PROFILE: TRINITY COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL, BALLYMUN, DUBLIN:In 2008, Department of Education inspectors delivered a harsh report on Trinity Comprehensive. But, despite the bad press and the education cutbacks, the school is fighting back writes JOANNE HUNT
A GIRL ON horseback stands sentinel outside Trinity Comprehensive School in Ballymun. In a bronze tracksuit with Velcro-fastened runners, she’s a former pupil here. Misneach, (courage, in Irish) is the name of this striking sculpture. After a bleak evaluation report by Department of Education inspectors in 2008, courage is exactly what her teachers and fellow pupils have shown.
In April 2008, the inspectors reported “a worsening downward spiral”. Citing “a climate of indiscipline,” the report pointed to absenteeism, lateness and disruption of classes by students, as well as absenteeism and poor morale amongst teachers.
For Fiona Gallagher, the current deputy principal, the words still smart and confound. Coming to the school last September, new principal Pat O’Dowd says, “I just wouldn’t have recognised the school I joined from the inspector’s report.’’
Trinity Comprehensive was formed from the amalgamation of three schools built in the 1970s – a boys’ junior school and a girls’ junior school which shared a campus, and a senior co-ed school which was situated on a separate site. The consolidation brought into being Ballymun’s largest secondary school with 650 students drawn almost exclusively from the area – one of severe disadvantage.
Unlike the clean-sweep satisfaction that comes with flattening the tower blocks, symbols of both disadvantage and community for Ballymun, the process of amalgamation and true regeneration is a far lengthier one, as Trinity Comprehensive knows well.
Perhaps that’s why the timing of the report – just after the amalgamation – made no sense to them. While the paint on the walls was dry, the inspectors’ assessment as the new school was finding its feet felt like a low blow.Merging schools – with different leadership, differing rules and approaches to discipline – would always take time to bed down.
Gallagher, who joined the school that year says, “I’m saying this against myself, but in an amalgamation, I think an experienced management team should be appointed. I came out of the classroom and into management without any training, and that’s not fair on any group of people.”
Pupils once segregated were also instantly mixed. That discipline and absenteeism issues lingered is no surprise for Gallagher.
“Around that time, the regeneration was happening and pupils were changing homes too. Psychologically, everything was moving for them.” Of the process of amalgamation she says, “I wondered as a new person coming in, why this could not have been a gradual, staggered process? I almost felt that it was because we were living in a disadvantaged area, and people didn’t have the voice, and didn’t know how to express themselves, in the political sense.”
But that’s the past, and Trinity Comprehensive, like the girl on the horse outside, set its face to the future.
Teachers in the more salubrious suburbs might not recognise their job spec from that of a teacher here. With OECD figures showing that almost one-quarter of Irish 15-year-olds are below the level of literacy needed to participate effectively in society, the teachers at Trinity Comprehensive serve a community at the coalface of the problem. Up to 90 per cent of first years coming in have a reading age below their chronological age, “and in many cases, it’s well below,” says Gallagher. Teachers spend hours breaking lessons into manageable bites.
Last September, the school tested the literacy of all pupils and the results were presented to teachers. Progress on targets agreed for each class is under constant review.
Meanwhile literacy workshops over the past two years have up-skilled teachers. “We’ve just read plans to do this in the Department’s literacy document, and we’re ahead on this. Come to Ballymun,” says Gallagher.
O’Dowd describes the library as the heart of the school. A Young Ballymun literacy programme will use the facility over the summer months for youth outreach work. Yet these facilities are under threat. “In our response to the national literacy plan, we’re saying at the very least, keep the resources that are already in place,” says O’Dowd.
The two home school liaison (HSL) roles funded by the department are also central to the school’s progress, says acting deputy principal John White. Each year group has a Care team that raises issues like “attendance, nourishment, hygiene – any fears that we might have for students,” says White. With some parents having negative memories of school, the HSL’s break the ice. “Some parents are just afraid to come into a school.”
Working with Young Ballymun and Headstrong, 10 of Trinity’s teachers have been trained to reach out to students in difficulty. “Instead of going to a counsellor, which is fairly serious for the young person, they can see one of these teachers,” says Gallagher. She cites the case of a student who it was noticed was “not coming to school regularly, was quite dirty and neglected.” The teacher discovered the family was in debt and their gas had been turned off. Working with the mother, a local youth action project and Dublin City Council, repayment was worked out and the gas was turned back on. “It’s not just about 9am to 4pm here,” says Gallagher.
Truancy rates are also heading in the right direction – an attendance monitor, a breakfast club, rewards for good attendance, less formal morning classes for junior pupils in the library and even a text message to parents if the first class is missed have all helped.
Of 113 pupils starting first year in 2008, eight dropped out. Of those starting in 2009, none dropped out. Of 133 students due to sit their Junior Cert in 2009, 26 dropped out, in 2010, this number fell to 17.
Gallagher says while the rates are still high, their work is starting to pay off.
So what of the school’s absence from league tables and university feeder school lists?
“If there were points for every intervention, we’d be top of the list,” says Gallagher. The majority of pupils who reach third level from the school do so via post Leaving Cert courses (PLCs), not featured in the league tables. Of Trinity’s 83 students who took the Leaving Cert exam in 2009, 29 did PLCs; four have progressed to college or university. In 2010’s class of 65, 47 took a PLC course.
“In the past, you wouldn’t have seen that uptake, now they are beginning to realise that they have to keep moving,” says White.
The introduction of a €200 per year fee for PLC students will end the hopes of some, says Gallagher. “I can pick out four or five who will get the points but who won’t have the money.”
After the inspector’s report, Trinity was left to its own devices. “You look for assistance, you say this was hard to take, please help us out, but there was not a thing,” says Gallagher.
Of the “special working group” announced by the Department in September 2009 to help Trinity and other schools engage with recommendations, the school has heard nothing.
“The first we knew about it was reading it in the paper,” says O’Dowd. On contacting the inspectorate, he was told it wasn’t a working group as such, it was just that requests for concessionary teachers would now be looked at in the context of the inspection report.
For the gains made since amalgamation, Trinity Comprehensive has itself to thank – and Misneach just about describes it.
TRINITY COMPREHENSIVE
Student profileTrinity Comprehensive has 530 pupils. In addition to Junior and Leaving Cert, it offers the Junior Cert School Programme and the Leaving Cert Applied.
Academic ProfileLast year's top scoring pupil achieved A1s in higher-level physics and chemistry and is now studying Russian and Archaeology at TCD.
School profileThe annual awards ceremony for former pupils continuing to further education this year included Bachelors in medicine, sport, nursing, business and tourism, as well as numerous PLC graduates. Past pupil and current Dáil hopeful, Councillor John Lyons presented the awards.
Unusual extra-curricular activityPupils abseil down the remaining tower blocks as part of their Gaisce programme.
