Niamh Martin Lisa Kelly

Laura Walsh

Aoife de Crúis

Kate Sarah

Emma McCready

Sarah Duff

Ronan

Dara Quirke

Noreen Lennon this could be helpful for Sept...

Jane-Marie O'Connell

Freda Ní Dhuibhir

Síle Ní Shionóid

Ciara Conroy are you on Instagram?

Carol Culloty, I know you’ve got it all under control but might be helpful 😘

Maria Cooney😀

Aaron Mc Grane you should follow on Instagram too.

On the flip side, I think it’s also legitimate to ask when is a big school too big? The push to grow a school at all costs and the restrospective funding model we have means that students and staff suffer overcrowding in the short term (which sometimes isn’t so short) for what they hope is long term gain but for how long and in whose interest? We never really discuss who is benefitting from school expansion and whether these benefits are fairly distributed or whether existing school management systems (principals and voluntary boms with no guaranteed financial or management training or expertise) are really enabled to manage the budgets and staffing levels of some of the ‘super schools’, which would be considered challenging even in the commercial sector. I get why economies of scale supports the idea of fewer and bigger schools but we know that applying business models to education is usually a disaster. If we insist on doing so, we should also establish where the point of diminishing returns is because it has to exist somewhere. I’d also question why the DES don’t apply economies of scale at their own end first and centralise school resourcing and funding to save money before taking the drastic measure of closing schools. Personally, I think there’s a niggling, natural instinct in most teachers and parents that questions the push for bigger school settings, particularly at primary level, and, as we’ve seen with various planning disasters in Ireland, we allow our gut instincts to be silenced by financial motives at our peril.

I have quite strong views on this one Simon. Every child should have the right to be educated in their locality, and accessing a school in their locality should not be difficult - either due to the physical lack of a school or the lack of sufficient provisions in the case of SEN on occasion. The DES needs to ensure provisions are made for all pupils in our schools- not by compelling but by consulting and resourcing these schools. The spin and optics around the truly chronic lack of supports is astonishing in reality - teachers have been doing more and more with less and less for far too long. The chickens are coming home to roost now in this regard as educators are burned out from constantly trying to make a silk purse of a sow's ear, and children are being shortchanged by an education system that cannot be as inclusive as it wishes to be without investment to properly support schools. The DES and government need to be held accountable for this. The number of small schools in Ireland may have fallen over the decades, mostly due to demographics, but a school is a school regardless of the number of pupils and provides an invaluable service to its community. One that is far too readily undervalued. Many small schools are very viable and vibrant centres of learning despite their small size. These schools are in many instances, the last vestiges of community spirit and connection in their areas, rooting children in their communities and helping to nurture social and civic responsibilities in children. We should be demanding proper supports, provisions and funding for small schools, valuing children above economics and LISTENING to the Principals and teachers in these schools. They know what is needed to sustain them. The demise of small schools, if that happens - will be death by a thousand cuts due to rotten DES policy that shows a blatant disregard for and ignorance of the value and realistic needs of small schools. These policies appeased and perpetuated will eventually pressure small schools out of existence. This has been going on for years and will ultimately come at a great cost to our society. Once upon a time children got an education behind a hedge - and were successful because the will was there and the respect for learning was there too. The sustainability of small schools has nothing to do with their size and everything to with how they are viewed, misunderstood, under-supported and under-valued. If small schools were not forced to struggle to survive by DES disregard and policy that mitigates against their success - this energy could be far better spent being creative and collaborative between clusters of small schools and engaging with far more productive and progressive projects than constant fundraising to pay the bills, etc, constant scrambling to keep teaching positions, etc. Not to mention the cruel level of bureaucracy keeping us from the actual business of TEACHING. It should not be GAME OVER for small schools - BUT it is time to look at the code behind them, rewrite and refine it and reboot. None of which can be done unless the powers that be start LISTENING to those of us on the ground and giving us what we need to lead and manage our small schools going forward. I understand in some cases a school must close or chooses to close, but those who wish to remain open should be supported in every way. Sadly some never miss the water till the well runs dry. In the case of a small school closure - it'll be too late to salvage what is lost.