Tag Archives: primary school

Plans to reform the school admissions system in relation to the role that religion can play in that process have been outlined by Education Minister Richard Bruton. In a speech at a seminar organised by Equate, a campaign group in this area, Minister Bruton stated that he believes that it is unfair that preference is given by publicly-funded religious schools to children of their own religion who might live some distance away, ahead of children of a different religion or of no religion who live close to the school. The Minister also stated his belief that it is unfair that parents, who might otherwise not do so, feel pressure to baptise their children in order to gain admission to the local school. Minister Bruton set out four possible approaches for dealing with the issue, in primary schools in the first instance, including: A catchment area approach, prohibiting religious schools from giving preference to children of their own religion who live …

CLARE primary schools have been asked to help track the arrival of spring by getting involved in Greenwave 2014. This citizen science project, which sees students log their sightings of six Greenwave species by uploading images to the greenwave.ie website, is one of the five criteria necessary to achieve a Discover Primary Science and Maths (DPSM) Award of Science and Maths Excellence. It is part of the Science Foundation Ireland’s Discover Programme. Between the months of February and May, students are asked to capture their sightings of six species: frog, swallow, horse-chestnut, primrose, hawthorn and ash, in addition to making at least one weather observation by measuring and recording wind speed, rainfall or temperature. The results are then logged on the Greenwave website in order to monitor and map the arrival of spring. Now entering its 8th year, Greenwave continues to grow in popularity amongst students, teachers and parents alike. Last year 554 Irish primary schools, including 23 Clare schools, took …

FOR the last 40 years, children have been receiving education in prefabs at St Conaire’s Primary School but that’s coming to an end this week. A new extension has been built, removing the need for them. Speaking on Monday, headmaster Peter Walsh gave some details of the new extension. “We’re opening it on Thursday. There’ll be three new classrooms and I suppose we’ll have been 60 and 70 children there, about 22 or 23 in each room. They’ll be replacing three prefabs that we had rented for about seven years.” He said he is very pleased with the standard of the new classrooms. “They’re fantastic, built to the highest spec. They were designed by Paul Conway and built by Dermot Custy Construction. They’re excellent. They have the best of insulation and they were designed for modern education needs. They were designed to fit an awkward site as well, so there was a lot of work done between the school and …