Educate Together launched its new three year Business Planin the Chester Beatty Library on 29th March 2007. David Denny, Chairperson of Educate Together introduced the procedings. The document was formerly launched by Fergus Finlay, Chief Executice of Barnardoes. Paul Rowe, CEO of Educate Together described the plan for the guests. This was followed by a reception in the Library.
“This plan is aimed at strengthening Educate Together to meet the demand from parents all over Ireland for places in its schools. It charts a path for the organisation that will see it setting higher standards- in the delivery of its services to children, staff and parents in schools, in expanding the influence of its network in education and making significant strides in educational reform,” Paul Rowe explained at the launch.
Highlights of the Strategic Objectives set for the organisation in this plan are:
- Strengthening the quality of leadership, management and teaching in Educate Together schools
- Working to introduce significant change in the way that all new schools are set up
- Ending the situation in which colleges of education only train teachers in Catholic or Protestant religious education programmes.
The plan also sets exciting additional objectives that the organisation can address when it achieves additional funding. These include:
- Piloting its first second-level school
- Piloting its model in pre-schooling and after-school care
- Introducing quality assurance programmes in its schools
The plan also set goals for the organisation that include a long-term target to establish a total of 400 Educate Together Model schools in Ireland
The plan has been drawn up after a detailed examination of the context and need for the expansion of Educate Together’s work in the next three years. It presents a challenging and progressive set of objectives for our organisation that we believe will be of lasting benefit to education in Ireland and to Irish society in general over the next three years. At the same time it identifies some major issues of public policy that must be addressed if our education system can meet the needs of 21st century Ireland.
The staff, directors and members of Educate Together â as well as many workshop participants â worked on this plan from the beginning of summer 2006 until March 2007. It involved a full and detailed review of Educate Together’s role in Irish education, of its resources, strategy and plans. We believe that we have come up with an exciting, realistic and fully worked out plan to significantly improve all aspects of our network in the coming years. We would also like to thank all those you agreed to be interviewed by our researchers or contributed comments to help our analysis.
Executive Summary- The executive summary of the Business Plan is available for download here download here.
The Future Starts Here Every Day- Click to download the Business Plan
If you would like a hard copy version please contact the office on 01 4292500 or email info@educatetogether.ie
