You are here Parents School Enrolment Policy

1. Parents seeking to enrol their child(ren) in Our Lady of Lourdes NS are requested to return a completed Enrolment Application Form (available in the office) to the school by the end of March each year. The school notifies parents/guardians of enrolment time through the parish newsletter, through letters sent to the current parents of children in the school, through advertisements in local newspapers and through the HSCL.
2. Advertisements for enrolments will begin in the first week in February. This will be done by circulating the parents currently in the school, by examining the parish baptismal register and by placing advertisements in the local parish newsletter and local Echo newspaper.
3. Enrolment forms must be returned to the school by the last day of March each year.
4. Equality of access is the key value that determines the enrolment of children to our school. No child is refused admission for reasons of ethnicity, special educational needs, disability, language/accent, gender, traveller status, asylum-seeker/refugee status, religious/ political beliefs & values, family or social circumstances.
5. While recognising the right of parents to enrol their child in the school of their choice, the Board of Management of Our Lady of Lourdes NS is also responsible to respect the rights of the existing school community and in particular, the children already enrolled. This requires balanced judgements, which are guided by the principles of natural justice and acting in the best interest of all children. Assisting the school in such circumstances, the Board of Management reserves the right to determine the maximum number of children in each separate classroom bearing in mind:

• size of / available space in classrooms
• educational needs of children of a particular age
• multi-grade classes
• presence of children with special educational/ behavioural needs
• Department of Education and Science maximum class average directives (currently a maximum average of 29 children)

6. In the event of the number of children seeking enrolment in any given class/ standard exceeding the number of places available preceding or during the school year (due to the Board of Management being unable to provide suitable accommodation, or recruit the required teaching staff) the following criteria will be used to prioritise children for enrolment:

(a) Brothers & Sisters (including step-siblings, resident at same address) of children already enrolled – priority to oldest
(b) Children living within the parish – priority to oldest
(c) Children of current school staff – priority to oldest
(d) Children whose home address is closest to the school (as measured by a straight line on OS map) if the child is normally resident outside the parish/ agreed catchments area In the event of being unable to enrol a child(ren) from categories a, b, or c, in a given class at the beginning of a year, or mid-year, such children will receive priority (in order of a, b, c) for the subsequent school year over other children on the class waiting list.

7. Pupils wishing to transfer from other schools are enrolled subject to the Rules governing National Schools, as well as our own school’s enrolment policy.

8. New Junior Infants spend one/ two informal periods in school at the end of June to familiarise themselves with their new environment.

9. Children with special needs will be resourced in accordance with the level of resources provided by the Department of Education and Science to the Board of Management.

10. Notwithstanding the availability of such resources, parents of children who are unsatisfied with the level of educational provision in our school, are advised to consider a special school which is designed and resourced to specifically cater for the needs of children with special educational needs

11. Children enrolled in our school are required to co-operate with and support the School/ Board of Management’s Code of Behaviour as well as all other policies on curriculum, organisation & management. The Board of Management places Parents/ Guardians responsible for ensuring that their child(ren) co-operate with said policies in an age-appropriate way.