Irish school (gaelscoil)-beneficial or not?

was going to send my son to a gaelscoil for secondary school. although he attends an english speaking primary school. do you think that he will be well behind kids coming from a gaelscoil primary school and will he catch up. its either going to be the best decision or the worst decision of my life. would appreaite any advice.
 
Chances are that he will behind children coming in from a gaeilscoil primary school. How far behind depends on how he fared with Irish in his own school.

It's not necessarily an insurmountable problem. One important factor is how many other children from non-gaeilscoil primary schools enrol. If there are a good few, then the chances are the the school will be geared to meet their needs.

I think the best advice I can give you is to contact the school to set up a meeting. They might want to meet your son in order to make an informal assessment of the quality of his Irish.
 
looking for some advice. my son is entering 5th class in a gaelscoil and will share a teacher with 6th class, problem is there will be 32 children in class so Board of Managment decided to hold a "lottery" and keep 8 children back with 4th class but following 5th class curriculum, my son even managed to pull out his own name so is now "master of his own education" and will be with 4th class. I dont want my son in this class as I believe he will be bored and regress, what can I do as BOM wont change decision and I dont want to move to another school. is this method of a lottery legal? any help
 
I would be a fan of gailscoileanna but there is none close to where I live. That said, I am glad now - my eldest daughter (8) has been diagnosed with dyslexia and the educational psychologist has recommended an exemption from Irish. She is very good at Maths, and the psychologist has said her proficiencies will lie in maths, sciences, technical drawing etc.

Since my daughter has been diagnosed I have met other parents of dyslexic kids who have had to remove them from a gaelscoil.

I guess it's like any school - it will be great for some kids and yet not suit others at all.
 
hope4711 said:
That said, I am glad now - my eldest daughter (8) has been diagnosed with dyslexia and the educational psychologist has recommended an exemption from Irish. She is very good at Maths, and the psychologist has said her proficiencies will lie in maths, sciences, technical drawing etc.

Since my daughter has been diagnosed I have met other parents of dyslexic kids who have had to remove them from a gaelscoil.
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Can I just say that I find it incredible that as a parent you can be glad that you child has been diagnosed with a learning difficulty. But the fact that an exemption in Irish has been recommended is an indictment of the lack of understanding amongst psychologists in Ireland on the long-term effects that such a lack of understanding of the language will have on the child interacting with other people, the lack of shared experiences good and bad.

I have met many many people north and south of the border that wish their parents had sent them to a gaelscoil or brought them up speaking in Irish. Now that they're older, they see the importance of having a knowledge of the country's native language and it's much more difficult for them to learn now.

Children with dyslexia have difficulty in making sense of written words, there is no reason why your child couldn't attain a good grasp at the very least of oral Irish. This would let him/her visit the gaeltacht without impedement, to attend Irish social events (e.g. www.clubsonas.com, www.antoireachtas.ie) and not feel that their learning difficulty has kept them from accessing that growing community of Irish-speakers, or stop them from employment prospects being created daily for people who speak Irish.
 
I find it very strange aswell. I have taught dyslexic children in gaelscoil's and would never recommend them being removed from gaelscoils.
 
Feirsteach said:
Can I just say that I find it incredible that as a parent you can be glad that you child has been diagnosed with a learning difficulty.
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i think its more to do with the happiness to get a comprehensive diagnosis. i bet he would much prefer that the child had not a learning difficulty.
 
Things might be different in the part of the country that i'm from, but since when did gaelscoils ( primary from 1st class and secondary ) allow non irish speaking children to join the school.

The gaelscoil where my children go will not allow children past first class to joint the school unless they can prove the child has a good understanding of the basic language in the first place.

The level of irish in an english speaking school is totally different to gaelscoil. I think that would be fair to your son, the teachers or the other pupils, that the teacher is going to have to repeat and spent extra time with your son because he doesn't understand. It's not just about speaking the language you have to read, write and think in the language.

What is your level of the language, will you be able to help with his homework? Even if your irish was good at school it's changed somewhat in the years.

I posted a question on here a while ago because daddy was delayed in work and i couldn't understand one section of it. I got quite a few different answers from people who would class themselves as pretty good at irish. It's not because they were wrong the language has just changed.

Is it you or your son that wants to go to the gaelscoil? If he willing to get help over the summer and really put the work in then of course he would catch up eventually but it's going to be a lot of hard work for him.
 
I certainly did not intend to say that I was glad my child was diagnosed with a learning disability.

What I meant to say was if there had been a gaelscoil near me I would have automatically preferred it as I would love my children to be fluent in our national language - my own Irish while tolerable is certainly not fluent and I regret that this is the case. If I had done this I could see difficulties I would have faced following the diagnosis.

With regard to my daughter her specific difficulties relate to the sounds and pronunciations of words - she spells phonetically - rough is ruff, would is wud etc. She will need - as best she can - to learn repeatedly the rules of english spelling and pronunciation - which come easier to the rest of us. To add the layer of Irish pronunciation and spelling is an added burden.

I would agree that she should be able to deal with the spoken language better and it is my intention to do this with Irish and French. Indeed she is learning French at the moment and she finds it much easier than Irish but that is because it is taught orally with no written French being taught.

My point was that one size does not fit all. There are many advantages to gaelscoileanna but, like any school, you would have to weigh up the needs, ability and personality of your own child to decide whether it would be beneficial for a particular child.
 
lucylou said:
Hi,
Anyone got any ideas/experiences/opinions on Irish schools?
Go raibh maith agaibh!!
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I would say that posters have indeed answered the OP's question.
Nobody only herself can decide what is best for her own son - not even CA.
 
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