Islanders withdraw children from school

THE future of a primary school in the Mayo Gaeltacht, where all 16 pupils have now been withdrawn by parents for unspecified reasons, is in doubt if a solution cannot be found to the impasse there.

When two-teacher Bullsmouth National School on Achill Island opened for the 2018/19 school term on Monday there was only one pupil present.

However, it is understood that the lone student did not turn up either today or yesterday.

Parents said they are ‘dissatisfied’ with the school over ‘a number of issues’ which they do not publicly wish to elaborate on.

One parent, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that all the pupils have been enrolled in other island schools – The Valley, Bunnacurry, Tonragee and Achill Sound – in recent weeks.

‘We are devastated at what is happening but we feel we have no alternative’, the parents’ spokesperson said.

‘The older generations especially are saddened because if the school closes the heart will be ripped out of the community,’ she continued.

Currently Bullsmouth is a two-teacher school.

In common with other primary schools in Achill, the enrollment numbers have been dropping steadily over the past decade.

In 2007, there were 32 students at the facility.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation says it’s aware of the impasse but insists its hands are tied in the dispute.

‘If parents decide to withdraw students from a school there’s nothing the INTO can do,’ Vincent Duffy of the organisation’s central executive committee (Mayo/Sligo) said.

Last year, the findings of a Department of Education evaluation of Bullsmouth National School were published.

Inspectors noted and were critical of the fact that although Bullsmouth is a ‘Gaeltacht school’, all pupils speak English as their first language.

The national school was the subject of a critical Department of Education Whole School Evaluation inspection report last year.

For the time being, the school principal and her assistant are turning up daily to empty classrooms.

If there is no prospect of a resolution to the impasse, the school faces closure with the principal and second teacher facing redeployment on the diocesan teaching panel.

Bullsmouth school operates under the patronage of the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary.