‘It’s like the Hunger Games’: Parents battle for places in oversubscribed schools

Lucy O’Sullivan always assumed her 12-year-old son Mark would attend the local secondary school.

They live about 300m from St Benildus College in Stillorgan, Co Dublin, and Mark attends one of its closest primary schools.

“I put his name down for the school [St Benildus] when he was one year old. He’s spent his whole life thinking he’d go there. My brother went there. We pass it every day – it’s the school at the top of the road,” says O’Sullivan.

When first-year school places were allocated by St Benildus recently for next September, Mark missed out on a place and his name was put in a lottery. At the next nearest post-primary school – Oatlands College – he was placed number 62 on a waiting list.

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In a panic, O’Sullivan began making late applications to other schools, before eventually securing a place in a private fee-charging school – Rockbrook Park School in Rathfarnham – about an hour away in rush-hour traffic.

For O’Sullivan, a single parent of four who works part-time, it is a huge financial sacrifice.

The school will cost about €6,000 a year, in addition to €1,000 for school transport and hundreds of euro on schoolbooks, which are not covered for pupils in the private sector under the Government’s free books initiative.

[ School places: Three out of four parents unable to secure spots at oversubscribed secondary schools ]

“I didn’t sleep for two weeks when he didn’t get a place,” O’Sullivan says. “There was anger, frustration, fear. You’ve a child freaking out; I’m trying to manage my emotions. He has Asperger’s, which makes it even more difficult, not knowing where he was going.

“We have a place now, but I’ve had to rely on my parents for financial help as a last resort. I can afford it by the skin of my teeth, only because I can pay in monthly instalments ... I just feel really let down – I don’t understand why he can’t go to his local school.”

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Many parents in different parts of the country are struggling to find secondary school places for their children this year.

The Department of Education acknowledges there are enrolment pressures in five counties, in particular, where some parents have been unable to secure first-year places for their children for next September.

They include Co Kildare (Prosperous/Clane, Celbridge, Naas, Kilcock, Kildare town/Curragh, Maynooth, Newbridge), Dublin (Newcastle/Rathcoole, Lucan, Malahide/Nevinstown, Carpenterstown, Castleknock, Portmarnock), Co Cork (Clonakilty, Fermoy, Midleton), Co Wicklow (Greystones, Kilcoole) and Co Galway (Athenry, Galway city, Oranmore).

Many of these areas have experienced rapid population growth where the provision of new schools or planned extensions have lagged behind.

The department says it is working with schools in these areas to share enrolment data to identify any duplication in school places offered; where additional capacity is needed, it says it will fund extra places.

However, an unpublished study of school capacity conducted by the department last year – obtained by The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act – indicates there are many more areas of the country where schools are oversubscribed, but are not identified as areas of enrolment pressure.

The department divides the country into 314 school planning areas and uses a combination of data to predict demand for school places such as child benefit records, school enrolment figures and information on residential developments.

In the Dublin area alone, for example, of the 40 or so school planning areas, all schools are recorded as oversubscribed in about 19. They include Dún Laoghaire, Dublin 6W, Castleknock, Booterstown/Blackrock, Blanchardstown West, Blanchardstown Village, Rathfarham, Rush/Lusk, Skerries, Swords, Whitehall-Santry, Malahide-Nevinstown, Palmerstown/Ronanstown and others.

There are dozens of other school planning areas, mostly in cities, large towns and commuter belt areas, where all post-primary schools are oversubscribed.

Many parents’ groups argue that shortages of school places are the result of a failure to properly deliver school places due to housing developments or a demographic bubble of secondary school-aged students which is peaking around now.

However, the department argues that a range of factors may be behind the number of oversubscribed schools such as the duplication of applications (where pupils’ names are down for multiple schools), prestige of schools (where a preferred school attracts more applicants, but there are places in other schools) and external draw, where pupil come from outside a local area.

It says it continues to keep school place requirements under review to ensure all schools, between them, can cater for all pupils seeking school places in an area.

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Goatstown-Stillorgan is one of the 314 school planning areas, but is not officially acknowledged as an area of enrolment pressure.

All five schools – St Benildus College (all-boys), Our Lady’s Grove Secondary School (all-girls), St Raphaela’s Secondary School (all-girls), Goatstown Educate Together (mixed) and Mount Anville Secondary School (all-girls) – are oversubscribed.

Last year, for example, St Benildus had a waiting list of 198 students, while Mount Anville had 155; and St Raphaela’s had 158.

Eric Leonard, the parent of a 12 year old seeking a school place for his son at St Benildus, is one of many who has struggled to find a school place this year. His son is currently number 54 on the waiting list.

“It’s like the Hunger Games trying to get a school place,” he says. “Parents apply to their local school; then they find out there are no places ... it causes months of chronic anxiety, stress and worry for the families involved,” he says.

“It has a big effect on children as well. They don’t get to go to school with their peers and friends from primary school. It’s hugely unsettling.”

He feels the problem is hidden by the fact that desperate parents will commute long distances to find other school places or make sacrifices and send their children to a private school.

Frustrated by the challenges locally, he set up a “secondary schools crisis action group” last month. The first public meeting was attended by dozens of parents; it has since grown to more than 400 parents residing in the Stillorgan area.

A key issue, he feels, is the “exclusionary nature of the admissions criteria” at schools such as St Benildus which prioritise children whose fathers or grandfathers attended the school (up to a maximum of 25 per cent of available places) ahead of children from primary schools in the community,

Leonard’s son, for example, attends St Laurence’s Boys’ National School in Stillorgan. It is one of the two closest primary schools within a 25-minute walk of St Benildus.

Yet, he says, they are placed on an equal footing as six other primary schools, some of which are up to a two-hour walk from the secondary school. As result, he says, more than 20 per cent of boys in the two closest primary schools were unable to secure places in the secondary school next door.

“Our children are the children of the Covid generation,” he says. “They and their families have endured substantial disruption and upheaval to their formative primary education years. They do not deserve the same in their formative post-primary education years. They most certainly deserve better from the educational leadership in their community, the Department of Education and the Minister.”

St Benildus did not respond to a request for comment.

However, Paul Crone, director of the National Association of Principals and Deputies, says schools can often find themselves in an impossible position where demand exceeds the supply of school places locally.

Many are operating at full capacity and have no physical space to add more classes, while parents also are free to apply to any school of their choice, whether it is local or not.

“We’re almost unique in Europe in that the Constitution protects parental choice. In most countries, you go to the local school in the municipality,” he says.

Solutions to these issues, he says, include greater co-operation between schools to determine the real level of demand – by eliminating multiple applications – as well as providing extra capacity in schools where it is clearly needed.

The department says school boards of management can define their own priority criteria in their admissions policies if they are oversubscribed, as long as they comply with the Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018.

“This selection process and the enrolment policy on which it is based must be non-discriminatory and must be applied fairly in respect of all applicants. However, this may result in some pupils not obtaining a place in the school of their first choice,” it says.

For Leonard, however, choice is something many parents feel they don’t have.

“The focus of our group is, simply, to advocate for schools to have sufficient space and resources for all children to get a secondary school place in their local community, and for school admission policies to reflect the needs of local communities. This aligns with climate action policies, sustainable transport, everything ... it should not be unreasonable to expect your child can go to school locally.”

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