Primary School:

Infants to 6th Class

Kids start Junior Infants class when they are 4 or 5 years old. Junior Infants also goes by the endearing name of "Babies." There is much more desk work and much less diversion than in comparable American grades (Nursery school and Kindergarten). Junior Infants is followed by Senior Infants, and then first through 6th class. The education received is very sound, very solid, and very traditional. There isn't much emphasis on hands-on learning. Whole language reading and science is only a very small part of the primary school curriculum.

Computers

Computers? Ha! Gradually, government grants and parent fund raisers are increasing the number. Every school in the country now has a broadband internet connection. The ratio of working computers to students is falling all the time, but it's only in high school that your youngsters are likely to receive significant instruction and time on a computer. Most schools have introduced electronic whiteboards and many teachers swear by them. Others just swear at them.

Quality of Education

Despite this, or more likely because of this, students come out of 6th class much more grounded in basic skills than those I dealt with in America. All students can write a credible essay, read, and perform basic math operations. This is more than I can state about some of the students graduating from American primary schools where I was a teacher.

There is a qualifier. I had a several hour talk with a despairing primary teacher. He teaches 7 year olds in one of the most deprived neighbourhoods of North Dublin. So far as he knows, in his twenty years of teaching not one child from his school ever graduated college. In the past few years it has become standard to push kids through onto the next level class whether they have mastered the necessary skills or no. In other words, the same rot that afflicts just about every American primary school is now affecting the poorest neighbourhoods in Dublin.

Its not that desperate poverty is now driving this process. Quite the opposite, in fact. For the first time ever, the mothers and dads in these troubled housing estates are all working. And, never having valued education themselves, the parents fail to instill any appreciation of the benefits in their kids. It's a modern complexity common in many prosperous nations. The latch-key child has become much more common in Ireland since the 1990's and when the adults are home they're not hooshing the kids along.

I have friends and family who are teachers or former students in many parts of Ireland. Outside of these city, welfare driven housing estates I have not heard of similar problems.

Rural Schools

Rural schools are often quite small. My own daughters attended a country school that currently has 60 pupils and three teachers, including a Teacher-Principal. After a decade of pressing, the school also now shares the services of a remedial teacher with three other rural schools. These small schools really tie the community together, and there is a continual battle between a Department of Education seeking economies of scale and school consolidation, and local parents seeking true local education for their kids.

School Boards

Most of the Primary Schools in Ireland are national schools, funded primarily by the National Government, but with a local Board of Management of elected parents, the principal, and usually the Parish Priest. Inspectors from the Department of Education appear regularly to check on curriculum covered and to test student progress.

All Primary Schools in Ireland

Education Ireland keeps lists of all the schools in the nation on its educationireland.ie site. The schools are listed in no order that I can tell by County.

Boarding, special schools (Jewish, Muslim, French, German, etc.) all are listed. Education Ireland provides contact information for many of these private and boarding schools. Click on the "Irish Education" button and choose Primary Education from the drop down menu.

And, be sure to check out the Educate Together website for information about multicultural, parent run primary schools.