids in an ET school and it is absolutely bloody marvellous.

However it is just one school and why this should be indicative of all ET schools is beyond me. The ethos alone doesn't make the school good, the principal and the teachers do more. So go down to the school in question and talk to the staff, just like you should if it was any other school.

iguana

Don't ET schools generally have policies like no uniform and that students and staff are on first name basis with each other? Perhaps that's where some of the 'hippy' comments have come from? I also believe that ET schools originated in the School Projects, which do have a history of being more alternative in more than just religious ethos. My son has a place in a school which was one of the Projects and tbh, I'm quite disappointed with how much more 'mainstream' the school is now than it was 20 years ago. I prefer the idea of smaller, mixed age classes to a nearly standard primary using the same restrictive curriculum as everywhere else.

robindch

iguana wrote: »

Don't ET schools generally have policies like no uniform and that students and staff are on first name basis with each other?

My kid's ET school doesn't have a school uniform and the teachers (and parents) do seem to be on first name terms with each other most of the time. The kids still refer to the teachers as Miss/Mrs This and Mr That, though.

The one thing that I have noticed though is that this school (I believe the other ones are managerially very similar) are democratic to a fault and real decisions are made by kids' School Council (elections at the start of every year, with posters, canvassing etc); the PTA is vibrant and busy; the Board of Management is open to all and takes on suggestions and ideas from anybody.

One kid in my daughter's class joined this year from the 'abortion leaflet' school where she'd spent the previous two years in junior and senior infants. Her parents are blown away by the levels of co-operation in the school and the daughter says that she feels the school is like a big family for her. I can't say whether that's in comparison to the other place, or whether other ET places are like that either, but it's pretty much been my experience too.

Eeden

My three kids all went to an Educate Together primary school, and I was so pleased that we had that choice. You may call me a hippy (I'm not), but I really liked the fact that they didn't have to wear a uniform and called their teachers by their first name. To me, that meant that not only did they respect their teachers, but their teachers respected them just as much. This meant a lot to me, having gone to single-sex convent school for my whole school life (both in the US and in Ireland). The difference was staggering. It was almost like the kids were... actual human beings!

Two of my kids are grown now and one is still in secondary school. They all loved Educate Together and were always very proud of having gone to that school.

Some said that the kids from the Educate Together school were a bit behind with Irish when they got to secondary school but this did not affect my kids (despite the fact that I have no Irish). This doesn't seem like a big deal to me, although I realize it would be a big deal to some.

Qs

Thanks for the comments folks. No uniform seems a plus to me as well. Definitely think I'll push for the ET school when it comes to it.

SpaceTime

Eeden wrote: »

Some said that the kids from the Educate Together school were a bit behind with Irish when they got to secondary school but this did not affect my kids (despite the fact that I have no Irish). This doesn't seem like a big deal to me, although I realize it would be a big deal to some.

Not sure why they'd be behind at Irish. They've exactly the same Irish syllabus as any other school. Could be an individual teacher being a bit less focused on Irish than they ought to have been, or just someone with a bit of a bias against the school making a comment.

smacl

SpaceTime wrote: »

Not sure why they'd be behind at Irish. They've exactly the same Irish syllabus as any other school. Could be an individual teacher being a bit less focused on Irish than they ought to have been, or just someone with a bit of a bias against the school making a comment.

I've heard it commented on as well, when my eldest first moved to secondary. I suspect in some part it is down to ET schools often having a larger proportion of non national parents. While Irish was my eldest's weakest subject, she's taken to going to spleodar in the evenings and gaelscoil over the summer, so it is currently one of her stronger subjects. Personally, I'd rather she spent the time becoming fluent in a more widely spoken language, but each to their own.

Morag

Educate together schools are funded the same way all primary schools are funded.
The Dept of education pays the salary of the staff and the budget for running the school is based
on a yearly grant per child which comes into effect on the 1st of January.

So a school may have in Sept 3 Classes of Jr infants but is still on the same budget until the end of the year. Schools have to spend their budget and there has been no increase in the level of the grant per child, even with schools having to pay water charges, bin charges and increased charges for heating and lighting. Which is why having the school open in a very cold snap of weather can eat into the heating budget and the short fall is then having to be made up often by fundraising.

Building grants and work/repair grants are available for all schools but the dept of education will have a limited budget for any year.

The one way that ET school differ in funding is that most RC schools will receive a small grant per child from the parish at the start of the school year, this is usually between 5 and 10 eruo and comes out of the weekly collections, how ever in some parishes this has not been possible due to the fall in donations which has happened with the fall in number or people attending weekly mass.

ET schools will usually have a fund raising group and will run summer fairs and events over the year to fund raise, as they are usually much more open to having the school premises used outside of school hours for events which benefit the school and pupils.

Sulla Felix

Morag wrote: »

The one way that ET school differ in funding is that most RC schools will receive a small grant per child from the parish at the start of the school year, this is usually between 5 and 10 eruo and comes out of the weekly collections, how ever in some parishes this has not been possible due to the fall in donations which has happened with the fall in number or people attending weekly mass.

Interesting, I didn't realize that. At least it's something.

B0jangles

I started as a junior infant in one of the very first ET schools the year it opened, and I have to say it was a great place back then. Alongside the standard syllabus we learned about the different religions of our classmates and celebrated their holidays. Back then, the breakdown was basically majority catholic, a few protestants and a few baha'i kids, probably plenty of defacto atheists in there too.

Baha'i Day was celebrated every year and was super fun. We also had "Art for All" day. Since many of the parents were from art and craft backgrounds it meant we had painting, pottery, batik, screen-printing and tie-dying etc workshops , plus we got to paint a big freeform mural on the wall of one of the classrooms every year.

When I started secondary school I heard from a new friend of mine who'd gone to the national school up the road from us that they thought we were all weird crazy hippies; they could see our playground from theirs and we were all tie-dyed, corduroy-clad free spirits while they had to wear a uniform.

I'd say they've become a lot more mainstream since those early days, but it really was an amazing place to go to school back then.

(Also my Irish was a bit crap when I started secondary, but I soon caught up and ended up doing honours for the LC, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.)

Edit: Art For All day is still happening and still looks awesome!

http://www.brayschoolproject.ie/art-day.html

SpaceTime

I don't see why Irish would be in any way impacted by choice of school though.
Shouldn't make any odds either way in theory anyway.

From what I've seen though I think the Educate Together kids seem to have more of an opportunity to develop a personality and have fun.
To me, that's what being a kid is all about - learn by doing and enjoying things!
You've decades and decades to be a buttoned up adult.

meganj

I went to three primary schools as a child.

First was a protestant local(ish) national school.

Second was the Steiner school in Rathgar (Waldorf method) now that was a hippy school!

Ended up in South City School project (now Rathfarnham ET) and I have to say it was a wonderful experience.

I had been very damaged by the first school I was in and had problems adjusting to the Steiner (I could read by the time I went there and due to the waldorf method was one of the only kids in my class who could) and SCSP became a home away from home.

My impression of ET schools having gone through almost the full range is they're somewhere in the middle. They're more liberal than your average Christian NS but you'll not see children celebrating mayday by dancing around a maypole (you'd need the steiner for that!).

lynski

My kids go to an et school, so far so good but we are only three yrs in.
They love not having a uniform and so far it has not created a problem.
I love that they are encouraged to take responsibility and develope their opinions and reasoning.
So far I don't see a real difference academically to their non-et peers but they are young.
I find the teacher approachable and my children are bemused by their peers calling their teacher mrs or miss, the firstname basis makes the teachers very accessible.
I am surprised at the homogenous nature of the classes though, my sons class has only five or six children of obvious non-Irish or non-rc origin, and only 8 out of 30 not doing rc class. My daughters class is more mixed but predominantly Irish and rc (lots of siblings). The local rc school has higher non-Irish / non-rc numbers in equivalent classes.