Come and talk to me about Ireland ...

[Yulephemia]

DH is thinking of a move to Dublin. Can anyone tell me about the Irish School system, compared to Scotland?

You seem a bit on your own here.

I am reluctant to say much as my knowledge of the Scots system limited, and my knowledge of the Irish now a few years old

BUT

I have the impression that Scots Highers and Irish Leaving Cert are much more like each other than they are like a- levels.

The other special feature of education in Dublin is that the norm amongst schools is to be a church school, Catholic or Protestant as the case may be.

However there are more officially secular schools than there used to be, and some of the denominational schools have a less denominational character than others.

Schools are quite diverse in character. Fee paying schools of the English independent type are rare, although many schools particularly secondary schools are in effect independents that are state subsidised so the fees really low, with concessions further than that, often, for the low waged. So the state independent divide does not really exist.

In general education is not a political issue, and culturally education is highly regarded.

And that, vague and general as it is, is about all I can say.

You could bravely ask on rollercoaster.ie, in education! What age of children? Nlondondad has it well summed up - the vast majority of schools have a church 'patron', with varying degrees of hands on management. (Some are Protestant, the majority are Catholic, a few are multi- denominational). The Scottish and Irish systems seem to work very well together - I'm in Cork, we had a Scottish neighbour with primary and secondary kids here for 3 years - she was a sub teacher and did an MSc!

I know an Irish teacher who much preferd teh scottish system. I've not quizzed her too much but she has said there is much more reliance on following old-style text books across subjects.

In Scotland? Primary schools in Ireland seem to be big into whiteboards, but they are only as good as the teachers who use them! Secondary syllabuses are very heavily exam based compared to England, far less project work. I don't know how that compares to Scotland? Also - Irish is compulsory for everyone, unless you move to Ireland when aged over ten. Some love it, some are less enthusiastic!

How old would your children be when they moved? What type of school are they at in Scotland?

We moved from UK to Ireland a few years ago and found it very different. Pluses and minuses but lots of significant differences.

DD is Primary School age, and I am a primary teacher, hence my particular interest in that sector.

I'm not sure about the requirement to learn Irish: I'm willing to do it, but I'm not sure what chance I would have of getting a job without knowing Irish first.

DD is at a non-denominational school.

You'll probably find non-denominational schools in Dublin, but they are very rare in the rest of the country. Dublin schools are growing at the moment, but the public sector has massive pay freezes/cuts and school equiment will be well behind what you are used to. Lots of temporary classrooms and much bigger class sizes too. I started school in a class of 36 and things haven't changed much.

Dublin has all the social problems you'd expect with a large UK city, so teaching there would be challanging as there will be no funding for SN or EFL support.

Irish is supposed to be the class room languauge so you can't teach without it, at any level. And you'd need A-level equivlant at least, not easy to pick up since it isn't really a live language. But having said that the best schools around are supposed to be the Irish medium schools. Smaller classes, less religon.

We thought about moving back, but the education system has always put me off!

Hmm not a fan of the system in Ireland. Too broad and too much emphasis on Irish language and religion. My experience is old but I have 2 family members in the teaching profession in Ireland (one a head teacher) so I hear bits and pieces. There are plus bits e.g. you can keep a kid home until they are 6 (i think) but you can start them as early as 3. You can have a huge variation in ages in an Irish class. Not much money is spent on equipment. You used to have to pay for books not sure if this is the case now. You need to look at things like healthcare too.

Primary is a lot more laid back for the first few years than England... they are taught to read from Junior Infants but there are few 'milestones' and they aren't constantly graded and rated on their ability like english children seem to be. Later on in primary they do have a fairly broad workload though and every subject is taught by the one class teacher so sometimes you find one subject being emphasised more than an other due to teachers strength.

Religion is still very obvious in most classrooms, mine do prayers a few times a day and other very mild religious stuff but it's fairly background until 1st class when communion reperation takes up a huge amount of time in a RC school.

If you're born abroad you don't have to have Irish to get into university but most schools won't let you drop it easily as they get paid per pupil studying irish (at least that's the system in secondary... in primary it would be impossible to avoid irish as it's dribbled into the conversation all day long... I started learning it at 8.5 though and kept my head above water until i was able to drop it after the Junior Cert.

I'd prefer my children to have an Irish education than almost any other though

My DD is nearly 2 and I live in Dublin, but am originally English. I also work in education (but at university level). It's hard to access specific details about particular schools, but the Department of Education website does have inspection reports - these have become a little more frank in recent years.

95% of Irish schools are religious run - how this translates on the ground varies a lot. If you want to find out about the (very popular) multi-denominational education movement, you can read about it here Education is technically free but in reality relies on a high degree of parental subsidy for books and equipment. School hours are short - infant classes usually finish around lunchtime, about 2-2.30 for older children. Holidays are longer than in the UK. This is a pain if you work 9-5 or are not a teacher!

I can't comment on the quality of teaching, but I think from people I know with children at primary school that it's very variable indeed, and tends to be rather less child-centred than in the UK. It is also not tied so rigidly to key stages etc - which may or may not be a good thing depending on your point of view (I think it's a good thing if you have good, creative, intelligent teachers; bad, if your teachers are rubbish).

I think secondary education in Ireland is mostly pretty poor, judging by a lot of my students - heavily dependent on textbooks and rote-learning, seriously deficient in maths, science and languages. Again, these are generalisations and there are some very good schools.

Turkeyboots - I agree it's very hard to get to the standard in Irish for teaching - someone I know who had been teaching in England came back - (she had leaving cert irish hons level about 10 years ago) - it took quite a bit of coaching/studying to get up to the level required for the exam - though she was allowed to teach while she studied for it.
However picking up the basics of irish wouldn't be too hard - if you were willing to throw yourself into it - there are free courses on the internet in the very basics, you can do summer schools in the Gaeltacht and there is an Irish TV station (TG4) with english subtitles www.tg4.ie/ - by the look of that web page today even Santy speaks 'as gaeilge'

I have an English friend who has managed to get a bit of sub work without Irish, as a primary teacher. Beyond that you would need a very high level - teacher training college requires Honours Level Leaving Cert., which would have things like answering poetry questions through Irish (ie hard! One of my three offspring is that proficient). As far as standards are concerned, we spent a term in England a few years ago - it coincided with SATS in ds's class, and he got level four in them, which was the 'proper' level - OK as he hadn't done the curriculum. His class (not in a really pushy school where SATS was concerned) seemed to have spent a lot of time on them, less on history, geography, music - and no Irish . We also had a term in the states. Between the three, there are many differences, but I found them all good systems. (Can you not come to Cork, much better!)

stleger - you would say that...(about Cork). You've much more direct experience of different systems than me (as a parent, I mean). DD too little for school :)

I'm not even from Cork! But have 15 years of having its superiority drummed into me. I'm from Belfast, but hated the system there.

brainwashed, she is...:o

Dublin's alright, but it's not Cork like! I can't imagine not having a 'school', this is my 15th year of kids in school.

well, I've been around education my whole life, so I don't actually believe that the year starts in January...

We lived in galway until a year ago so ds had his first school term at an irish school. Other parents were shocked that I sent him at 4 yrs...its v unusual there. On the plus side he thrived in the small class size but was behind when we moved as they aren't taught to read etc in reception. The minus is you have to pay for books etc. That is what pissed me off about ireland paying for everything you wouldn't in uk especially healthcare. But that's another thread.don't get me started,there are good reasons that we no longer live there

As well as the year confusion, My DS school has started sending letters home using the words "half term" to mean the weeks preceding or following "half term" - the latter meaning the week between the two half terms.

it takes brains

I'm from Cork but living outside Belfast. I have 2 nephews living in Cork of similiar ages to my DT's . My Dts are expected to know far more than their cousins are and there is far more emphasis on testing here.

Not a big fan of the Southern irish system having been through it myself. Too broad, too much emphasis on rote learning and way way too much religion. My nephew did virtually nothing in his communion year

stleger... I had 18 years in Cork... still miss it tbh.

(Basically everwhere is fine, except Dublin, do we agree? ). Secondary school transfer year in NI sounds like hell on earth. My kids went to the school next door to their primary, no registering at birth, no 'sibling policy', no religious affiliation needed. (Unlike Dublin...) They were at CoIreland primary, asI'm supposed to be CoI (I'll be there on Christmas Eve), which avoided a lot of communion year hassle. (Larger than average Protestant population in Cork county means a bit more choice in primary schools).

official info on irish curriculum here:
www.curriculumonline.ie/en/?locID=2&docID=-1
fwiw having had experience of both, the primary Irish system is far less stressful than in the UK for children as there is very little of the testing at primary level. Private schools are much cheaper as the government subsidises teachers' salaries (so typical fees would be c.£3 - £4000 per year (i.e. not per term).
Much less music in Irish schools than English schools.
Generally more relaxed ethos and not the same degree of social problems in the worst schools iyswim
As so many schools were started by the church, many are actually very relaxed about religion, in the majority your child can opt out of religious instruction but will usually have to sit at the back of the classroom getting on with other work during religious instruction
Most of the non-denominational schools are very middle class and difficult to get into if you don't put your name down at birth, meaning most of the so-called multi denominational schools are actually white middle class and catholic.

godspeed my DD is down for multi-denominational; when I suggested to a friend whose kids are in that system that it was middle class she took my head off! which suggests that it touched a nerve. That's certainly what I would assume. I'd rather send her to a more socially and ethnically mixed school, but feel that I can't send the child of lesbian mothers to a school that embraces a religion that considers us to be disordered and our family not to be legitimate. Whatever you think of all that, DD shouldn't have to deal with all that stuff if she doesn't have to. So I (reluctantly) rest my case...although as a lower middle class person who went to an ordinary school with a range of children from different backgrounds, ethnic and otherwise

hi driving..
not sure what you mean by resting your case sorry. I suppose what has surprised me here in terms of catholic/multi-d schools is that in terms of ethnicity the catholic schools are often far more multi-d than the multi-d schools - for example, there are more kids making their first communion from a local multi-d than a local catholic school!
I don't think I could send my dcs to a catholic school due to the ethos of the church on a wide range of issues, but one is now in a multi-d and it is very mono-cultural with the kids all white and middle class. Then again when we were living in the UK many white middle class families in our area were desperately and completely hypocritically (the ones we knew) attending mass and confession to get their kids into catholic school...despite their fervent exhibitionism in the UK some of those families have moved to ireland and are sending their kids to multi-d schools!