Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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351. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the annual funding allocations in 2024 and 2025 for the small school's initiative; and the number of schools invested in each year. [43901/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The purpose of the small schools’ project is to inform the development of a policy of supports for small schools through working with education partners to trial innovative approaches to support and sustain small schools in a number of clusters.

There are 24 schools in the project in six clusters, two in Galway, and one each in Donegal, Kerry, Wicklow and Waterford, consisting of between three and five schools per cluster. The clusters are supported by part-time local coordinators sponsored by the education partners, working with a national project coordinator under the guidance of a steering group.

New ideas are being trialed to determine whether they might help to make small schools more sustainable. The schools participating across the six clusters in this project have developed good working relationships and have already provided valuable insights and ideas into supports that can be developed and replicated across small schools.

Some of the initiatives in the project don’t create additional costs. Funding in the form of an Innovation Fund (€150,000) is in place for the project’s lifetime and schools will not be asked to make a financial contribution to take part. For the duration of the project all existing mainstream staffing levels will be maintained.

On 30 April 2024, I was delighted to announce a further two-year extension (phase two) of the small schools’ action research project to support small schools in rural Ireland.