Newport, Co. Mayo

Phone 098-41442

E-Mail newportmayo.ias@eircom.net

CLASS ORGANISATION

Teachers are appointed to Holy Family School in accordance with the DES staffing schedule in place. With our present pupil numbers and under current DES guidelines, we are entitled to seven class teachers for eight classes. We need 205 pupils for 8 mainstream teachers. As of 30/09/2007, we have 195 pupils attending our mainstream classes, with 4 more in our Autism Unit. This leaves us with no choice but to split certain classes, depending on pupil numbers in each class. With our individual class size varying from 18 to 32, we work in a collaborative manner to split classes in a fair and equitable manner, in order to give the maximum educational opportunity possible to every pupil in our school. We are aware that Circular 20/ 07 states that the staffing schedule is structured to ensure that all primary schools will operate to an average mainstream class size of 27 pupils. Our school’s average mainstream class size is around 28. The Principal tries to ensure that there is an equitable distribution of pupils in mainstream classes and that the differential between the largest and smallest class is kept to a minimum.
Following are the criteria we use in placing pupils in the different class-groupings:
Friends are kept together as much as possible;
Pupils of mixed abilities;
No siblings to be in the same room, if possible.