Private schools

knan

Hi

Hope everyone is doing well.

Our daughter is currently in creche and we have started looking for primary schools for her. We live in Dun Laoghaire and have heard of Castle Park, Rathdown and St Andrews.

Was wondering if anyone could provide advice/information about these schools? Infact any advice regarding private schools on the south side will be much appreciated.

My husband and I have been researching schools, but would love any help you could offer.

Thanks and best regards

Spear

This has nothing do with boards.ie. Confirm your email address so you can post properly, then I'll move this to a forum that's related to the topic instead.

knan

Have confirmed my email address. Thank you for your help

Spear

And moved accordingly.

Jizique

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058293793/private-schools

If she is just going into primary, there is no need to go to private school, the nearest school is typically the best choice. There is no primary school at Andrews anyway.

maninasia

Ignorant comment above.

Next time somebody asks about basketball be sure to tell them football is better , go watch that.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120514674#Comment_120514674

Incorrectly maybe. There's an education category, surely that's the place for this thread?

gaiscioch

The great news is that because this is Ireland, the vast majority of us have the dubious honour of having been, in fact, educated in a private school. Unless people think their local Roman Catholic school, which possibly predates the State, is owned by the State (hint: it's most definitely not, as RCC land sales of school properties in recent years to pay historic child abuse debts confirm!).

A very small section of our private school system (only about 15% of all schools in Ireland are State-owned) is, however, fee-charging (not fee-paying, unless people think the school pay fees!) - there are about seven or eight at primary level in Dublin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fee-charging_schools_in_Ireland

All of the fee-charging schools, with the exception of Nord Anglia, receive most of their funding from the Irish taxpayer (and fees are a top-up).

As for the differences between them they are, to put it bluntly, 'two cheeks of the same arse' or, more politely, google 'narcissism of small differences'. You'd be better off putting the "saving" from not paying créche fees into a tax-efficient savings fund for your kids. If you think they might be worth it at secondary, you could then choose fee-charging. But in reality there are plenty of excellent primary and secondary schools in Dublin which do not charge fees. I've taught in the poorest DEIS schools in Dublin and the richest fee-charging schools in Dublin. In between them is the mass of middle-class, non-fee-charging schools which do pretty much the same job as the fee-charging schools. I often think the parents who choose the latter do so for their own social status. Look for a solid, non-fee-charging academic school and put the fees every years into a tax-efficient savings fund and give the €100,000 or so to your kids when they're buying their first home.

Caranica

I don't know why you would send a child to a private primary school, so many other good primary schools in that area. Of the schools you mention I would go for Rathdown over Castle Park. Dealt with schools in that area for five years recently in a work capacity. But still I would urge you to look beyond private schools, unless the issue is catchment area, there are big differences between the non private primary schools in Dun Laoghaire

Peregrinus

Couple of misconceptions here.

A national school may operate in buildings owned by a church, but that doesn't mean the school, as opposed to the buildings, is "owned" by the church. It isn't owned by anybody; it's an activity, not an asset. It's run by the board of management, within the system established and supervised by the Department of Education.

Private primary schools, as opposed to national schools, receive no state funding at all — even those associated with or attached to private secondary schools, which do receive state funding. Consequently the fees are high — sometimes as high or higher than the fees for the associated secondary school. But, unless the fees are very high, the education delivered is not particularly well-resourced, because of the lack of state funding. That's not to say that a particular private primary school might not have advantages, but you would want to be very clear in your own mind about what advantages they were, and whether they justify the considerable cost of sending your child to such a school.

Private primary schools are not required to follow the state curriculum or adhere to any particular educational philosophy; the Dept of Education does not supervise their operation, and assesses them only to ensure that students receive a certain minimum level of education. This does mean that they're free to provide alternatives to the model of primary education offered in national schools — they can offer Steiner or Montessori education, for example, or they can provide education modelled on the English or US preparatory school system (which may be attractive to people posted temporarily to Ireland who don't expect their children to receive secondary education in Ireland). So factors like that might incline you towards a private primary school. Another factor might be that some of them offer a route into an associated secondary school, and you might have your heart set on that secondary school for your child. A third factor is simply that they are socially exclusive, and some parents value that. But you would want to have some reason for choosing a private primary school, given the cost.

gaiscioch

Is there a single "private primary school" in Ireland if being private is defined by being entirely self-financing? Headfort Preparatory School in the Meath Kells is, according to this article, the only primary school in Ireland which does not receive taxpayers' money (and even that is not entirely true as this article makes clear) - and it's barely in existence:

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-31000205.html

All the other fee-charging primary schools, like the fee-charging secondary schools (except Nord Anglia), not only have most of the teachers' salaries funded by the Irish taxpayer but they also receive enormous funds in capitation grants from the State. There is no ownership difference between the fee-charging Blackrock College and the non-fee-charging Muckross College: both schools' extensive buidlings and lands are equally privately owned by a branch of the Roman Catholic Church and both of these private schools are state-funded. The sole difference is that Blackrock charges fees and, for some bizarre reason, journalists think that makes it uniquely "private".

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120585857#Comment_120585857

Couple of points:

Headford is the only private primary boarding school in Ireland, not the only private primary school.

I don't think anybody defines "private" as "self-funding". That is simply not what the word means. This is a giant red herring.

You are correct that both Blackrock and Muckross are private schools (though they, of course, are secondary schools). "Private" is not the same thing as "fee-charging". Lots of private schools are in the free secondary education scheme.

There is, however, no parallel free primary education scheme; there is just the national school system.

Primary schools outside the national school system do not have "most of the teacher's salaries funded by the Irish taxpayer", and do not receive the capitation grant. They may, however, access ECCE funding for those of their student who are under 5 years and 6 months of age at the end of the school year. (This is the scheme that provides funding for playschools and daycare centres. The services that are funded through ECCE have to be provided free of charge to parents, so a private primary school which receives ECCE funding cannot charge fees for the services funded by ECCE.)

As a result private primary schools are largely funded through fees; they get little or (in most cases) nothing from the state.