Welcome to the Portobello Educate Together School Start-Up Group!
Latest News
Happy new year! We are awaiting the report of the National Forum on Patronage and Pluralism and will be in touch as soon as that is published, as we will need to meet to discuss our strategy on its recommendations. If you are on the mailing list you will be sent details shortly. To join the mailing list, email portobllomds@gmail.com Read our final submission for consideration to the National Forum on Patronage and Pluralism here. The Forum will be publishing its report in early 2012.
Next meeting:
The AGM will be held in January / early February 2012. Date and venue tbc. The committee for 2012 will be elected at this meeting so if you are interested in joining please get in touch.
Second Level Educate Together School
On a different but related campaign that is just starting up, many of you have probably heard that a campaign has started for a second level Educate Together school in Dublin 2, 4, 6, 8, 12. There was an initial public meeting on last Thursday 12th Janary at 8pm in Griffith Barracks multi-denominational school. Also there is a Facebook page up and running. The need for such a school in our area is very clear so many of us may be interested in getting involved in this campaign, although it may seem very far off for many of us with pre-school children. If you did not get a chance to attend but would like to be involved please email us.
Why Another School?
Portobello Educate Together was established by local parents in January 2010 due to massive demand for additional multi-denominational school places across Dublin 2, 6, 6W, 8 and 12.
Parents playing the school-waiting-list waiting game will be only too familiar with the huge demand for multi-denominational school places. In January 2010, in response to the demand in Dublin 2, 6, 6W, 8 & 12, a group of local parents established the Portobello Educate Together school start-up group. We are now affiliated to the Educate Together national patron body. Portobello ET now has over 500 members – and it’s growing! We have been featured in the national media (including RTE news and Morning Ireland) as well in local press and radio.
For a quick overview of our activities, read the Factsheet.
Out of 3,200 national schools across Ireland, over 90% are controlled and run by the Catholic Church. This means many parents are denied the chance to have their children educated in accordance with their beliefs. For parents in our catchment areas it is clear that, due to the demographic make-up of these areas, the demand for multi-denominational is steadily increasing.
Educate Together selected our group to be a pilot for the ‘transformation’ process, whereby we would work with an existing Catholic school to achieve transformation of patronage and become an Educate Together school. The Department of Education & Skills will support us in a transformation project when a potential school is identified. For more details, read the FAQs for information about the transformation process. Minutes from all our meetings are available in the Current Campaign and Campaign History sections.
We are currently pre-enrolling children for Junior Infants from 2012 through to 2016. We want to have this school up and running for September 2012, but we can’t do it alone! Have a look through the site and see just how much we’ve achieved since January 2010. Details of meetings and events are posted regularly. The demand for this new school exists. With help from other parents we can create another multi-denominational school for our children and our community.
You can now view/download a PDF version of “What is an Educate Together School” booklet in your language:
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Click here to pre-enrol or to sign up for our e-newsletter.
If you want to get involved, or for any other information, then get in touch:
Henri McKervey: hmckervey@gmail.com
Ivana Bacik: icbacik@tcd.ie
Stay informed on Twitter and Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/PortobelloMDS/145505282134515
http://twitter.com/PortobelloMDS
Site last updated: November 18th
