NEW PRINCIPAL APPOINTED

Full steam ahead, as our first Principal is appointed

Tomás Hickey (M.SEN) has recently been appointed as the Principal of Skerries Educate Together National School. Tomás is from Dublin and has over twenty years experience in the primary sector teaching all age groups. He is joining us from St. Francis Senior National School, Priorswood where he has played a leading role in developing ICT facilities. While studying for his Masters degree he conducted research into developing usage of technology across the curriculum within the classroom. He has considerable experience in teaching children with special educational needs and has been both tutor and treasurer of the Fingal Reading Workshop, which is a branch of the Dyslexia Association of Ireland.A keen musician, Tomás has been involved in training choirs and recorder bands. He sees music and art as very important in providing children with opportunities to both enjoy and express themselves. He also views parental involvement as being of great importance in children’s learning.

“I am very honoured and excited at being selected as the first Principal of Skerries Educate Together National School. It is great to see the brand new building being put in place. It’s in an inspiring location for a primary school, where it overlooks the sea. I look forward to being part of the community that will bring this building to life.”

Skerries Educate Together School gets the go ahead from the Minister

Following a long and often frustrating wait, we are finally able to announce that the Minister for Education and Science has approved the establishment of a new Educate Together primary school in Skerries to open in September this year. The school will be located in Kelly’s Bay.

A spokesperson for Educate Together said:

“Educate Together applauds the work of parents and activists for their hard work and determination to make the Educate Together model available in their community. The Minister's decision now allows us to immediately proceed with the process of recruiting a Principal Teacher and to start the detailed work required to ensure that the school opens as smoothly as possible. Recruitment advertisements will shortly be placed in the national press, on our website and on other educational recruitment websites.

We would also like to pay tribute to Skerries Community Association who were first to highlight the need for a new school and who campaigned tirelessly over several years on behalf of the local community.

Progress on the Building of the School

Fingal County Council has competed the purchase of the Site for the school and the planning application has now been granted. Initial ground works are well under way on the site, with the construction of the main school building progressing and a large part of the structure now in place.

This building is the most recent generic repeat design school funded designed and supervised by Department of Education and Science The new school building has been specially designed with the environment in mind and will be streamlined to maximise the amount of natural light coming into the building, so that very little artificial light will be needed during the year. The school is set to be insulated to a very high standard which means it will retain heat and therefore be easily maintained with lower costs.

Our new School will be a 2-storey building, comprising 8 classrooms, support teaching spaces and ancillary accommodation with a total floor area of c.1075m.sq. There will also be provision for cycle storage, bin stores, ball courts, project gardens, landscaping, 16 car parking spaces, drop-off / pick-up facilities and a new access road to the School.

Click to Enlarge Image

To view the the map of the proposed location of the Skerries Educate Together School pleas click on the link below.

Proposed School Location Map

Enrolement

We are already taking enrolments for all years from 2008 to 2013. We ran a hugely successful Pre-Enrolment day in Skerries Rugby Club back in November 2007 when almost one hundred names were put forward and these numbers have since continued to grow. If you were unable to attend this pre-enrolment session, but are interested in our new school we would advise you to pre-enrol sooner rather than later.

How To Enrol Your Child

We need a completed pre-enrolment form for each child who wishes to become a pupil in our school. If you were unable to attend our Pre-Enrolment Day back in November 2007 and would like to enrol, please click on the link below, or drop us a mail to skerrieseducatetogether@gmail.com if you have any questions. From Sept 2008, we will have a full time dedicated number to ring.

Remember places in our school are allocated on a "First Come First Served" basis, and we are already taking enrolments for the 2013 school year. If you are interested in our school we would advise you to pre-enrol sooner rather than later.

Please drop us a mail if you would like to talk over any issues, or we would be happy to arrange a time for you to visit us, talk to our new staff or see the school for yourself or another Educate Together in the North County Dublin area.

We hope that this will help you learn more about our ethos, and convey the spirit of Educate Together, where the motto is No Child an Outsider - Learn Together to Live Together.

Download pre-enrolment form (94K)

Fund Raising

The Skerries Educate Together Start-group will be running a number of fundraising events from mid 2008 onwards. These fund raising events are essential to pay for some of the administrative start-up costs for the school such as postage and stationary.

We will be announcing these events very shortly and your support of these will be greatly appreciated.