Plan needed to cater for demand for 'oversubscribed' Educate Together schools

Despite the non-denominational school patron opening more than 50 new schools in the past 10 years, large pockets of the country do not have access to schools outside a religious ethos

Emer Nowlan says many Educate Together schools are heavily oversubscribed. Picture: Moya Nolan

This year marks the first time in 14 years that Educate Together has not been sanctioned to open a new school.

This is mainly due to changing demographics. Already starting to level off, pupil numbers at primary level are expected to drop in the coming years.

Meanwhile, despite the non-denominational school patron opening more than 50 new schools in the past 10 years, large pockets of the country still do not have access to schools outside of a religious ethos.

Until now, most progress towards the target of 400 multi-denominational schools by 2030 has relied on new schools opening as divestment, or reconfiguration as the process is now called, continues at a slow pace. It is time for a new approach, according to Educate Together chief executive Emer Nowlan.

We’ve been able to make progress towards meeting demand in the last 10 years, through opening new schools primarily, and if that’s no longer going to be possible because of demographics, then they do need to think hard about an alternative method.

Originally a post-primary teacher who oversaw the design and opening of the first Educate Together second-level schools, Ms Nowlan was appointed to the helm of the educational charity in 2020. Educate Together currently has 117 schools in its network.

Its schools are non-denominational, non-fee paying, co-educational, and open to students from all backgrounds. They have no school uniforms, and teachers and students are on a first-name basis.

Instead of religious instruction as there would be in schools under religious patronage, Educate Together focuses on an ethical education curriculum that teaches about different beliefs including atheism, agnosticism, and humanism.

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“Our schools have a very clear ethos based on three core principles of equality, democracy, and child-centeredness,” Ms Nowlan explained.

“Whereas people tend to be very focused on the religious aspect because religion has dominated school patronage in Ireland, really what we are seeing as our unique identifying feature in recent years is the focus on student voice, and making sure all voices are heard in the school community and that democratic aspect, as much as the equality-based and inclusive aspect of our ethos.” 

While a large number of parents choose to send their child to Educate Together to access non-denominational education, there is a whole range of different reasons why their schools appeal to parents, she believes.

"It depends entirely. Sometimes it's just a good school in the area, sometimes it’s the nearest school, sometimes it’s the school with an autism class. The percentage of our schools that have autism classes is far higher than the national average. Sometimes it's because parents feel that their children's needs will be met. For a large number of parents, it will be the ethos.

A lot of our schools are heavily oversubscribed, unfortunately. I’d say most of our schools probably turn away more students than they can accommodate, which nobody is happy about. We’d much rather be able to meet all the demand that is there.

Based on annual applications to Educate Together schools,  there is strong demand for its schools. It makes the ongoing process aimed at improving the plurality of primary schools “quite frustrating”.

Annual applications show strong demand for Educate Together schools. Picture: Denis Minihane

“There has been a lot of talk about patronage transfer, divestment, reconfiguration, going right back to the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in 2012, but very little progress,” Ms Nowlan said.

“What we’d be calling for really is a strategy and a plan; that’s what’s been missing. People have had ideas, there hasn’t been much joined-up thinking on the question, and really no commitment in terms of funding towards anything like what would be required to reach the numbers in the target of 400 schools in the Programme for Government.” 

Reconfiguration

For the past 18 months, the Department of Education has run a pilot reconfiguration project that required religious patrons, ie bishops, to identify possible schools within their dioceses that may be interested in transferring patronage.

This would then go to the board of management for consideration, and then to staff, before the wider school communities and parents were asked their views. “We are hearing now that they are planning to publish that report from that pilot, which is very positive," said Ms Nowlan.

“We’ve been quite critical of the particular design of that process because it's very top-down. 

There wasn’t really any avenue for parents' voices to be heard, despite the fact that parents have very strong rights under the Constitution in terms of their preferred model of education. 

"Really, it's been quite disappointing as a pilot process, a small number of schools are expected to transfer patronage as a result. All the processes aren’t quite finished yet, but really the numbers will be small. It's not surprising, given the design of the process, and also the sheer lack of resources that have been put into this."

"We’re very much hoping that what will come out of this process will be a realisation that we have to ask every parent in the country what they want. 

“I’m not sure has there been a fear around that, but in any case, it's time that parents of preschool children, parents of primary children, were actually asked the direct question ‘what type of school do you want?’.”

Planning delays

Educate Together opened its first secondary school in 2014; It now has 21 second-level schools. As newer schools, they often must contend with long planning delays and setbacks, usually opening in temporary accommodation before a permanent site is secured.

One such school is Cork Educate Together Secondary School which this year saw plans for its permanent building, in the pipeline since 2015, further delayed after an appeal was lodged with An Bord Pleanála.

“The challenge of temporary accommodation is very real for our schools,” Ms Nowlan said. “We still have 41 out of 117 schools in temporary accommodation, about a third, and some of them for far too long.

Cork Educate Together Secondary School principal Colm O'Connor with pupils at its temporary premises on Griffith College campus in May 2022, looking forward to their new school in Douglas, for which the Department of Education had lodged a planning application. Picture: Dan Linehan

"On the positive side, we are starting to see some progress. We’ve had seven schools moving into their permanent buildings in the past 18 months and a number of sites confirmed for other schools.

“We do urgently need to change our planning laws and practices. We do have too many schools where the site is purchased, but they are not going anywhere because they are waiting for planning decisions to be resolved. 

"How can it be, if we take Cork Educate Together Secondary School, we have students who have gone all the way through their secondary schooling and graduated and they haven’t gotten their permanent building and that is entirely down to planning issues and delays. We need to be getting planning issues resolved earlier so that students can move into their buildings earlier.”

Protests

The aggressive protests seen last week outside the Dáil are the latest escalation as part of a series of campaigns, in-person and online, across the country that has seen pharmacies, libraries, and accommodation for refugees targeted.

Schools too have fallen victim, in particular in relation to the new sex education curriculum, and around gender identity. As a patron body, is it something Educate Together is worried about or having conversations with schools about?

“It's on our radar in so far as it's on everyone's radar,” Ms Nowlan said. “To be honest, we’re reluctant to give it too much attention. We’re very, very proud that every member of our school community, whether it's children, parents, staff members, that everyone is equally valued in the school, regardless of their background or identity. 

"On the whole in Ireland, I think our school communities are welcoming and inclusive. I think what we’ve seen recently is that there are some people, I’d say a very small number of people, often supported by organisations outside Ireland, who are looking for opportunities to cause fear and to divide people.

We’ve seen a number of different manifestations of that, we’ve seen anti-migrant attacks, we’ve seen homophobic attacks, we’ve seen attacks on libraries and now the Dáil.

“There have been some schools targeted, not just Educate Together schools, schools of all types, but it has clearly been driven by a very small group of people. We’ve seen things like standard letters being circulated which are filled with misinformation, some about relationship and sexuality education. 

"In our experience, what we have found is that once schools engage with parents and listen to the concerns they may have and once they provide the correct information, the problem very quickly goes away. Most school communities want to be welcoming for all, and I’m proud to see so many Educate Together schools lead the way.”

At the beginning of the school year, an Educate Together primary school in Dublin came to the attention of some media outlets after reports emerged of a teacher requesting to be referred to by their first name, or by the gender-neutral pronoun ‘they’.

Ms Nowlan declined to comment any further on this, except to say that “in many ways, it's no different to other situations where a very small number of people have sought to cause division and sought to create problems and cause fear, and generally speaking, school communities rebound positively from that and move on."

Finances

In recent weeks, the management bodies for primary schools have written to the minister for education to highlight the financial pressures schools are under at the moment.

“Schools will try their very best to make ends meet before going to their parent bodies. Everybody welcomed the increase last year of capitation in the budget; it was absolutely essential because we had no reserves left after two years of covid and massive increases in things like energy and insurance," said Ms Nowlan.

“What was a little bit frightening to us in recent weeks was the realisation that funding that was provided last year would not be provided again this year.

"About a 10th of our schools have contacted us just in the last six months in relation to serious financial difficulties they are in, higher than in previous years despite that increase, so we are in a very difficult space.

"The increase given last year, which was significant, was 40% on top of capitation, and every single penny was necessary. When we did our analysis with the other primary school management bodies over the summer, we estimated that another 10% would be required.

“We’re all extremely concerned now that it's sounding a bit like possibly the Government is considering rolling back to 2021/2022 levels of funding for schools, which if it happens, will be impossible for school boards of management to handle. They just wouldn’t be able to. Every single stakeholder at primary school level has written to the minister to say this is an urgent situation and primary schools need additional funding.”