U-turn puts ‘Bridge school back on track

Plans for a new state-of-the-art national school in Sixmilebridge are back on the drawing board after the Department of Education performed a u-turn this week.

 

The department has authorised that the building project for St Finnachta’s National School will now be progressed through the architectural planning stage, less than a year after the school was controversially excluded from the Government’s five-year building programme.

The project, incorporating 24 classrooms and a special needs unit for children with autism spectrum disorders, will address the school’s chronic accommodation shortfall and projected enrolments.

Currently, more students are accommodated in the 11 prefabs than the main school building, which was built in 1934 and extended in 1985. Based on CSO figures, the school’s population is expected to grow to 551 pupils by the year 2015.

Delighted with the latest development, school principal Gareth Heagney said, “I don’t want to create the expectation that builders will be on site before the end of 2013; they won’t, but we are on the right track.

The department has agreed to investigate ways of providing a new school as quickly as possible. “Both the school authorities and the School Building Unit in the department will be sitting down shortly to put specific plans in place while also addressing the school’s interim accommodation needs.”

St Finnachta’s National School was previously earmarked for expansion but has suffered several setbacks. The school first applied for a capital grant to redevelop the current building in 2005 and three years later the project went to the design team phase. However, it was then shelved because of the depressed economic environment.

Last year, the school was excluded by the department from their five-year schools building programme after being leap-frogged by other projects. However, that setback strengthened the resolve of the community in ­Sixmilebridge to redouble their efforts.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn visited and after surveying the accommodation crisis admitted that the school “wasn’t fit for purpose”.

Following on from that, a meeting was held in Tullamore last term between the school authorities and the department’s Capital Appraisal, Technical and Forward Planning Sections. Consequently, Sixmilebridge was reclassified as a “rapidly developing school”, paving the way for this week’s announcement.

One of the main planks of their argument at that meeting was the demographic growth in the school, given that Sixmilebridge is an area of expansive growth.

The town’s population has more than doubled since 2006 and the projected surge in enrolments over the next few years will see the school’s ­population grow substantially.

Mr Heagney said there are significant advantages of being classed as “rapidly developing school”.

“The Forward Planning Section of the Department has finally acknowledged we are a rapidly developing school and, as such, need a new school sooner rather than later.

“This news was as a result of a very positive but long meeting with the department last term. Key was the attendance of the Forward Planning Section. Their function is to analyse the demographic growth and enrolment trends and anticipated demand for school places and to ensure that sufficient school accommodation will be provided.

“The advantages of that classification are that it makes provision for the appointment of additional teachers with immediate effect, that our school project has been identified and prioritised and the opening of a special needs class is inclusion and integration in practice”.

Mr Heagney said the issue of additional accommodation provision in the interim is being planned.

“The design team is currently at work regarding the short-term accommodation plans so as not to impede on the footprint of the new school,” he explained.