Middle school for 16 y.o. EU citizen

splitcro

Hello everybody,

I live in Croatia, considering job offer in Dublin. I have a son who's 16, and if we relocate he need to go to the school in Ireland. He is excellent in English. I wanted to ask for some informations about the school system in Ireland, if someone could help me a little bit...

For instance, in Croatia we have next system:
8 years of primary school
4 years of middle school
3 years of university to become Bacc.
Another 2 years of university to become Master.

My son attends second year of the middle school, he's profession after that would be PC technician for machine engineering. In other words he is going to become programmer for CNC machine languages, later on he want to study computer sciences.

So I would be grateful if someone can tell me next:
1. Are middle schools in Ireland free of charge for EU citizens?
2. Do you have primary school 8 and middle school 4 years as well, or which grade is equal to the second of the middle school?
3. Which technical school you can recomend for us?


Thank you very much for any advice.

Ivan, Split, Croatia

byhookorbycrook

Primary is eight years, secondary is 5 or 6 and then you can apply to go to third level college.
School places can be in short supply in parts of Dublin but most schools are not fee paying.

splitcro

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Primary is eight years, secondary is 5 or 6 and then you can apply to go to third level college.
School places can be in short supply in parts of Dublin but most schools are not fee paying.

Thanks very much....so whats the first or second level college ?

Stheno

splitcro wrote: »

Thanks very much....so whats the first or second level college ?

We refer to education after second/middle level as third level.

Third level colleges offer everything from certificates to PHDs

Moonbeam

School here is very different.
Kids do 8 years in primary school then at 12/13 they go to secondary school.
Secondary school is for 6 years and at the end they do The Leaving Certificate which is the exam that gets them in to college or university .
A BSC or B.Eng is 4 years for an honours degree and depending on the masters it is an additional 1 to 3 years.
Secondary school subjects here are not always based on what you want to do in university, the core subjects are english,irish and maths and 3 more are needed for university/college entry but usually people do 7 incase they do badly in one.
http://www.curriculumonline.ie/ might help you.

Moonbeam

There are some private school that only do the 2 years for leaving certificate - The Institute of Education, Bruce College , Ashfield College.

spurious

At 16, he should probably start with what is called Transition Year, a non-academic year in between our two main exams. It will also be a help with his integrating into his class before starting the two year Leaving Cert. course.

splitcro

spurious wrote: »

At 16, he should probably start with what is called Transition Year, a non-academic year in between our two main exams. It will also be a help with his integrating into his class before starting the two year Leaving Cert. course.

Thanks, this is very important information, it should be some transition period....

spurious

Many schools have new students joining them in Transition Year, so he is unlikely to be the only new person to the group.

splitcro

School here is very different.
Kids do 8 years in primary school then at 12/13 they go to secondary school.
Secondary school is for 6 years and at the end they do The Leaving Certificate which is the exam that gets them in to college or university .
A BSC or B.Eng is 4 years for an honours degree and depending on the masters it is an additional 1 to 3 years.
Secondary school subjects here are not always based on what you want to do in university, the core subjects are english,irish and maths and 3 more are needed for university/college entry but usually people do 7 incase they do badly in one.
might help you.

Thanks Moonbeam, learning Irish language will be another thing to do for us. Schools and universities are on Irish or English?

pooch90

Your child will not have to learn the Irish language as they moved over so late, they will be eligible for an exemption. However, some jobs will require Irish (and have Irish required for entry to the college course). State jobs like teaching, police etc
College will be through English.

seavill

pooch90 wrote: »

Your child will not have to learn the Irish language as they moved over so late, they will be eligible for an exemption. However, some jobs will require Irish (and have Irish required for entry to the college course). State jobs like teaching, police etc
College will be through English.

Just to quality - 'Some' state jobs like teaching require it. Primary teaching does, however secondary teaching does not (obviously unless you want to teach Irish)

pooch90

Sorry, should have specified that it's only for primary teaching Irish is required.

splitcro

Your child will not have to learn the Irish language as they moved over so late, they will be eligible for an exemption. However, some jobs will require Irish (and have Irish required for entry to the college course). State jobs like teaching, police etc
College will be through English


I believe that newcomers should show respect to the society and that's not nice to live somewhere and not know national language. If everyting goes well as we hope for, we will learn Irish, and especially younger generation simply must do that...we are already kind of multilingual, so I hope we will be ok...

pooch90

That's a very good attitude to have.
However,for state exams they will be exempt and it would be a lot of pressure to put on a 16 year old to learn the language in 2 years. Especially when it is a language rarely spoken in the country.
I hope the move goes well for you(and your doggies!)

danm14

The Irish language is not commonly spoken in this country. While my opinion may be very unpopular, it is not a productive use of time to learn the language.
Less than 2% of the country's population speak the language every day according to the last census. There are some areas of Ireland, mainly in the west, where there are many more Irish speakers, but even there only 35% speak it every day.
In fact, less than half of the people in the country can speak the language at all.
Almost all schools and colleges teach classes through English - there are 3165 primary schools in Ireland, only 144 teach subjects other than Irish through Irish. There are 720 secondary schools, and only 40 of these teach through Irish.
Students who were born here learn Irish for 14 years - most of them do not understand the language properly by the time they finish school. You cannot expect someone to learn a language in 2 years when most people cannot speak it after 14 years learning.
There are more English speakers in Croatia than Irish speakers in Ireland

You start school at 6 in Croatia, therefore transition year is the equivalent of your second year.

hfallada

splitcro wrote: »

Your child will not have to learn the Irish language as they moved over so late, they will be eligible for an exemption. However, some jobs will require Irish (and have Irish required for entry to the college course). State jobs like teaching, police etc
College will be through English


I believe that newcomers should show respect to the society and that's not nice to live somewhere and not know national language. If everyting goes well as we hope for, we will learn Irish, and especially younger generation simply must do that...we are already kind of multilingual, so I hope we will be ok...

Irish will not be needed for 3rd level as since the child was resident outside of Ireland after the age of 7. I dont know any jobs that have an Irish requirement unless they are an actually job through Irish.

I disagree with your belief that non-nationals should learn Irish as "respect". We are an European country and pretty much have the same culture as most European countries. If you put a young German, Pole and Irish person in a room. They will pretty much have the exact same interests. Irish culture isnt that unique, that non-nationals have to learn it.

The belief that the Irish Language and a sense of Irishness is connected is BS. Most young people cant make a sentence in Irish and still feel Irish. This need to hold onto Irish, as it makes us unique from other European countries is holding our economy back.

What good is Irish in the globalised world we are living in? Its completely useless and as a result we are having to get Italians, Germans, French etc. To move to Ireland to work jobs Irish people cant fill as we cant speak German or Spainish, as it taught as a third language in our schools.

I had over 220 people in my business class in college and only 8 studied German. Which is the fourth largest economies in the world. What use is being able to speak Irish when we need German to sell goods to Germany?I hear German several times a day in Dublin city and I have heard Irish being spoken once in the last year.

Save your son the hardship of learning a futile language and apply for an Irish language exception. Your son can study in the time that he will be wasting on learning a language that he will have zero chance of getting a good grade at higher level.

You need to make sure your son is put into higher level classes and subjects that are easier to get a good grade in. In Sociology we studied how teachers in Ireland tended to put non-nationals who were well able to do higher level classes into ordinary level classes, just because they were non-national. The teachers suggested that the students should also do subjects that didnt require much English like Art or Music.

splitcro

That's a very good attitude to have.
However,for state exams they will be exempt and it would be a lot of pressure to put on a 16 year old to learn the language in 2 years. Especially when it is a language rarely spoken in the country.
I hope the move goes well for you(and your doggies!)

Thank you...We will do our best, and we shall see...(I would put a smile here, but I can't use them stil since I am new at the forum, so this was instead)

splitcro

The Irish language is not commonly spoken in this country. While my opinion may be very unpopular, it is not a productive use of time to learn the language.
Less than 2% of the country's population speak the language every day according to the last census. There are some areas of Ireland, mainly in the west, where there are many more Irish speakers, but even there only 35% speak it every day.
In fact, less than half of the people in the country can speak the language at all.
Almost all schools and colleges teach classes through English - there are 3165 primary schools in Ireland, only 144 teach subjects other than Irish through Irish. There are 720 secondary schools, and only 40 of these teach through Irish.
Students who were born here learn Irish for 14 years - most of them do not understand the language properly by the time they finish school. You cannot expect someone to learn a language in 2 years when most people cannot speak it after 14 years learning.
There are more English speakers in Croatia than Irish speakers in Ireland

You start school at 6 in Croatia, therefore transition year is the equivalent of your second year.

Danm14, thank you very much for this post. If students aren't able to speak Irish after 14 years (?!), then we will probably have a hard time to learn it in a few years. However, I know some guys from UK who are living here in Split, and they are trying to speak Croatian, although it's a nightmare for an Englishman...But, it is very nice to see that they tried to learn a few sentences...On the other hand, maybe you are right, if Irish guys don't use or even don't know Irish, probably we will be excused as well...but I am curious about Irish language anyway...

Moonbeam

We speak irish and the kids are educated through irish not so much because it is irish but having 2 languages from birth makes learning a 3rd and 4rth easier for them.

As soon as you know in what area you will be living contact all the schools in that area,there can be issues with school places in certain areas.

danm14

splitcro wrote: »

The Irish language is not commonly spoken in this country. While my opinion may be very unpopular, it is not a productive use of time to learn the language.
Less than 2% of the country's population speak the language every day according to the last census. There are some areas of Ireland, mainly in the west, where there are many more Irish speakers, but even there only 35% speak it every day.
In fact, less than half of the people in the country can speak the language at all.
Almost all schools and colleges teach classes through English - there are 3165 primary schools in Ireland, only 144 teach subjects other than Irish through Irish. There are 720 secondary schools, and only 40 of these teach through Irish.
Students who were born here learn Irish for 14 years - most of them do not understand the language properly by the time they finish school. You cannot expect someone to learn a language in 2 years when most people cannot speak it after 14 years learning.
There are more English speakers in Croatia than Irish speakers in Ireland

You start school at 6 in Croatia, therefore transition year is the equivalent of your second year.

Danm14, thank you very much for this post. If students aren't able to speak Irish after 14 years (?!), then we will probably have a hard time to learn it in a few years. However, I know some guys from UK who are living here in Split, and they are trying to speak Croatian, although it's a nightmare for an Englishman...But, it is very nice to see that they tried to learn a few sentences...On the other hand, maybe you are right, if Irish guys don't use or even don't know Irish, probably we will be excused as well...but I am curious about Irish language anyway...

I notice that I have forgotten to include another piece of information - even in those schools which teach through Irish, the students do not seem to communicate in Irish outside of class, for example they would talk to each other in English outside school and at lunch time. While this may not be the case in every school, I know people who have been educated at a number of different Irish language schools, and they have all said they spoke English to each other outside of class.

splitcro

hfallada]Irish will not be needed for 3rd level as since the child was resident outside of Ireland after the age of 7. I dont know any jobs that have an Irish requirement unless they are an actually job through Irish.

I disagree with your belief that non-nationals should learn Irish as "respect". We are an European country and pretty much have the same culture as most European countries. If you put a young German, Pole and Irish person in a room. They will pretty much have the exact same interests. Irish culture isnt that unique, that non-nationals have to learn it.

The belief that the Irish Language and a sense of Irishness is connected is BS. Most young people cant make a sentence in Irish and still feel Irish. This need to hold onto Irish, as it makes us unique from other European countries is holding our economy back.

What good is Irish in the globalised world we are living in? Its completely useless and as a result we are having to get Italians, Germans, French etc. To move to Ireland to work jobs Irish people cant fill as we cant speak German or Spainish, as it taught as a third language in our schools.

I had over 220 people in my business class in college and only 8 studied German. Which is the fourth largest economies in the world. What use is being able to speak Irish when we need German to sell goods to Germany?I hear German several times a day in Dublin city and I have heard Irish being spoken once in the last year.

Save your son the hardship of learning a futile language and apply for an Irish language exception. Your son can study in the time that he will be wasting on learning a language that he will have zero chance of getting a good grade at higher level.

You need to make sure your son is put into higher level classes and subjects that are easier to get a good grade in. In Sociology we studied how teachers in Ireland tended to put non-nationals who were well able to do higher level classes into ordinary level classes, just because they were non-national. The teachers suggested that the students should also do subjects that didnt require much English like Art or Music.
......................................................................................................................
Thank you, I will take your advice about school. About Irish – yes I agree that Germans mostly do have a problem to understand that language...anyway, it is much better to speak some foreign language, and it is necessary in todays world... I believe that each small and old language including Irish should be preserved within a nation. EU is for me just a try to put different nations in one functional family from the ecenomic point of view, but without deleting their cultural heritage, and the language is one of the most important heritage in my opinion....thats why I believe that newcomers should show interest and respect to the culture of the country they are coming to live in...there are few ways to show that – knowing the language, or at least few words of it , respecting the laws and the way of life, contributing to the country somehow....

aratsarse101

Hi there. Can I just play devil's advocate?
I was just thinking have you thought at all about leaving your son in Croatia and letting him finish his schooling there? Sometimes a move at that age can be quite disruptive. There are no technical secondary schools of the type you have in your country and computers is not an official exam subject and not taught in most schools. If you are thinking of coming next September, then if your son is 17 or more, then he may be quite old to enter Transition Year. Another problem you may discover is that it is unlikely that he would be eligible for reduced university fees (new rules around length of time resident in country) and after school you could be talking about 10s of thousands of euro for university here. There are a good few schools in Dublin where I would not send my own child and you may find it difficult to get a place in some of the others. That will certainly need further investigation.

splitcro

aratsarse101 wrote: »

Hi there. Can I just play devil's advocate?
I was just thinking have you thought at all about leaving your son in Croatia and letting him finish his schooling there? Sometimes a move at that age can be quite disruptive. There are no technical secondary schools of the type you have in your country and computers is not an official exam subject and not taught in most schools. If you are thinking of coming next September, then if your son is 17 or more, then he may be quite old to enter Transition Year. Another problem you may discover is that it is unlikely that he would be eligible for reduced university fees (new rules around length of time resident in country) and after school you could be talking about 10s of thousands of euro for university here. There are a good few schools in Dublin where I would not send my own child and you may find it difficult to get a place in some of the others. That will certainly need further investigation.

Aratsarse, this is very interesting. I taught to leave him in Croatia, infact I dont know what solution is worst then another. He is in sensitive age to leave him, and to take him with us as well. I agree that it may be disruptive, and noone knows in which direction it can develop. Who knows how he will be accepted in the class, with some strange English and bad knowledge about many actual things...and how he will feel himself at all....
On the other hand, university is even bigger problem. If he is not eligible for free education then we are in trouble of course. But this problem is a bit easier to handle since he can always go back to Croatia and attend American college for IT.
So, we will have to think about middle school as a one of the biggest problems I see....

coddlehip

Regarding university fees, it is residency in the EU which is necessary rather than Ireland itself so for uni it shouldn't make a difference whether he finishes school in Ireland or Croatia.

ProfessorPlum

hfallada wrote: »

Irish will not be needed for 3rd level as since the child was resident outside of Ireland after the age of 7. I dont know any jobs that have an Irish requirement unless they are an actually job through Irish.

.

While it's true that the OP's child will be exempt from studying Irish and it will not be required for third level, the above information is not correct.

Maryfrancis

In some schools transition year places are limited so may not get a place at all. Preference is given to existing students.

splitcro

Maryfrancis wrote: »

In some schools transition year places are limited so may not get a place at all. Preference is given to existing students.

I see, I believe that there must be some way...Ireland is attracting many immigrants, I dont think that there is no option for their children to proceed with the education...