{"id":41558,"date":"2025-09-03T20:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T20:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/41558\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T20:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T20:09:07","slug":"irelands-largest-school-forced-to-close-classes-due-to-secretary-and-caretaker-strike-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/41558\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s largest school forced to close classes due to secretary and caretaker strike \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A school in Co Wexford<\/a> has had to close its classes to a number of students due to the ongoing school secretaries and caretakers strike<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gorey Community School, the largest school in the country with 1,630 students, has limited attendance each day to a restricted number of year groups. <\/p>\n

Classes were restricted to first, fifth and sixth years on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Other years were in attendance earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

Plans to engage in online learning for the duration of the strike were cancelled, principal Michael Finn said, when he received clarification from the teachers\u2019 unions that teachers were not permitted to engage in online learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing really is health and safety,\u201d Mr Finn said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThings can go wrong over the course of the day. We have three caretakers who are busy really from the moment they come in to the moment they leave. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re talking about issues in toilets, blocked toilets, drains – you\u2019re talking about little electrical faults. You\u2019re talking about the fact that we have a roof, which is getting replaced next summer, but that does leak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Finn said he hoped they could increase the number of students attending school and added he was engaging with the boards and the Department of Education.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Our absence impacts the children\u2019: School secretaries and caretakers continue strike over work conditionsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Teachers are putting work on Microsoft Teams for students \u201cbut it\u2019s not the same as being taught\u201d, Mr Finn said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe year groups at home today are second years and third years. With the best will in the world, they\u2019re not going to self-motivate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Finn said he needed to find some way forward. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy big worry is that this strike isn\u2019t going to go anywhere. There doesn\u2019t appear to be any indication of any resolution – none whatsoever. We can\u2019t go on for another month. I don\u2019t even want to go on for another week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t indefinitely keep certain youth groups at home. That just is completely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parent Sinead Fox has two children at the school. One child, a third-year student, has only been in school one day this week and is not expected to be at school again until next week. Her fifth-year student has missed four days of school.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0School secretaries and caretakers demand pension parityOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s affecting everybody\u2019s education. Then you\u2019ve got families where kids \u2026 need to go to school on different days. The school canteen is shut because the school can\u2019t deal with the waste,” she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want the kids back to school. They need the routine. They\u2019ve been off since the end of May.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Fox is fearful that their education will suffer in the short-term if the strike continues. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe nice things about school are going to be cut,\u201d she said, explaining she received an email outlining that planned dates for cinema trips, retreats and other activities would be cancelled to ensure the curriculum is covered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A school in Co Wexford has had to close its classes to a number of students due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,12551,1420,7,8,2451],"class_list":{"0":"post-41558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-second-level","22":"tag-students","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories","25":"tag-wexford"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}