Parents hope for success in local school campaign

Dublin People 25 Jul 2015

Pictured supporting the Milltown School Initiative are (from left) Elaine Mc Mahon, Gillian Cullen, Kevin Humphreys, Paul and Ciara Brassil, Aggie O Keefe, Lorna Lynch, Clodagh Heffernan and Catriona White.

A FAMILY fun day was held in Milltown on Sunday, July 9 to raise awareness and support for a campaign to get a new national school for the area.

In light of what parents consider an urgent and real need for a national school in Milltown, a group of locals got together in March 2015 and formed the Milltown School Initiative.

Speaking in advance of the family fun day, Lorna Lynch, a spokesperson for the Milltown School Initiative said:

“There is currently no national school in Milltown and there hasn’t been one since the closure of St Anne’s School in 1994/1995.

“Over the past few years we’ve seen the area of Milltown grow to a point that it now has a population of over 4,000 people. As it stands, the children from Milltown are currently attending 19 different primary schools across 10 different suburbs of Dublin.

“As a parent of two kids living in Milltown, I know first-hand the impact that this is having on children and on families in the area. There is an urgent and real need for a national school in Milltown to cater for our children and to strengthen the local community.

The results of a survey conducted by the Milltown School Initiative showed that the average number of schools that parents had applied to for the school year 2014/2015 was six. The average number of places offered was less than one so some children did not get a place in any of the schools they applied to.

Ms Lynch added:

“The reality for parents of children resident in Milltown is that they have to apply for a school place as soon as possible, the closer to birth the better, to a huge range of schools over a widespread geographic area in the hope that in the months before the relevant September, a school place will become available for their child.

Ms Lynch confirmed that the Milltown School Initiative has already had a number of successes.

“We recently met with Minister for Education and Skills, Jan O’Sullivan, who was very positive in relation to the proposed school and we hope to have a decision about a school in Milltown over the coming weeks.

“In the meantime, we need to keep up the momentum of this campaign so that our children get the school they deserve.