Experiences of Sutton Park, Sandford Park, St Andrew’s, Wesley or Mount Temple?

[OrdinaryWednesday]

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone with recent experience of Sutton Park, Sandford Park, St Andrew’s College, Wesley or Mount Temple secondary schools in Dublin - especially around pastoral care, friendships and learning support rather than just academics and facilities.

I have boy/girl twins going into secondary school, and they have quite different needs.

We currently live on the northside of Dublin. Sutton Park and Mount Temple would be fairly straightforward to reach, St Andrew’s is accessible by DART, and Sandford Park would involve the DART and then the school transport. I think in all honestly Wesley is probably out due to transport. We may move southside in the next few years, but we honestly do not know yet, so I am trying not to make the decision based only on where we live now.

We are Church of Ireland and are looking for a mixed school.

My son is academic, sociable, sporty and a good all-rounder. He tends to look confident from the outside, but he is actually quite sensitive, can take criticism to heart and needs to feel that he belongs before his confidence really comes through. He would benefit from a broad range of subjects, activities and friendship groups, but also from teachers who notice him and encourage him rather than allowing him to drift.

My daughter has profound dyslexia and is very shy and anxious in new situations. She is capable, but she needs a genuinely warm environment where teachers know her, notice if she is struggling and provide strong but discreet learning support. She is not someone who will easily push herself into a friendship group, so the social side matters a lot too.

They are coming from a very small primary school on the northside, with just one class per year. It has been incredibly warm and friendly, and the children have been very well known there. In many ways, I am trying to find a secondary school that can follow on from that sense of warmth and belonging, while also giving them a wider social and academic world.

They would both prefer to stay together in the same coeducational school.
My impressions so far are:

Sutton Park felt warm, organised and manageable, and probably offers the easiest transition. There may also be some children they know through northside activities. My concern is that choosing it may tie us quite firmly to the northside when we are not yet sure that is where we want to build the next stage of family life. I also wonder whether it might be a little small and whether there is enough breadth as they get older.

Sandford Park really appealed to me. I loved the building, atmosphere, leadership, music and debating side of the school. It felt thoughtful, calm and well run. My concerns are that we know nobody going there, the journey is more complicated, and I am not sure how easy it is for friendships to continue outside school if pupils come from a wide area.

St Andrew’s makes a lot of practical sense. It works by DART from where we are now, would suit us if we later moved southside, and we have a few indirect connections through teachers and families. It also seems to offer a huge range of subjects, sport and activities. However, it felt large and slightly chaotic when we visited, and I worry about cliques and whether a shy child arriving without friends would be properly noticed.

Mount Temple is the easiest geographically, and I know many local families are happy with it. My concern is that it may be a little too relaxed or hands-off for my two. I worry that my daughter could get lost in a larger setting, while my son could float along quite happily without being pushed or encouraged to reach his potential. I am open to hearing different experiences, though.

We also visited Wesley College, and it seemed to have almost everything we are looking for from sport to academics and subject choice and strucutre, but I think it would be too difficult for us to manage transport-wise.

I’d really appreciate hearing what these schools are actually like day to day rather than just what appears in the prospectus.
In particular:

• What type of child tends to thrive in each school?
• How strong is the dyslexia and learning-support provision in practice?
• Would a quiet child arriving without an established group be actively helped to settle?
• Would a capable but sensitive child be noticed and encouraged, or could they easily coast?
• Are form or tutor groups stable?
• Is the social culture generally inclusive, or are there strong cliques?
• Where do pupils tend to live, and is it easy for friendships to continue outside school?
• How manageable are the DART, bus or school-transport journeys in reality?
• Do music, sport, debating and other activities help children mix, or do they mainly reinforce existing groups?
• Are there any subject-choice limitations or other things you only discovered after joining?
• Knowing what you know now, would you make the same choice again?

I know every child and every year group is different, and I am not looking for anyone to criticise individual teachers or pupils. I am just trying to get a genuine feel for the atmosphere, the social side, the learning support and the sort of child who tends to settle well.

Thanks in advance. I know no school is perfect, but hearing people’s real experiences would really help us work out where both children might feel happy, supported and able to find their tribe.

@Banjas Yes, I completely agree. I think that’s probably the hardest part of this, there isn’t really a universally “best” school, just different environments that suit different children. It’s useful to hear another positive report about St Andrew’s too, thank you.

@turkeyboots You’re amazing to have managed so many moves. I totally agree that moving into an established class at a non-standard point can be much harder than everyone starting secondary together, and I’m definitely taking some reassurance from that. In our case it was actually a specialist school for children with dyslexia, with quite a few children joining new, so I have a feeling it was probably a combination of the timing and the particular environment just not being right for her. But we live and learn! I’m very conscious that starting first year alongside everyone else will be a very different situation.

@Livingmagicallyagain Thank you. I’ve actually heard really lovely things about The High School and it was originally very much on my list. I tried the journey myself, though, and from where we currently live I just don’t think I’d want to ask the kids to do it every day. Interestingly, I know someone who made essentially that journey herself for school from where we live and loved The High School, but said she wouldn’t choose the commute for her own children.

I think that’s probably also where I’ve landed with Wesley and King’s Hospital - all schools I can see a lot to like about, but the journey adds too much to an already long secondary-school day for us. My son would probably cope with it more easily, but I think it would make life unnecessarily harder for my daughter.

That’s partly why I’m curious about Rathdown now. It is further south geographically, but because it’s on the DART line it could potentially be a much simpler journey, get on the train and stay on it, which feels quite different from a journey involving going through town and changing transport.

There’s a lot to be said for a school that location wise and access wise fits the bill so it’s easy for after school activities and meeting up with school friends.

You probably already know, but most good schools would have a Special Educational Needs policy on their website which provides lots of useful info on how they approach children with extra needs and the resources they have available. For example this one from Our Lady's Terenure: https://olschool.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Special-Educational-Needs-Policy-April-2024-1.pdf

Also, I found schoolratings.ie to be a useful resource for getting a general idea of schools in the area.

@YourAgileDeer Thank you, that’s really helpful. I actually hadn’t thought to look at the individual schools’ SEN policies in any detail, so that’s a very useful suggestion. I’ve been trying to get a feel for how support works in practice, but comparing what the schools formally say they provide would be a really good starting point too.I hadn’t come across schoolratings.ie either, so I’ll have a look at that as well. Thank you!🙏

I'd push for a lot more concrete and detailed info on provision and support for dyslexia in Rathdown than there is in their prospectus before handing over any money. The Learning Support blurb is quite vague and generic.

Also, I found schoolratings.ie to be a useful resource for getting a general idea of schools in the area.

I wouldn't put much weight on this. It generally goes from the 3rd level admissions when rating schools and inspection reports that can date back 10 years and focus on quite specific areas. The ones featured for my kids school were an inspection of their TY curriculum and their covid policies....

I also think just because a school has a 90%+ rate of kids advancing to 3rd level does not necessarily reflect on how good and inclusive a school is, it suggests it is very academic and students are encouraged (expected) to follow the one path, plus they tend to be schools in well off areas where high numbers of students get grinds in certain subjects, it also does not take account of schools that run the LCA so they will always have lower percentages for 3rd level admissions because you can't advance straight into 3rd level from an LCA.

I think the journey to Rathdown would be very arduous for your dc. It's 25 mins on the dart from Pearse to Glenageary, so adding on 15/20 mins from your station on the Northside, and then a 15 minute walk uphill (it's a very steep road). October to March that would be in the dark every morning.
Repeat in the evening, but if they stay for extra curriculars, they're facing an hour long commute then homework etc.
It would have to be an exceptional school to justify that imo.

Try not to be swayed by well appointed buildings/sports facilities/ fancy extra curriculars/ school trips, etc you will get a lot of that in South Dublin private schools! As I've said before a lot of these schools are all talk, especially about SEN, the reality can be very different.

What really matters is the ethos and the quality of teaching, especially for your daughter.

Between myself and my kids we have experience of three of those schools. I've friends with kids in the other two.

My suggestion would be to take your children to the schools to their open days. Personally I think both Wesley and Andrews are too far from the northside. There are definitely kids in Sandford commuting distances - but that doesn't necessarily make it easy or without impact. Mount Temple and Sutton Park are very different schools. That's not bad just they're different.

In any school there is the roulette of a class group and you have to keep that in mind. But your child being positively disposed towards a school makes a huge difference. That's where I'd start.