Naíscoil and Bunscoil an tSléibhe Dhuibh have for years been known as providers of excellent Irish Medium Education, and recently the Education and training Inspectorate have agreed (see http://www.etini.gov.uk/), highlighting our high standards, our special needs, our ICT capabilities, and our reputation as being amongst the best schools in Belfast. A majority of our staff are products of the Irish Medium system, evidence if it were needed of our sector’s ability to produce the highest quality.
We also have a great wrap around service of breakfast club (8-9), lunch club for preschool (12-2), gap club for P1 and P2 (2-3), extended schools provision (3-5), and a floodlit polymeric sports pitch with changing rooms and showers which is open for school use or can even be hired. We have Easter and Summer Sports camps, and parents services. In short, we have a great site, a great school, great services, great staff, and great kids, but only a few spaces left in our Naíscoil.
We have a new building which is state of the art, fully equipped with all that a modern school needs, in a beautifully designed building. All that we have was started from the desire and belief and commitment of our parents.
The Naíscoil has been open since 1989, with the Bunscoil opening in 1993 with 6 children. We now have 180 with about 40 in the Naíscoil over 2 years. We have invested time, energy and money in creating a very vibrant and successful provision. Our main targets are now three-fold:
Build a new Naíscoil. We have £200,000.00. We need at least another £150,000, 000 if not more to build a purpose-built building, and then secure mainstream funding to secure the staff wages. We are submitting a development proposal to the Department of Education to achieve Nursery status, allowing us to employ a permanent full time teacher and assistant.
Develop our sport and recreational provision. We’ve done the hard part, invested over £600,000.00 in creating the infrastructure, now we want to develop the people in getting Irish speaking kids active, skilled up, trained and qualified and working. We want to employ qualified people to work with our youth, and offer placement to those wishing to chose a Sporting or Recreational employment route, resulting in Irish-Speaking coaches, youth workers, sporting and lifestyle officers, and community development officers.
Develop our community. From that which we grew, we now need to give back. Our parents paid for the very wages of the teachers who started this school raised every penny in the early days. We have always had a great relationship with them, now it’s our turn to show some leadership and help develop and grow a vibrant, economic, peaceful, harmonious, Gaelic society.
