Kildare education: Naas schools can cope with demand for places next year

School principals in Naas are having ongoing meetings to discuss how applications for the town’s five post primary schools will be processed next year.

However it is thought unlikely that any student will be left without a place when the first year classes begin their second level education at the start of the 2022 academic year.

It is expected that Naas Community College, which is due to move into a brand new building at Millennium Park early next year, will absorb most of those initially left without a place.

In the meantime, though, there are more applicants than there are places available.

At Naas CBS — the town’s only all boys school — all 174 places have been allocated and accepted and this, according to principal Ben Travers, means that there is a waiting list of 75 students.

“We will meet with the other schools to try to establish the level of overlap because some, at least, will have applied to more than one school. We are working to try to ensure that everybody gets a place, even if it means that the place will not be at their first choice of school,” said Mr Travers.

Naas CBS has 1,020 students on the roll book in a premises built for 900.

The CBS admission policy guarantees places for pupils leaving St Corban’s primary school as well as close relatives of current students, former students and past pupils.

At the all-girls St Mary’s College, some 180 students will be taken into first year late next year.

This means that there are 104 girls on the waiting list. The school has an enrolment of 1,068.

Principal Mark Dowling said that more (192) students were admitted in 2021 but the school’s board of management did this just for one year. “We just don’t have the space to accommodate more and this is a large enrolment,” said Mr Dowling. A new school building is to be provided on the Sallins Road site and this won’t be completed until 2025 but the project will not lead to any new school places.

Naas Community College will absorb 180 students, or 60 more than last year.

“This ought to be enough to meet the requirements we are faced with and I think there will be enough capacity, bearing in mind the numbers that had to be accommodated last year,” said principal Ciarán Keegan.

Naas Community College currently has about 600 students.

Piper’s Hill College will welcome 175 students into first year and while this is less than the 2021 intake, principal Caroline Herity said that is the maximum number the school can cope with. Nevertheless, Ms Herity expects that nobody will be left without a place.

“Any student who wanted a place last time got one and that will be the case this year,” she said.

Acknowledging that there is a huge number of applications to attend the five schools, she said many of these students have applied to more than one school.

“The schools will communicate with each other to make sure that there is a place for everyone.”