Choosing a secondary school

I'll make this brief! In choosing a secondary school would the fact that there are only 100 children in the entire school influence your decision negatively? I understand all the positives about small class size etc. but my main concern is the viability of keeping such a small school open, its been around for 50 years with about 140 pupils but currently only has 100, however the Board of Management policy is to increase numbers.

All opinions welcome.

Rather then focusing on class numbers, I'd focus more on the facilities in the school (Labs, libraries, computers), the range of classes and subjects and whether or not it would meet the strengths and interests of your child.

iv worked in such small school...common thought from everyone else oh lovely to have handful kids in each class...yes if choice subject but not main stream subject..worse if subject streamed...check jc class size for english etc ie could be 20 each in two classes but streamed into 10 lower, 30 higher...
main advantage is every teacher knows every student so tighter discipline if good at the top and also invidual attention, nothing missed etc.


was at ptm for own child last month who goes to v large school unfortunately and one teacher said yes wonderful, flying along with project..I said sorry what project..he mistaken the subject he thought my child in..he proceeded to say he'd 3 subjects for this year..equally they couldnt offer a fairly mainstream subject which we now doing outside school...

We sent four through secondary schools. We went private for our 4th. What a mistake! We were "rewarded" accordingly. (I am not knocking private schools, but we made a mistake with our choice for many reasons, for the record it was a large school too). Leaving Cert had to be repeated, in another school, we had little or no choice.

Here's my tuppenceworth of advice. I recommend large schools that carry quite a range of subjects and have a good examination track record and if you get some good teachers then better again. No matter what way you look on this subject its Points from Leaving Cert that matter. Anything else is padding. Focus on the Leaving Cert Exam; without a decent result your child's outlook is limited. This opinion will be challenged here, but I think you know what I mean.

Thanks for the replies, some good points about the range of subjects being more limited in smaller schools, but equally good about the anonymity of being part of a very larger school.

Our decision on choosing a fee paying school is very much influenced by the fact that there are 2 local non-fee paying coeducational schools, one with very good exams results and reputation but our child is very unlikely to get a place, the other is a DEIS school with quite poor exam results but a place is guaranteed. Like all parents we want to provide the best education we can and luckily have saved enough over the years to pay for a fee paying school if needed but this would still be a financial stretch, one which I would rather not make but it seems inevitable. My main concern is more to do with the concern that having 100 pupils in a school is just too small a number to keep it open, but I'm not sure what this concern is founded on either as I have no knowledge of the economics of running a school, its just a niggling doubt in the back of my mind.

I sent my kids to a smallish local school, 250 kids. Absolutely brillant and loved the fact that everybody knew each other and small and friendly and kids got same teachers. My youngest is now called by the eldest's name by the teacher who doesn't even realise it.

For secondary Leper is right about the leaving cert being a priority. Not sure why you all need a vast amount of subjects though. 3 subjects are zero choice for most, (Irish, Eng, Maths) so a school that is getting good results at getting kids into college is important but it is not the only priority, I've chose a small school again that is good at that but is also good at sports and other extra curricular activities and gives a more rounded individual. There is life outside of the Leaving certificate and there are ways around college if you don't succeed at first.

With the Dail full of teachers, and Enda backtracking, and Jan not up to tackling the unions, what chance your school closing !

I have two at the moment in secondary. One in a school of 250 (co-ed), other in a much bigger one (single sex). I think 100 pupils in the whole school is way too small. Too few people to make friends with. If you fall out with the other few in your class you are in trouble.....