Our Story So Far…

In the spring of 2018, a group of dedicated parents spent months together, petitioning for the establishment of an Educate Together School within the catchment areas of Killester Raheny and Clontarf. These parents wanted to have the choice of equality-based, child-centred, democratic and co-educational education for the children living in this area.

In 2019, after over a year of vigorous petitioning, the Department of Education granted patronage of a planned new school for the area to Educate Together. This school is to be single stream, i.e. one Junior Infant class intake per year, growing vertically over the coming years until it has all classes from Junior Infant to sixth class by 2026.

The Department of Education Building and Planning Unit were tasked with finding a suitable site, or premises, for the establishment of the school within the assigned catchment area.  This proved to be a difficult task and one which they were ultimately unable to deliver on in the short to medium term.

The only accommodation option that they could provide was temporary prefab classrooms on the grounds of Suttonians RFC in Sutton, Co. Dublin for a period of two years. The school site was located outside of the wide-ranging scope of the school catchment area. This came as a great disappointment to the parents who had worked so hard to secure a school with the Educate Together ethos within their area.  It was not an acceptable or practical option for many of the parents, being as far as up to 10km away from the further reaches of the catchment area.  Nevertheless, the planning and building work proceeded at this location.

In May 2019, Níamh O’Toole was delighted to be appointed as Principal of the new school. Planning for opening in September, 2019 proceeded and, at the latter end of August, 2019, Níamh received the keys to the school building. Níamh worked night and day with the voluntary help of friends and family to get the school ready to welcome the first group of students in September.

Níamh recruited an Additional Needs Assistant (ANA), Catherine Sadlier and a part-time School Secretary, Barbara Merry to the team. They were also joined on a temporary basis by Miriam O’Doherty as a substitute Special Education Teacher (SET).

To the delight of all involved and after an initial brief delay to opening, the school finally opened to welcome seven wonderful Junior Infants on 9th September, 2019.

In October 2019, Tara O’Sullivan joined the team as a shared Special Education Teacher (SET) for 10 hours per week. Aoife Richardson was appointed as the second Additional Needs Assistant (ANA) in March, 2020. In September, 2020, Anna Karman joined our team as a shared Special Education Teacher (SET) for 10 hours per week.

A four-person Board of Management (BoM) was formed in February 2020. The four current BoM members are as follows; Deirdre Murphy (Chairperson, Patron Nominee), Níamh O’ Toole (Principal), Dr. Delma Byrne (Community Nominee) and Aisling Ryan (Parent Nominee). As the school grows this Board will expand to be an eight-person Board in autumn, 2020.

In May, 2020, based on the growing enrolment numbers, the school Board of Management received sanction to recruit an additional mainstream class teacher for September, 2020. In October, 2020, we received sanction to recruit an additional permanent mainstream class teacher from November, 2020. Siobhán Dunphy was the successful candidate and she will be joining our team/staff on Monday, 30th November, 2020. 

Killester Raheny Clontarf ETNS will remain in temporary accommodation for the 2020-21 school year, during which time the Department of Education will work to secure and build a suitable school building within the catchment area of Killester, Raheny or Clontarf in time for the 2021 – 2022 school year.

There is a very high level of interest in the school and enrolment numbers are expected to grow strongly once the future permanent location of the school has been confirmed.

The entire school community are excited about our future development and growth and look forward to all that the future holds for our school.