Munster’s first community national school to open in September

The first community national school in Munster is due to open its doors to pupils in north Cork in September.

Although planning has yet to be lodged for a permanent home, the new school is set to operate from a temporary home in Mallow at the start of the next term.

Co Cork Vocational Education Committee, which is now part of Cork Education and Training Board, was approved in 2012 to be patron of a new primary school in the town. As a community national school, it will be the first such primary school in Cork, but also in Munster.

Community national schools are managed on behalf of local ETBs (formerly vocational education committees) and offer co-educational multi-denominational education. The first two opened in Dublin in 2008 and others have opened since then elsewhere in Dublin, and in Naas, Co Kildare, and Navan, Co Meath.

The Mallow school was originally scheduled to open in 2013, but there were problems locating a suitable permanent site. The ETB is now ready to lodge an application to Cork County Council for an eight-classroom school with two special education classes and play areas at Castlepark, on the outskirts of the town.

CETB chief executive Ted Owens said that the Department of Education’s building unit expects the school can be completed within 36 weeks once planning is granted, and it is hoped that classes can commence by the middle or end of next year.

“A tender for the project will be issued in autumn this year, with construction starting in the new year,” said Mr Owens. “This is an exciting development and a first for the Munster region.”

Unlike most start-up schools, which only enrol infant classes each year and slowly grow, the Mallow community national school will start with a mix of classes.

It is facilitating the transfer of children from Mallow No 1 School, a Church of Ireland school in the town which currently has more than 50 pupils but is closing down next week.

However, besides these students transferring to the school, only junior infants will be enrolled from September.

The school is still accepting enrolments, with a principal due to appointed in the coming week.

Planning permission was granted by Cork County Council last week for the temporary eight-classroom block at the GAA complex in Carrigoon to accommodate the school until its permanent accommodation is ready.