Mayo’s second Educate Together school to open in Castlebar

Mayo’s second Educate Together School to open in Castlebar


Áine Ryan

MAYO’s second Educate Together school is scheduled to open in county town, Castlebar, next September. When the first such school was opened by Taoiseach Enda Kenny in Newtownwhite, outside Ballina, last September, he remarked on the importance of Irish children being raised ‘in an ethos that gives them a sense of values, principles, ethics, environment, of issues about human rights and humanity’.
The new Castlebar school will be opened at the site of Burren National School, which has been closed for 20 years, and will now need some refurbishment works.   
Welcoming the announcement, Jarlath Munnelly, Regional Development Officer for Educate Together said: “This is a fantastic development for Educate Together.
This provides further choice for the parents living in Castlebar, and goes another step on the road to providing Educate Together schools right across the country.”
The Chief Executive of Educate Together, Paul Rowe, said: ‘‘We are delighted to have the opportunity to open a new school in Castlebar and to meet the demonstrated demand for educational diversity in the area.’’
Patronage divesting process
Announcing the latest allocations of schools last week, Minister for Education and Skills Jan O’Sullivan said: “This development will bring to nine the number of new schools opened under the patronage divesting process. I am particularly pleased that the Catholic Church has been able to offer an actual school building for immediate use by an alternative patron in the case of Castlebar.”
The allocations are based on parents’ preferences expressed through surveys held in 2012 in 43 areas following the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism.
The aim of the divestment process had been to transfer patronage from the Catholic Church – which controls more than 90 percent of primary schools – to other patrons to create more diversity.
Parents who wish to pre-enrol their children in Castlebar Educate Together National School have been invited to fill the pre-enrolment form at www.educatetogether.ie/castlebar.
Educate Together will also hold a public information meeting in Castlebar on Monday next.  February 23, in Lough Lannagh Village, at 7.30pm. Two more Educate Together schools will open in Tuam, County Galway and New Ross, County Wexford, next September.