Tomas O Dulaing (Thomas Dowling) has been appointed as the first Mainstream Teacher for Griffeen Valley Educate Together National School.
Congratulations to Tomas and we wish him all the best in the future.
First School Newsletter
The first school newsletter has been published click here
to see all the news.
Introduction
Welcome to GriffeenEducateTogether.org. This website has been
developed to keep everyone who is interested in the development of the latest
Educate Together school in Lucan informed of it's progress.
Our Mission
To provide a co-educational, multi-denominational, child centered and
democratically run Educate Together school in Griffeen Valley in Lucan by
September 2002.
Educate Together
Educate Together started as an organisation in 1984, when the first three
schools decided to set up a co-coordinating committee that would disseminate
information among the existing schools and assist in the growth and development
of new schools. The three schools were located in Dalkey, Bray and Glasnevin ,
all in the greater Dublin area.
In the ensuing years Educate Together opened over 20 schools in places such
as Sligo, Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick, Galway and of course many more in Dublin.
There are currently over 3,500 pupils enrolled and over 200 teachers and
staff employed in the Educate Together sector.
(This has been extracted from the Educate Together Strategy
Statement, November 2000)
The Educate Together Ethos
Multi-Denominational
Educate Together schools from the outset respect all ethical and religious
traditions. Every family's background and ethical preference is respected
and cherished within the school. The school does not teach any particular
faith or creed but facilitates any group of parents to organise religious
instruction outside the main school programme. However, this does not mean
that Educate Together schools avoid issues of ethics and morality. Educate
Together schools have well developed ethical educational programmes which
teach children core values of appreciation and respect for social, cultural
and other human differences; health and safety; social responsibility and
rights and other features necessary to inform a child's developing mind to
live in our rapidly changing world.
Co-Educational
All Educate Together schools are co-educational and have programmes to
counter gender stereotyping and inequity in all aspects of life.
Child Centered
Covering the curriculum set out by the Department of Education for all
National Schools, the educational programme of an Educate Together school
takes into consideration the individual needs for children. Genuine open
dialog based on trust between teachers and parents for the common good of
the children is an integral part of this process.
Democratically Run As all Educate Together schools are set up by groups of parents, parents
have greater access and involvement in the running and development of the
school. The patron body (a structure that is required by the state) is a
charity set up by the parents in the locality, governed by a constitution,
whose decisions are controlled by a general meeting, and whose officers are
regularly elected. The body appoints is representatives on the Board of
Management (the body that handles the day-to-day running of the school) in a
democratic fashion that respects parents' wishes. This, in addition to directly
elected parents representatives, ensures that parents have a strong
influence in schools affairs. This unique level of parental involvement can
only develop properly if it fully recognises and respects the professional
role of the teacher and builds a genuine partnership between the
professional and the parent to produce the maximum educational benefit to
the children.
(This has been extracted from the Lucan Educate Together
National School, School Information 2001-2002 booklet)
