Educate together in Lucan (DEIS)

jos_kel

Our son started an ET school in Lucan last september. We liked the ethos, heard good reports and nothing has changed our mind since. Our son is Irish and born in Dublin. Just mentioning this as the obvious thing might have been to send him to the local non-ET school.
Last week I heard it was designated as DEIS which according to Dept of Education website serves "disadvantaged students with social and economic impediments to receiving a good education".
As we don't fit into the disadvantaged category, I'm a bit concerned about the implications of this for our son. Will it hold him back? Or is this designation a red herring?
I also saw that only DEIS schools are assigned Home School Liaison Officers. Is this a further implication of social and economic impediments? Which again we don't have thankfully?

killbillvol2

jos_kel wrote: »

Our son started an ET school in Lucan last september. We liked the ethos, heard good reports and nothing has changed our mind since. Our son is Irish and born in Dublin. Just mentioning this as the obvious thing might have been to send him to the local non-ET school.
Last week I heard it was designated as DEIS which according to Dept of Education website serves "disadvantaged students with social and economic impediments to receiving a good education".
As we don't fit into the disadvantaged category, I'm a bit concerned about the implications of this for our son. Will it hold him back? Or is this designation a red herring?
I also saw that only DEIS schools are assigned Home School Liaison Officers. Is this a further implication of social and economic impediments? Which again we don't have thankfully?

What are you asking exactly? Unless I'm missing something you want to know if going to a school with poor people will disadvantage your son?

jos_kel

killbillvol2 wrote: »

What are you asking exactly? Unless I'm missing something you want to know if going to a school with poor people will disadvantage your son?

Not exactly. We put a lot of thought into which primary school to send him too. Heard great things about ET schools, so as you can imagine was surprised that Dept of Education has designated this specific ET school as serving socially and economically disadvantaged kids/families.
I'm sure kids in non-ET schools come from disadvantaged backgrounds, so maybe the designation is not an exact science.
I suppose being a parent, my concern is understandable.

byhookorbycrook

DEIS= extra cash for schools. I always think that all ET/RC/COI schools vary, according to the individual schools. So that it all depends on the principal /staff rather than the "ethos."

eviltwin

jos_kel wrote: »

Not exactly. We put a lot of thought into which primary school to send him too. Heard great things about ET schools, so as you can imagine was surprised that Dept of Education has designated this specific ET school as serving socially and economically disadvantaged kids/families.
I'm sure kids in non-ET schools come from disadvantaged backgrounds, so maybe the designation is not an exact science.
I suppose being a parent, my concern is understandable.

What are you concerned about? The DEIS status doesn't change things for you son in terms of the standard of education. The teacher is still the same. Are you concerned about money for resources or about the profile of his classmates?

jos_kel

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

DEIS= extra cash for schools. I always think that all ET/RC/COI schools vary, according to the individual schools. So that it all depends on the principal /staff rather than the "ethos."

Yes as I've said that my impression of the school has been good. Just saw some stuff on the internet saying that DEIS school kids had behavioral problems and high staff turnover due to challenging circumstances.
Any parent would be duty bound to double check that school is appropriate for their child

jos_kel

eviltwin wrote: »

What are you concerned about? The DEIS status doesn't change things for you son in terms of the standard of education. The teacher is still the same. Are you concerned about money for resources or about the profile of his classmates?

Was concerned that profile of classmates may mean less time allocated for him. E.g. If they were disadvantaged socially and economically, would that not mean more teacher focus on them. Don't mean this to sound bad, but it's a parents responsibility to get best for child.
Also why do Dept of Education only have Home School Liason officer assigned to DEIS schools?

spurious

DEIS means more money for the school, extra supports, smaller classes. He might be only one of a handful who do, for example, Higher Maths at Leaving, but in a DEIS school they will have the money to form a small class.

Not only children from poorer families need supports, academic or otherwise.

The fact that it is an ET school means you have lots of interested parents like yourself. Yes, some may be from council housing etc., but they have made a choice to send their child to an ET school, which means those parents are making a decision. I have worked in schools where the child had to come up and enrol themselves because their parent(s) couldn't be bothered. Good parental interest, like in an ET school, fee-paying school or Gaelscoil is the foundation of what makes it a 'good school'.

jos_kel

spurious wrote: »

DEIS means more money for the school, extra supports, smaller classes. He might be only one of a handful who do, for example, Higher Maths at Leaving, but in a DEIS school they will have the money to form a small class.

Not only children from poorer families need supports, academic or otherwise.

The fact that it is an ET school means you have lots of interested parents like yourself. Yes, some may be from council housing etc., but they have made a choice to send their child to an ET school, which means those parents are making a decision. I have worked in schools where the child had to come up and enrol themselves because their parent(s) couldn't be bothered. Good parental interest, like in an ET school, fee-paying school or Gaelscoil is the foundation of what makes it a 'good school'.

Yes. Thanks. This what I suspected. Was just surprised why the Dept of Education seem to making DEIS synonymous with "Disadvantaged".
That is clear from their website. It's not my opinion.

killbillvol2

jos_kel wrote: »

Yes. Thanks. This what I suspected. Was just surprised why the Dept of Education seem to making DEIS synonymous with "Disadvantaged".
That is clear from their website. It's not my opinion.

DEIS is synonymous with disadvantaged. There are multiple criteria that a school meets to be classified as DEIS. There are also two levels of DEIS.

Amongst the criteria are a high percentage of families from local authority housing, high unemployment etc.

jos_kel

killbillvol2 wrote: »

DEIS is synonymous with disadvantaged. There are multiple criteria that a school meets to be classified as DEIS. There are also two levels of DEIS.

Amongst the criteria are a high percentage of families from local authority housing, high unemployment etc.

So, the fact that we are none of the above. Should we be concerned of any impact on our sons potential.
I'm not a teacher or social scientist, so I wouldn't know.

sitstill

jos_kel wrote: »

So, the fact that we are none of the above. Should we be concerned of any impact on our sons potential.
I'm not a teacher or social scientist, so I wouldn't know.

So you are asking whether the fact that your child would be in a class with kids who live in local authority housing and/or have parents who are unemployed, would somehow drag down your child? As a teacher, I would say no. In such situations, it is the parents and the home atmosphere that the child comes from which makes the difference.

evolving_doors

jos_kel wrote: »

So, the fact that we are none of the above. Should we be concerned of any impact on our sons potential.
I'm not a teacher or social scientist, so I wouldn't know.

The biggest influencing factor on your sons potential is your attitude towards education (thats what the research says anyhow!).
Deis = smaller class sizes and more resources/time. This can only be a good thing.

maybe you need to get more of a sense of what the school is about rather than viewing it from just the school gates. Would you consider joining the parents association in the school?

jos_kel

Armelodie wrote: »

The biggest influencing factor on your sons potential is your attitude towards education (thats what the research says anyhow!).
Deis = smaller class sizes and more resources/time. This can only be a good thing.

maybe you need to get more of a sense of what the school is about rather than viewing it from just the school gates. Would you consider joining the parents association in the school?

Thanks for all the great responses and I agree. I have been very keen from day 1 to join the parent teachers association but all meetings are during working hours. So I could take some days off per year but I prefer to be totally committed. I'm disappointed about that.

echo beach

My children went to a DEIS school. I didn't know what it meant until a friend who teaches in another school said, "You are so lucky your children are at a disadvantaged school." It sounded funny but she was right. Smaller classes, free lunches, free or very cheap school trips, although all of those have been cut back in recent years.
In all the time they were there I never spoke to the Home School Liaison teacher but know she was a great support to other parents who had difficulties like children mitching or wanting to drop out.

jos_kel

echo beach wrote: »

My children went to a DEIS school. I didn't know what it meant until a friend who teaches in another school said, "You are so lucky your children are at a disadvantaged school." It sounded funny but she was right. Smaller classes, free lunches, free or very cheap school trips, although all of those have been cut back in recent years.
In all the time they were there I never spoke to the Home School Liaison teacher but know she was a great support to other parents who had difficulties like children mitching or wanting to drop out.

Yeah. To be honest don't really care about it being a DEIS school but was just surprised as to why the Dept of Education designate this school as disadvantaged. My impression has been that the teachers are fantastic and forward thinking and in terms of the kids themselves my sense is that they are no different than in any other school.
As stated previously we put a lot of thought into selecting a primary school for our son. We felt and heard that Educate Together was a good choice.
The thought that it served disadvantaged kids never entered our radar at all.