Madam, – I must respond to comments by former NUI Maynooth professor Tom Collins as quoted by Rosita Boland (“The Smallest Schools in Ireland” Weekend Review, April 16th). Mr Collins states, “By definition a school of that size cannot offer the same developmental range of activities”. He is wrong. In terms of accessing a range of activities, small schools receive the same capitation grant per child as a large school and if anything, benefit from more favourable pupil/teacher ratios than larger schools, perhaps allowing teachers greater opportunity to indulge and cultivate the myriad interests of a class of pupils.
Mr Collins suggests that bigger schools are “more open to the possibilities of the world at large”.
In any school year my (small-ish) school (with 50 pupils) facilitates a spectrum of activities catering to all sorts of needs and interests, many in addition to the curriculum, such as animation, art, cooking, drama, gardening, heritage crafts, music, photography, poetry, sport (individual and team) and theatre. Indeed, with smaller numbers, a child is perhaps more likely to engage in an activity, for example, when our five-a-side girls soccer team qualified for last year’s All Ireland Final there wasn’t one child left warming the bench (as they were all needed on the pitch!). – Yours, etc,