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\nScoil Naisi\u00fanta Dar Earca is not recognised as an island school because Valentia Island is connected to the mainland by a bridge<\/p>\n
A primary school on Valentia Island in south Kerry is appealing to the Department of Education to grant the school island status.<\/p>\n
Scoil Naisi\u00fanta Dar Earca was established in 1978, a merger of three schools previously situated on the island.<\/p>\n
They are now seeking island status to protect the school in the face of enrolment challenges and to preserve the island’s special heritage.<\/p>\n
A meeting was held in the Kenmare Municipal District this week to hear a presentation given by Paul O’Connor, Principal of Scoil N\u00e1isi\u00fanta Dar Earca.<\/p>\n
Although Valentia is an island with a long-established community, the school is not currently recognised as an island school under Department of Education policy because the island is connected to the mainland by a bridge.<\/p>\n
Mr O’Connor highlighted the impact that the loss of teaching staff would have on the school and outlined concerns regarding the department’s staffing retention thresholds.<\/p>\n
The school has successfully reached the current Department of Education threshold of 45 pupils required to retain a third mainstream classroom teacher for the coming school year.<\/p>\n
\nScoil Naisi\u00fanta Dar Earca is not recognised as an island school because Valentia Island is connected to the mainland by a bridge<\/p>\n
However, Mr O’Connor explained that retaining this position in future years remains a significant challenge for many small rural schools.<\/p>\n
Under current staffing arrangements, a school requires 45 pupils to retain a third mainstream classroom teacher and 48 pupils to secure the appointment of a third teacher.<\/p>\n
Mr O’Connor pointed out that if Scoil N\u00e1isi\u00fanta Dar Earca were recognised as an island school, the retention threshold would be reduced to 40 pupils.<\/p>\n
He believes this would significantly improve the school’s ability to retain its third teacher while also preserving the quality of teaching and learning in a multi-grade setting.<\/p>\n
It is Mr O’Connor’s contention that Valentia Island possesses a unique island identity and faces many of the same challenges experienced by other island communities.<\/p>\n
He noted that Valentia is recognised as an island in a range of other administrative and policy contexts.<\/p>\n
According to Mr O’Connor, securing island school status would provide greater certainty around staffing levels and help ensure that pupils on Valentia continue to have access to the same quality of education as children elsewhere in the country.<\/p>\n
Having previously taught four class levels in a single classroom before the restoration of the third teaching post, Mr O’Connor said that maintaining three mainstream classroom teachers is essential to delivering the best possible educational experience for pupils.<\/p>\n
RT\u00c9 News contacted the Department of Education regarding the matter but had not yet received a response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A primary school on Valentia Island in south Kerry is appealing to the Department of Education to grant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-508713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}