The School
Anna Livia should be housed in a sustainable building (see “school building” below), it should be big (at least 1500 students, see “school size” below) and it should be on a site in or very near to Lucan (see “site matters” below).
Site Matters
Many people want to know where the school will be built. Ideally this will be in Lucan, as close to the 5 ET national schools as possible.
At the moment we are considering all options.
We are involved in the re-zoning of South Dublin County Council, we are contacting private developers and we are keeping an eye out for site/land for sale or even existing real estate on extensive grounds.
If you think you can contribute to our efforts, please do not hesitate to contact Kevin.
School Size
There are various facts to take into account when deciding on the size of the school.
· There are 5 Educate Together national schools with a combined potential output of 250 pupils per year (250 x 6 yrs = 1500 students).
· There is additional need for second level places for pupils from other national schools in Lucan.
· The larger the school, the more resources will be available for the widest possible curricular and extra-curricular activities.
All these facts point to a very large school.
Will this not interfere with the “learner-centred” approach the patron advocates?
Not in our mind.
There are many ways to make a school learner-centred and to accommodate the different intelligences of the students such as:
-A large choice of subjects
-A wide choice of extra-curricular activities
Learner-centred also means that there should be strong support mechanisms for the students.
For instance, the school might put in place regular mentoring sessions with trained personnel (these could be teachers, parents or non-affiliated others) for each of the students, so any problems of educational, social or other kind can be spotted and solved.
School Building
-To create the optimum learning and working environment-To apply all possible principles of sustainable building
-To make wide use of outside spaces
-To facilitate the needs of the wider community
-To have individual schools, which reflect the site and community