PICS: Cork school marks milestone and opens new building

A CORK primary school recently had double reason to celebrate, with the official opening of their new school building and as they mark a decade in operation.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin officially opened Douglas Rochestown Educate Together National School’s (ETNS) state-of-the-art building on Carr’s Hill in Douglas, marking a significant milestone for the school, which was previously in temporary accommodation.

“We had an absolutely wonderful day. It was a fabulous celebration of everything that’s good about our school,” principal, Dr Alan Sheehan, said following the official opening.

“We’ve been open since 2013, so as well as celebrating the official opening of the new building we were also celebrating 10-years of our school.” 

Pupils of Douglas Rochestown ETNS held performances at the school to mark the school’s 10-year anniversary last Monday and Tuesday.

A special event was held on Wednesday to commemorate the late Irish amputee footballer David Saunders, who had worked as a teacher in the school. The school’s new sports hall has been named in honour of Mr Saunders.

The official opening of the new school building, was Dr Sheehan said, the “culmination of many years’ hard work” with Douglas Rochestown ETNS working to secure permanent accommodation for many years.

“We opened in 2013, in Douglas Hall Soccer Club.

“We had two classrooms. From there, we grew rapidly – we started with 20 children in 2013 and we’ve got about 500 children now,” Dr Sheehan said.

Two prefabs in Douglas Hall quickly grew to another two and before long further temporary accommodation was needed.

“We still had no sign of a permanent building and we still needed more classrooms so we had a split campus arrangement where we had additional temporary prefabs in Garryduff Sports Centre,” Dr Sheehan explained.

“Our parents took a massive leap of faith with us and with the school because they [pupils] were starting off in temporary accommodation - not as nice as some of the other local schools who would have had new buildings and things like that - but they believed in the Educate Together vision and our vision as a school, what we wanted to achieve regarding education,” he said.

In 2018, the Department of Education agreed to move the entire school to temporary accommodation at Garryduff, replacing the four old prefabs with 12 new ones. By the time the school left Garryduff, there were 19 classrooms.

“Even though we wouldn’t have had the fanciest of accommodation, we had wonderful things happening in our school and great education, which is why we grew,” Dr Sheehan said.

Finally, a site was obtained and planning permission for the new school was secured, and the school community moved to their permanent home in January 2023.

The state-of-the-art school features 24 mainstream classes, three autism classes, a multipurpose hall, ball courts, a soft surface play area, and more.

“Even though we’re an urban school, we’ve got a real green feel and a very calming feel about the place and the school is also linked to Douglas Greenway by a footbridge leading directly from our school to the greenway, through the Mangala and down to Douglas playground and Douglas Village," Dr Sheehan said.

“It’s state of the art and it’s a wonderful community asset. It’s absolutely brilliant.”