Moving to Dublin - school advice

[WildPatience]

Hello, first time posting here so please bear with me :)

I'm from Ireland but have been in London for many years, and thinking of moving 'home' soon. DH and I have 2 DCs, aged 10 and 5. Main reasons are to be near family (especially aging parents), and hopefully a more relaxed quality of life.

Majority of family are in and around South Co Dublin/North Wicklow.

I'm finding it all very daunting, particularly the cost/availability of housing. But my big stress right now is schools, especially secondaries.

A few questions:

I know that in the past, names had to be put down for sought-after Dublin secondaries from birth. But that I thought that system had changed recently or was being phased out? Can anyone enlighten me?

For schools with a geographical catchment area (such as the Educate Together schools - not sure if there are others?) I've recently realised that the child had to be in a catchment primary school from 2 years before they are due to start, which is very unlikely for us. Does anyone know what happens if you move into the area after that date? I know they can go on a waiting list but are those lists prioritised by date or by proximity to the school? Is there usually much movement on waiting lists?

Does anyone have experience of moving a child in the later years of primary but who is still under 11 (the threshold of Irish language exemption). How did they cope with starting learning it so late?

Grateful for any advice, thanks.

In my experience, and my dc are already in secondary, so things may have changed in the last year, but all the schools we have been involved with have prioritised by date not location. I have dc in 2 schools in your chosen area. Put names down ASAP on every list you can think of (private schools will charge you for this) Dd is not officially in the catchment of her ET school but got in by date. Different schools have different criteria though so you need to check them all.

Many schools give priority to feeder schools, siblings, etc but in the end it comes down to when you put their name down. DD had siblings, was in a feeder for our chosen school but we didn't put her name down soon enough so she didn't get in. It so much depends on the school and the number of applicants in a given year. Any other year dd would have been ok, but there was a swell of applicants that year.

Are you sure 11 is the cut off for Irish? I thought it was younger. You can apply for an exemption if your child has learning difficulties like dyslexia, dyspraxia or ASD.

I know housing is hugely undersupplied in south Dublin at the moment and it makes making school choices so hard if you don't know where you are going to be living. ET primaries are almost impossible to get into but consider CofI primaries, there are quite a few dotted around and they tend to be smaller and in our experience they are great. The religious aspect is much more low key that in catholic schools.

If your 10 year old goes into 4th class in September I think you should be ok with getting into your choice of secondary that gives you 3 years until he moves. IME that should be fine.

Thanks very much pinkground202. DS would be going into 5th class in September (I think - would be Year 6 in UK) but I don't think we'll even have moved by then. No issues which would allow an exemption from Irish. Good advice to just get names down everywhere. Matching up schools and a house is going to be tricky!

I don't envy you, hopefully it will all work out.

DM me if you'd like local information about anything. Good luck!

Hi Wildpatience, we too are thinking of moving to Dublin this summer - I am interviewing for a job this month, which if we get we will have to move by September - eek ! My twins are aged 10 at the moment and I would rather wait for a year as when I went to visit a school in Dublin, they said the cut off was 11 for the exemption from the Irish language. I don't have primary places for them as this job has come up more quickly than I expected, but I do have places in secondary in 2021. So if I get the job, I will have to try and sort something out very quickly.

I'm very nervous about doing the right thing ! Would love to live beside the sea in Dublin, but worried about the traffic and getting around. Pinkground202, are you in south county Dublin? Is there any area you could recommend that isn't too busy? I'm in London at the moment and desperate to escape the noise, traffic and pollution but don't want to be too isolated from friends in Dublin 6 ! Any advice gratefully received. Twinshock xx

Hi Twinshock! I'm in south county Dublin by the sea, it's really not busy at all, certainly not by London standards. Dh cycles into work in the city centre, about 30-40 mins, I go on the dart, 25 mins into town. SIL is in D6, it's about 30 mins drive to them, no traffic really unless it's rush hour. I think the real traffic problems in Dublin are M50 related.

It is a really lovely place to live, we are very lucky, great quality of life. Lots of families, parks, cafes, good schools, etc.

The problem is finding somewhere to rent, assuming you'd want to rent for a while first. Not many houses, huge demand and consequently high rents. A lot of bigger companies have contacts with estate/relocation agents who might be able to help but for a 3/4 bed house expect to pay €2000+ a month.

The Irish exemption thing is a pain, 11 would be 4th/5th class, that's late to catch up, and it's a tricky language to pick up. Having said that it's not as if they need a certain standard to reach before secondary school and now there are a lot more non Irish children in schools who would be in a similar position. I'm sure there are Saturday morning classes which would help them to catch up.

If you need specific information about areas/schools let me know 😊

Get their names down everywhere you might likely consider. Both for primary and secondary. Some secondaries make offers of places as early as 4th class (and some in 6th). Many people (possibly most in Dublin) have names down for multiple schools so there will be movement on wait lists.

There are new ETs coming on stream so make sure you're on the ET mailing list to keep abreast of what is going in where.

Irish is what it is. On the upside because they're born outside Ireland they won't need it as an entry requirement to university. I think I'd look at getting the older child a bit of a crash course in the basics. But to be honest the standard of Irish in many primary schools is pretty dreadful and secondary school is where the real work is done (ime). There's a lot more focus (and points) now for spoken Irish and a few trips to the Gaeltacht during secondary can work wonders.

I'm in south Dublin so if there's anything specific you want to know feel free to message me.

I had 5th class as the cut off, though it never being an issue for me I'm afraid I don't actually know. An exemption is difficult to get my son has dyslexia and doesn't have one (unfortunately).

Secondary school wise it can depend on your children's sex. A lot of schools are single sex. You'll also find a lot of fee paying schools in S Dublin, some of the non-fee paying can end up incredibly difficult to get in. It's also not unusually to find children travel a reasonable amount to get to their school of choice.

Wrt Irish - I know a family who returned from the US to Ireland when their oldest was 7. He was only exempted from Irish after a two year battle involving documentation of OT and SLT involvement with the child from age 4/5 in the US, lots of sniffing by the Dept of Ed about American therapist qualifications, blah blah. Child most definitely had SNs. Younger siblings did Irish and did fine.

I agree you can pick up Irish and there are online resources available so don't despair. Going to the Gaeltacht in summer can improve spoken Irish really fast too. Cousins of mine were sent to Ring for a year when they returned from Belfast in the mid 60s but I don't think there's any need for anything so drastic.
There are also many grind schools.

You could cast around for a place to live quite far into Wicklow, and look into schools there.

My mum lives in so co Dublin. Her neighbours moved from Wicklow (several years ago now) but their children were settled in school in Enniskerry so they made that trek daily until secondary.

Don't forget CofI national schools when you're looking, and don't overlook decent secondaries like Newpark Comprehensive or obscure schools like St Killian's German School. You are going to have to do a lot of research*.

YY to 'children travel long distances to school' - other neighbours of my mum's take the Dart to Belvedere. Many of my Dniece's fellow students do an hour's commute or more.. This makes for a strange social climate in schools.

*But you are going to have to apply to a huge number of primary/national schools if you want to have a shot at enrollment for September 2019, and you will need to apply immediately for secondaries.

Take a long, hard look at maps from the pov of transport/routes and don't be put off by distances. The Luas and reconfigured bus routes have opened up new possibilities for accessing different parts of the city and suburbs and even further out.