Some principals believe school enrolment policies merit greater attention, writes Seán Flynn.
The publication in The Irish Times last Monday of an eight-page supplement on the main feeder schools for third level certainly created a considerable stir in Naas, Co Kildare.
The principal of St Patrick's Community College, Colm O'Connor, said the lists attracted huge interest among parents and teachers.
St Patrick's, a co-ed vocational, is one of three second-level schools in the town. The others are traditional single-sex voluntary secondary schools. It is the kind of school which does not feature at the top of the feeder school tables. Many of its pupils take the more work-related Leaving Cert Applied (LCA) and proceed to take Post-Leaving Cert (PLC) courses.
It is the only school in the town offering the LCA, an alternative to the mainstream Leaving Cert. It is also running a pilot "sin-bin" for disruptive pupils.
Mr O'Connor is not keen on league tables, which he says draw on a right-wing ideology, equating success with third level. They are a very crude measure of one element of school life and they tend to marginalise other elements, he says.
However, he says The Irish Times deserves credit for highlighting in the supplement the disparity between the number of special needs students in public schools and in the fee-paying sector. He was delighted to see the ASTI general secretary, John White, speaking out about the "socially divisive" nature of these schools.
Mr O'Connor operates an unrestricted enrolment policy. If you are in the catchment area - which stretches to Sallins and beyond - you will not be turned away, he says irrespective of your academic ability or your learning needs. "My vision is for schools which reflect the whole society," he says.
Richard Daly, the principal of the 270-pupil Athy Community College, says the Irish Times tables attracted relatively little interest among parents. Athy is designated as a RAPID town, one of those with a higher level of disadvantage.
His school, which has been waiting for a new premises for many years, did not feature strongly in the Co Kildare list. There are two other schools in the town, both voluntary secondary schools, where the feeder lists attracted much more interest.
League tables, he says, deal with only one aspect of a school. "Our aim in this school is to allow everyone to realise their potential, whatever that is," he says. Three of the 25 to 30 Leaving Cert students in the school took higher level maths and all achieved an honour.
"We have an open enrolment policy, where we try to be conscious of everyone's needs. We have some students going the PLC route and we have some going into apprenticeships. But we don't get credit for this in the lists."
The list may have a benefit, he says, in highlighting the sharply different enrolment policies among schools and in making a case for greater resources. Mr Daly says he has very good LCA and stay-in school programmes, but they are very much under-funded.
Brian Fleming, principal of Collinstown Park Community College in Clondalkin, Dublin, says he understands why The Irish Times gave such space to the lists. "There is a dearth of other information and of course parents are entitled to information and newspapers are entitled to convey it to them. The limiting factors are of course that it is only a partial view of the activities of a school."
The other main problem, he says, is they don't look at context. A school can only be responsible for what happens between 9am and 4pm, 167 days a year. "In other words, we can't control motivation, attitude to homework, school attendance etc."
He also feels the enrolment issue needed to be addressed. "If there was a mathematical way to combine the two tables you printed in the last few days, namely the third-level entrants and the special needs intake, maybe it might provide an interesting picture . . . the fact is that some secondary schools operate, as you have highlighted, various mechanisms for keeping special needs pupils out."
Some of these are hidden, some are more open, he says. For example, a lot of second-level schools don't offer the LCA or the Junior Cert Schools Programme and have shown no interest in offering it - "and this in itself is an excluding mechanism".
In disadvantaged areas like Clondalkin, tables "won't provide affirmation" but he says the new process planned by Minister for Education Mary Hanafin - which will see the publication of school inspection reports - "more than fills the gap. It is not a perfect process as it stands, but it is far more holistic and valuable than the league tables on their own. I think it will develop in future".
Sheila Drumm, principal of Sion Hill in Blackrock, Co Dublin, says there is a huge interest among parents in the tables. Parents, she says, look to the lists for reassurance about their choice of school.
Sion Hill has seen a sharp drop in enrolment in recent years. It has lost out as parents opt for local fee-paying schools. Some 90 per cent of the fee-paying schools in the State are in south Dublin.
Sion Hill has been struggling to attract students despite a reputation for excellence and smaller classes. It performed well in the Irish Times lists, much better than some fee-paying schools.
Sheila Drumm says she has heard of the tension and stress among parents of primary-school children even before they decide on a second-level school.
"I understand and appreciate the pressure parents are under in trying to do what they see as the best for their kids."
Although she opposes crude league tables, she says information is the key to school choice. Some people just automatically assume something is better if they pay for it. She says their opinion changes when they get a full picture of what is going on in a school like Sion Hill.