Allocation of places for the Bray Educate Together Secondary School is a travesty for the parents in Wicklow
Cllr Gráinne Mc Loughlin is astonished by the announcement that the DES has allocated the catchment zone for the new Educate Together Secondary School to 23 feeder schools of which only two follow the educate together ethos. Of these two, one is actually closer to the proposed secondary school in Balinteer in 2016. The largest Educate Together School in Wicklow, Greystones Educate Together National School, is NOT one of the feeder schools
The Bray Educate Together Secondary School location has a catchment area essentially including denominational schools only, whilst excluding most of the ET primary schools in Wicklow. Only one of the 22 other feeder schools will be an ET primary school. Families attending the remaining 21 religious-ethos schools do not go on to multi-denominational schools.
“I cannot understand why the school was located in Bray in the first place as the expressed demand for an Educate Together Secondary School is an area centred between Wicklow Town and Greystones, not in Bray. The Bray location feeder schools only include Bray, Shankhill/Ballybrack and Kilternan, excluding most of the 1066 families and 1899 children who campaigned for an ET secondary school in Wicklow. The Wicklow families are based in Central Wicklow (265), Greystones (279) and Bray (332), and only 133 South Dublin families expressed interest.
I am calling on all my colleagues in government to get this decision reversed and to ensure that the parents of the children attending educate together schools have real choice for their children’s future education” Gráinne concluded.
