{"id":537839,"date":"2026-07-07T17:51:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T17:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537839\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T17:51:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T17:51:24","slug":"kildare-school-claims-it-is-being-punished-by-department-after-enrolling-extra-class-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537839\/","title":{"rendered":"Kildare school claims it is being \u2018punished\u2019 by department after enrolling extra class \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Co Kildare<\/a> primary school<\/a> has said the Department of Education<\/a>\u2019s refusal to allocate an additional teacher \u201cpunishes us for helping\u201d after it was tasked with enrolling an additional junior infant class.<\/p>\n

St Corban\u2019s National School in Naas<\/a> said it had enrolled an additional junior infant class due to a \u201ccrisis\u201d in which 25 children in the area were without places for the coming school year.<\/p>\n

Although the department had \u201cformally requested\u201d it enrol the additional class, the school told parents late last month it was \u201crefusing to allocate a teacher\u201d for it. The school had two junior infants classes in previous years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that this is very unfair and disadvantages the children currently enrolled,\u201d it said, adding: \u201cIt punishes us for helping the department. They created this extra class and these exceptional circumstances and now they will not supply the extra teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school told parents it had two options due to the refusal, including cancelling the class \u2013 leaving 25 children without a place \u2013 or redeploying one of its two first-class teachers.<\/p>\n

However, this would see both first classes amalgamated into one \u201chuge class of 34 children\u201d, the school wrote, adding that it would put the pupils at a disadvantage and the class would be \u201cway above\u201d the department\u2019s average pupil-to-teacher ratio of 23:1.<\/p>\n

Jayne Malone, whose five-year-old son Jamie is due to begin junior infants at St Corban\u2019s, said parents were \u201cextremely concerned\u201d, with some worrying over whether they would \u201chave spots in September or not\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her other son, Danny (6) would be in the affected first class should both be amalgamated, with Malone saying there would be \u201cno decent level of education in that class\u201d due to its size.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe school\u2019s done everything they can, exhausted all options, and now it\u2019s on us,\u201d she said, adding that parents have been contacting the department, Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton<\/a> and local representatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s absolutely insane that we are one of the richest countries in Europe and we can\u2019t afford a teacher\u2019s salary. They can afford a \u20ac336,000 bike shed but they won\u2019t give a school in Naas a teacher,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Hazel Lavery, another parent whose son will be in the affected first class should it be amalgamated, said the school had been left in an \u201cimpossible situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got two options that just aren\u2019t options in my mind. You can\u2019t leave 25 children without a school place, and you can\u2019t put 34 six- and seven-year-old boys into a class,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the department said no commitment had been given to provide an additional teacher for the new class, saying St Corban\u2019s did \u201cnot meet the criteria\u201d for one.<\/p>\n

Additional teachers are allocated when pupil numbers increase above a certain threshold. Below these thresholds, schools organise their classes to operate within the existing allocation, it said.<\/p>\n

St Corban\u2019s were approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Co Kildare primary school has said the Department of Education\u2019s refusal to allocate an additional teacher \u201cpunishes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,6466,631,61,60,3770,30110,28230],"class_list":["post-537839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-department-of-education","tag-for-you","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kildare","tag-naas","tag-primary-level"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537839","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=537839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}