Trim Educate Together school community devastated to be losing teacher after falling short of enrolment threshold

News that Trim Educate Together is to lose one of its eight mainstream class teachers two months into the school year after enrolment did not meet the required threshold, has come as a hammer blow to the school.

The school community is now appealing to the Department of Education to reinstate the eighth mainstream teaching post at the school, which has an enrolment of 189, arguing that it will have a huge impact on the children and friendships to be split at this stage of the school year.

Local Social Democrat Cllr Ronan Moore, whose three children attend the school, said four classes will have to be split between three teachers and the school is now having to ask children in fourth and fifth class to complete a friendship sheet to try and ensure that when classes are split that close friends stay together

He said: “What is most frustrating is that on the one hand you have a Minister of Education who is championing the safeguarding of student mental health by spending €9 million on smart-phone pouches that many schools do not want, while on the other hand children are having to be choose between friends as they are split up. Surely the best way to support children’s mental health is by keeping them together in a stable classroom environment.”

He added that only this year Education Minister Norma Foley stated that the average teacher allocation ratio was one for every 23 pupils in primary schools, the lowest level ever seen a primary level, “yet despite this self-congratulation you now have a school where the ratio of students to teachers from 3rd to 6th class is currently 1 teacher to 24, but due to the Department of Education's decision this will now force four classes to become three, meaning the ratio jumps to 1 teacher to 32.”

Meanwhile, Meath West Sinn Féin TD, Johnny Guirke, has also raised serious concerns regarding the recent decision and said the government must prioritise educational resources over unnecessary expenditures, such as the €9 million spent on mobile phone pouches for secondary schools.

“This is not just a numbers game; it’s about the well-being of our pupils. The decision to remove a Developing School Post will result in the amalgamation of multiple classes into larger, split classrooms, causing significant disruption to the pupils' learning experience and friendships.”

Deputy Guirke has written to Minister Foley and said he plans to confront the Minister for Education in the Dáil this week.

Local Cllr Aisling Dempsey said a teacher is set to lose their job midway through the school year leading to significant disruption to schoolchildren, because the the enrolment was 14 pupils below the threshold of set by the Department.

“I have highlighted this issue with Minister Foley as I believe it's essential that this teacher is left in situ with the 30 pupils they currently teach. Regardless of the existing thresholds, it's common sense that the school year would not be disrupted like this. The reality is that Trim is a growing town and that there is ample population growth for the Trim Educate Together school to retain this role. In fact, in the next year or so, this role would have to be reinstated for school so there's no sense in disrupting all these classes for the sake of a couple of months to satisfy a bureaucratic guideline. I hope that the Department will see the sense in this.”

“I have called for us, as a council, to write together to the Department of Education on the situation, highlighting the context with the school that it has outgrown its current temporary location and a solution can be found by all stakeholders working together.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said: “Trim ETNS applied for a projected enrolment post last May, on the basis of expecting an enrolment of 205 on 30th September last. The post was allocated on a provisional basis and the school was informed that 203 was the required enrolment to retain the teacher for the 2024/25 school year.

“The school’s actual enrolment on 30th September was 189. As well as being less than the required enrolment for a projected enrolment post, it is also less than the appointment figure for an eighth teacher (192) as set out in the staffing schedule

“The staffing process also contains an appeals mechanism for schools to submit a staffing appeal under certain criteria to an independent Primary Staffing Appeals Board. The school appealed the decision in October but the appeal was deemed ineligible as the school does not meet the enrolment threshold required to retain the post for the remainder of the year.”