Looking for a boarding school in Ireland for EU student

[milkalove]

Hi all

My DN wants to spend a year abroad in a boarding school in Ireland 2025-2026. She will be in Year 11. We are ideally looking for a boarding school that offers a one year course pre IB or pre A-levels for overseas students. She has an EU passport.

Do you have any recommendations? Any experiences, positive or negative?

Thank you very much in advance!

Lots of secondary schools take in students for a year and they are hosted with local families. Transition year is a popular year to do this. There are agencies that can organise this.
Boarding schools are not as common outside of Dublin. There aren’t a huge number there either. For the most part, you just go to your local school… Completely different approach to the UK, possibly due to the points system for university entry.
What part of Ireland would she like to move to?

Won’t be offering A levels also, something to bear in mind

Maybe a similar question on Craicnet subforum will get some suggestions ?

What age is year 11? If she's only coming for a year transition year, which is between Junior Cert and Leaving Cert cycles might be the best time. They're usually around 16 when they start that.

As the pp said, they're aren't many boarding schools outside Dublin and they won't be doing A levels. I'm not sure if any offer IB.

Thank you for your replies!

She is open to anywhere in Ireland. I will mention the option of host families to her.

Thank you, that's very helpful. She will be around 16 that year.

What is transition year like?

There aren’t any full mainstream boarding schools in Ireland.
what would she like to get out of it? There are plenty of summer schools. Or she could board in the UK.
year 11 is the second of a two year exam period in N Ireland. I’m not sure about Eire.

There are full mainstream boarding schools in Ireland , just not that common. I think the family need to decide what examinations they want their DD to be entered into. No point starting senior cycle in Ireland if the child is going to be doing A levels. Nord Anglia in Dublin offers IB

Transition year varies from school to school. Some do an excellent job, some not so good.

They do a certain number of academic subjects to keep the hand in. Maths, English, Irish and MFL as they are all required at leaving cert. They do tasters of a variety of leaving cert subjects too.

They generally do either one day a week work placement or blocks of work. They also do a lot of non-currilular stuff. Mine did stuff like first aid, drama, millinery, setting up a school credit union, getting involved in environmental campaigns, gardening, debating etc. So lots of project work on a wide variety of topics. A lot of the work is self directed with support from staff. They also usually do a trip abroad.

Transition Year is brilliant when done well, so I'd aim for that if the ages line up.

You could look at Rathdown in Dublin but I don't know if they're any good these days.

Asking about A-Levels is a bit... Off, so maybe read up a bit on Ireland and its education system if you're that unfamiliar.

Y11 is GCSE year, the culmination of 2 years of studying 9/10 subjects. It would be disastrous for a child who is unfamiliar with the system to sit these exams. A ‘pre A-level’ year does not exist I’m afraid.

Rockport is a lovely boarding school situated in Craigavad on the ‘gold coast’ of Northern Ireland. It sits right beside the sea on beautiful grounds. Classes are small so teaching is very individualised, the school has a super friendly community feel to it and the extra-curricular offering is fantastic

Thank you all very much for your replies!

She would like to spend a year at boarding school in Ireland and then finish school in her home country. Of course this all needs to be agreed with her school at home, but it seems that usually they accept it, considering some formalities.

There are eight years in primary school in Ireland. Year 7 is still primary level.
There are then three years and an exam called the Junior Certificate. We then have an optional year called Transition year. Then two more years and the Leaving Certificate exam.
https://tribestudy.com/course/transition-year-ireland/

Where's her home country OP?

So glad I asked here! Apologies, I now realise I mixed up the exams with the UK system

Thank you for the recommendations!

Good friend of mine had a wonderful time boarding at st Columba's during some difficult family circumstances. Very supportive school by their account.

My children are day pupils at Villiers in Limerick - a small mixed boarding school that offers the IB programme. I find it a very satisfactory school and the children are very happy there.
https://www.villiers-school.com/

St Andrews in Booterstown do IB but they don't have boarders anymore. As a pp said Nord Anglia also offer it.

SEK is an international Spanish school but is open to kids both local and abroad- they do IB but I wouldn't recommend it. The class would be 90% Spanish and there are very few kids in the year group- max 12 or so.

Many 'regular' / public Irish secondary schools take in EU students for a year, I don't think there are many fees involved (if any) as there's a similar agreement for Irish kids to go to Spain or wherever. I know nothing about this company but there are quite a few who offer this kind of thing: inisstays.ie/en/academic-year/

will she already have completed her GCSEs and wants a year before starting her Alevels?

provided she’s done her GCSEs she could go into transition year which is essentially a year off between jnr cert (GCSEs equivalents which are done a year earlier) and leaving cert which are A level equivalents.

transition year is essentially a “year out”. theres a full non-exam school curriculum but it’s interspersed with extracurriculars, work experience & courses. It’s quite common for some girls to spend time overseas.

there’s a few options in dublin. I have 2 DDs at Alexandra college which is generally considered to be one of the best in Dublin and has boarders. Other options are Columbas and rathdown. There’s probably some others.

I second the recommendation for Villiers Boarding in Limerick. It also has a long history of international students coming for a year or two and mixing well with local students.

http://www.kilkennycollege.ie

this school is another option outside of Dublin, Kilkenny is a beautiful part of the country.

Ok, so she's 16 - that could put her in Transition Year or 5th year secondary. There's no such thing as year 11 in Ireland. Also there's no such thing a A- levels. If she's in 5th year, she will be studying 7 subjects for her Leaving Cert - but if she is only staying a year then she won't be sitting the Leaving exams so I don't really get the point???
If she does TY it's specifically designed NOT to cover exam curricula.

Northern Ireland is more in line with the UK education system. Royal School Armagh has a boarding department, is in a lovely part of the country and sits GCSEs and A Levels.

This transition year sounds amazing- I'd never heard of it. I wish we had that in England!

It's a great option for kids who have a bit of growing up to do before their final 2 years.

@milkalove This site could be useful.
https://www.hsinet.org/find-a-school/

I can't offer any personal recommendations though I have a friend who teaches here https://www.rockwellcollege.ie/boarding/ and another who attended https://kingshospital.ie which is co ed and was Church of Ireland/protestant back in my day. A lot of schools in Ireland are single sex, even more so at Boarding level.

It's worth considering what your child is trying to get out of the experience and which schools will best meet that. Schools with a high proportion of day students may leave her rattling about a bit in the evenings and weekends. Does she want to be at a rural or city school? Will the school allow unsupervised time away on weekends at 16 to go shopping / cinema etc if city based?