Kells parents want Educate Together School
Parents in Kells want an Educate Together school in the town, according to the recent patronage survey, carried out by the Department of Education.
The Minister for Education, Ruairí Quinn, has published the results of the primary school patronage surveys from 38 towns across the country, including Kells.
Detailed analysis of the surveys shows that there is sufficient parental demand in 23 of the 38 areas to support an immediate change in the existing school patronage, including in Kells. Parents there expressed a preference for Educate Together as a patron.
Some 153 valid responses were received from parents in Kells, representing 284 children.
The current patrons of schools in the town are the Catholic Bishop of Meath and the Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath and Kildare.These surveys were undertaken as part of the Minister’s response to the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in Primary schools and were aimed at establishing if parents want a more diverse range of primary school patrons in their area.
Welcoming the publication of the surveys, Minister Quinn said, “This is another significant step on the road to providing a plurality of education and real choice for parents in the type of primary school they wish to send their children to. We are confident of a generous response from the existing patrons to the clear demand for change in more than 60per cent of the areas surveyed this year.
“I would like to thank all of the Kells parents who took the time to express their interest in this topic. We have heard what you had to say and we will work with all the partners to reflect that in local school provision,” he said.