Posts Tagged ‘ Gorey Community SChool ’

Free Education?

The collection of Leaving Cert results by students at Gorey Community School this morning marks the end of up to a dozen years of education.

For some it will be a happy end to some of the best days of their lives, for others it will be a welcome end to a time in their lives they would rather forget. Either way it will be an end to 12 years of so-called free education.

However for those parents with children heading back to primary or secondary school in Gorey in a couple of weeks time, this part of the year represents one of the most financially stressful times of the year.

From uniforms to books, administration fees to the school bags the cost associated with the dreaded return to school are huge. It seems as if this time of the year has become another Christmas or Easter for retailers, with signs in all the big supermarkets highlighting their great Back to School value are prominent from early July.

Books for a secondary school student can cost up to €400 and it seems as if the publishers are dictating the timeline for changing books, bringing out revised editions every couple of years so people have to shell out again. The revised editions are essentially the same as the older ones but with pages changed and a couple of extra paragraphs here and there.

The issue of school uniforms is another issue which annoys parents as it seem that someone is making a fortune out of the branded jumpers and tracksuits children have to buy these days.

The problem with uniforms is that a generic grey or navy jumper in a supermarket can cost as little as €10 whereas parents have to shell out up to €40 and more for the same jumper with a school crest emblazoned on it.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that children of school-going age can be very cruel when it comes to trivial matters such as having the wrong type of jumper or school bag. Children will pick on the one kid who has the jumper which is slightly different from the one everyone else is wearing. Some children can deal with this, but the more self-conscious children will retreat further into themselves.

While it may seem trivial to grown-ups, these little things can mean a lot in the school environment when children will use anything they can to get an advantage and mock someone else.

While one of the purposes of school uniforms is to eliminate such discrimination as in principle everyone is wearing the same clothes, if those clothes are just too expensive, it will lead to differences in what students wear.

Parents of secondary school children will be shelling out up to €1,000 per pupil when everything is taken into account. Hardly the free-education the government is so proud of. Imagine if, like most families you have more than one child of school-going age and you quickly realise how September can become the most financially stressful time of the year. At least at Christmas it’s all about one day and its then over.

While September represents the pinnacle of money being spent, throughout the year there are additional costs such as school trips and exam papers which will add to the already large bill for your child’s education.

The solution is pretty simple it seems. School authorities should look at reducing the amount of book changes taking place for subjects, they should look at allowing generic school uniforms to be purchased, onto which school crests can be sewn and they should generally be more aware of the amount of money parent’s are spending on education.

However as the students collect their Leaving Cert results this morning, parents will  now be facing the possibility of their children heading to college – which, no matter what the government tell you, is certainly not free.

2010
08/18
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
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Need for joined-up thinking in education

The Leaving Cert begins this morning for 256 students in Gorey Community School but will their results really matter in the long run.

In recent weeks, months and years there have been rumblings about the way students are tested in this country with rote learning being derided as a thing of the past and calls for some sort of continuous assessment needing to take place.

Figures compiled by officials in the State Examinations Commission for the Department of Education have indicated there has been serious grade inflation in Leaving Cert results with the number of students achieving the higher grades (A1, A2 and B1) almost doubling since 1992.

Is it that the country has become that much smarter? Are we now a nation of super-geniuses who will conquer the world? Apparently not. According to industry experts and analysts the Irish student population is completely unequipped to handle the real world and as a result companies – in particular high tech companies – are looking outside of Ireland to fill vacancies.

Ireland prided itself on a highly educated workforce and the Government trotted out all these figures during the last decade about literacy rates and the increasing number of people finishing their Leaving Certificate.

Then there was the explosion of people attending the hallowed turf of third level education. Once free fees were introduced in the 1990s, the percentage of people continuing to third level increased exponentially. Everything was rosy according to those in charge. We had one of the highest number of university graduates in Europe and would attract some of the world’s leading companies to Ireland as a result.

And they came – though not to Gorey it should be said – from Google and Dell to eBay and Facebook, all these worldwide technology companies established bases here due to the perceived standard of education and the fact that Ireland was the “gateway to Europe.”

The island of Saints and Scholars was once again the leading destination for those looking for the best and brightest.

However in recent times the Googles and others have begun to bemoan the lack of qualified young people in this country. They cannot fill positions in certain areas because the universities and colleges in Ireland are not producing them.

So what happened? How have we fallen so quickly from our once lofty position as the brain box of Europe?

The answer lies in our education system which hasn’t really changed in decades. From the moment you enter the second level system you are focused on seven or eight days that will change your life.

I was told that I will never sit a harder or more important exam than the Leaving Cert. Everything we did was geared towards passing this exam. However if you asked me to relay some knowledge learned for that exam back to you a month or two after it, I would have struggled.

The lack of continuous assessment in the Leaving Cert curriculum means that all your eggs are in one basket.

The Leaving Cert Applied and even the Transition Year Programme have in more recent times attempted to give students a more practical approach to life after the Leaving, but it is far too little.

When these students enter third level they have to be reprogrammed to think and learn for themselves. There is very little in the way of joined-up thinking in the education system in this country and as a result we are producing young people who have over 15 years of education but very little idea of what it takes to get on in the real world.

What big companies want are young graduates with real world experience and who can contribute to their company from the off.

To get to this stage there needs to be a serious overhaul of the education system in Ireland if the 320 first year students coming into Gorey Community School in September are to have a chance.

2010
06/08
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
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Board of Management were right not to give in

The Board of Management of Gorey Community School is seen in many quarters as the bad guy in the current impasse relating to enrolment in the school – however they seem to be looking out for the welfare of their students which is to be commended.

Anyone who has been in the school when the school bell goes for lunch break will know that 1600 students rushing about is a sight to behold – and to be scared of. To manage and control this number of hormonally imbalanced teenagers is a logistical nightmare I would imagine. To educate this number of students is almost an impossibility.

Yet Gorey Community School continues to surpass expectations and deliver top academic results despite the amount of students it caters for. The staff at the school have to be commended for this achievement as well as the principal Michael Finn, who throughout this debacle has firmly kept his eye on his student’s welfare and nothing else.

The Board of Management decision last Monday week to adhere to their enrolment policy and not permit any more than the sanctioned 270 pupils enter first year has angered and bewildered a lot of parents in north Wexford, but in reality their decision was an easy one.

No official communication had been made between the school or Board members and the Department. Yes John Browne and Seán Connick had received long letters from minister Coughlan thanking them for their interest in this matter and telling them devolved funding would be made available. They were quick to issue a press release basically stating: “Look at us. We’re brilliant. Look what we’ve done for Gorey.”

However a letter to a Wexford TD cannot be brought to the bank by the Board of Gorey Community School. Why did the Minister not contact Michael Finn or the chairperson of the Board, Sr. Kathleen? The only contact the school got was a call from a woman in the building section of the Department who gave some very vague details to the Principal.

This latest mess the Department has made is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to dealing with the educational needs of Gorey. That a town the size of Gorey has only one secondary school is ridiculous. Yes the town has experienced a population boom in the past decade, but it’s not as if this was not highlighted to the officials in the Department a long time ago.

A new school has been officially promised for Gorey since 2005. Yet today not a sod has been turned on the proposed site and last week it was revealed that the outline planning permission granted for the school will have to be reapplied for, pushing back any completion date.

The Department ‘promises’ to have a school delivered for Gorey by 2012 – it does not however state when in 2012 this will happen. Going on past performance is it any wonder that the Board of Management didn’t want to accept funding from the Department do to a lack of trust.

If we imagine for a minute the Board decided to take on the extra students and build the new classrooms. What then? More pupils crammed into an already overcrowded space? Would the Department feel as if the problem had been solved and put the completion of the new school on the long finger?

However much parents of the 39 children on the waiting list want them to go to Gorey Community School, surely they want them to go to a Gorey Community School which is not overcrowded and has a Board of Management which is looking out for the welfare of their children.

2010
05/18
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
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Education is a lottery these days

Picture the scene. The music room in Gorey Community School last Thursday evening at 3.30pm.

The room is packed to capacity with anxious parents and children. At the front of the room a garda sits next to the principal, Michael Finn. A group of envelopes sit on the table with the names of the students in them.

One by one the envelopes are emptied into the box and lots are drawn for the few remaining places at the school in first year next September. It is a scene you would never expect to see in Ireland following a decade of unprecedented prosperity in the country – yet 45 children in the catchment area of the school have been left with very little option with any other school in the area (Kilmuckridge and Carnew) also closing their doors in the children’s faces having already filled their quota for the coming year.

One student last week turned to her mother having failed to secure a place in the lottery and asked was it her own fault she hadn’t got a place in the school. Parents and children shed tears in the school on Thursday. Boys and girls realising they would not be attending secondary school with the friends they had grown up with. Parents left helpless and facing the choice of sending their children outside the county to be educated or as one parent is thinking about, holding their child back to repeat sixth class in a Gorey primary school in order to be guaranteed their place in the school the following year.

The fact a town the size of Gorey has only one school – even if it is the biggest school in country – is unbelievable. In the past decade the population of the town has doubled with the populations of towns in the catchment area such as Courtown and Riverchapel experiencing similar increases.

Last week Michael Finn said that the Department of Education had been made aware of the situation last May but nothing has been done to pre-empt the crisis and the parents and students of the town are now left with little or no option.

270 first year students is a huge amount of pupils to take on in any one school and it is a credit to the dedicated staff and administrators in Gorey Community School that they operate their school so efficiently and with such results despite the immense pressure they are under.

The option mooted this week of putting temporary accommodation on the site of the proposed new school in Creagh is symptomatic of the ad hoc solutions this government is constantly using to plaster over the cracks throughout Ireland.

Remember that only “outline” planning permission has been granted for the school that is due to open in 2012. The country is littered with stories of un-built schools and empty promises by the department of education.

To believe that the department of education will come through and deliver a spanking new school for Gorey within 18 months is stretching things a little too far when not even full planning permission has been granted for the project as of yet.

Whether or not that happens is academic for the 45 children and their parents who are this week facing the prospect of having nowhere to go in September. Mary Coughlan was last week given the Education portfolio in Brian Cowen’s reshuffle. Considering her disastrous term in charge of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the 45 pupils and their parents looking for a solution to their problem will not be holding out much hope that she will be able to find one.

2010
04/18
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
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