GET2LS

Last night GET2LS won the volunteer category of the Better Together video competition!

The ceremony took place in Dublin Castle, where the winners in each category were announced following a great speech from Joe Schmidt.

In a very glitzy venue on a very large screen the hundreds of people who were present watched the GET2LS video below in full and gave it a huge applause.

We are sincerely grateful to all those who made this win possible. In particular, we would like to thank the wonderfully confident and articulate children who participated in the video, the staff of Kilcolgan ETNS who facilitated filming, Frank Delaney for producing the video, the GET2LS committee for promoting the video and … all of you for voting and sharing (again and again!).

Today we celebrate, but next week we’ll be back to work striving to achieve our ultimate aim … an Educate Together Second Level School in Galway!

GETLS were mentioned in the Galway Advertiser today concerning our entry in the Better Together competition. You can view the full issue the clipping came from here.

GET2LS were speaking to Galways Flirt FM today about our groups mission to get a Second Level Educate Together for Galway and about our Better Together video entry.

@get2ls Galway Educate Together 2nd Level School – Startup Group Speak to newsfeed by Flirtnewsfeed on Mixcloud

We have entered a video promoting our campaign in the Better Together competition. We believe that if we can achieve a very high number of votes for this video (or perhaps even win!) we can use this as further evidence of how much support there is for an Educate Together second-level school in Galway.

The link at which you can cast your (daily!) vote is: http://www.bettertogether.ie/video/galway-educate-together-second-level-school-start-group

The voting period for this competition runs from September 25th – November 21st 2014. During this period we are asking our supporters to do 2 things:

1. Vote once a day every day – voting takes only a few seconds.

2. Ask your extended family, friends, colleagues and other contacts to vote by emailing them the link below and sharing the link on your Facebook page.

Voting is not limited to those who have children who are hoping to attend an Educate Together second-level school in Galway. Rather, anyone anywhere who supports our campaign is invited to vote.

Thank you very much in advance for your support. We strongly believe that if we work together we can achieve an Educate Together second-level school for all our children in Galway.

GET2LS will be holding its 2014 annual general meeting at 8pm on Monday, June 16th in GETNS, Newcastle. If you have already filled out an expression of interest form, are a parent of a child attending an Educate Together school in Galway, or are just interested in finding out more, we’d love if you could attend.

At the meeting we’ll give an update on our activities for past 12 months. These include:

• preparing a submission for the Minister for Education and Skills and the Department of Education arguing for an Educate Together post-primary school for Galway. This submission was largely based on a demographic analysis of relevant census data conducted by Dr. Valerie Ledwith for the GET2LS campaign;
• meeting with Paul Rowe, CEO of Educate Together, to discuss and advance our campaign;
• liaising with and learning from committee members of other ET start-up groups;
• promoting our campaign through information stands held in local shopping centres;
• increasing awareness of the GET2LS campaign on social and other media;
• ensuring our continued compliance with the Governance Code for the Community and Voluntary Sector;
• gathering expressions of interest covering over 300 additional children. This means that in total we have now collected over 900 expressions of interest from parents who would like their child to attend an Educate Together post-primary school in Galway.

We are very interested in hearing your views on the GET2LS campaign so if you have any questions or issues you’d to raise you can do so on the night.

Finally, we would be delighted to welcome additional members to the committee so if you are interesting in helping advance this exciting campaign please let us know either by email or at the AGM itself.

Hope to see you there!

Fantastic news as Department of Education announce 5 new Educate Together Secondary schools, us next please.

BREAKING NEWS this morning: Government announces new Educate Together post-primary schools in CORK, KILDARE, WICKLOW and DUBLIN.

– 5 new Educate Together schools opening in 2015/2016
– increasing demand for this innovative model of education
– importance of parental choice in education recognised

More Details: http://www.educatetogether.ie/media/national-news/new-secondary-schools

The latest issue of Primary Times magazine has a nice piece about our campaign and the growing demand for an Educate Together second level school in Galway.

You can read the article on page 7 of the issue linked here, or you check it out below.

At 8PM on Friday May 10th, in GETNS Newcastle, GET2LS will be holding its annual general meeting for 2013.

If you’ve already filled out an expression of interest form, are a parent of any child attending an Educate Together school in Galway or are just interested in finding out more, we’d love if you could attend.

At the meeting we’ll give an update on our activities for the year including:

• Developing a website and online expression of interest registration system
• Promoting our objective of a Galway Educate Together Secondary School through a variety of local and other media
• Promoting our campaign through information stands held in local shopping centres
• Gaining public support for our campaign from many Galway politicians – see their letters of support on our website
• Ensuring that our group meets very high standards of governance by adopting The Governance Code for the Community, Voluntary and Charity sector
• Participating in and contributing to various Educate Together initiatives at a national level
• Gathering expressions of interest covering over 600 children whose parents who would like their child to attend an Educate Together Secondary School in Galway.

We’ll also be seeking your feedback so if you have any questions or issues you’d to raise you can do so on the night or contact us beforehand by using out contact form.

Hope to see you there!

Tuam and Loughrea may be getting ET primary schools according a new report from the Minister for Education & Skills. The report indicates that 23 towns will see change in the patronage of primary schools. This is based on parental preference which is a huge vote of confidence for Educate Together. You can see the announcement here and the full report here.

There is no doubt that an increased number of ET primary schools in Galway will give even more weight to our call for an ET second level school.

In recent weeks GET2LS has been reaching out to local politicians to gain their assistance in moving our campaign forward.

You can check out the many letters of support we have received on our political support page.

The following parliamentary question was also submitted by Noel Grealish TD:

DÁIL QUESTION

Addressed to the Minister for Education & Skills (Mr. Ruairi Quinn)
By: Deputy Noel Grealish

To ask the Minister for Education & Skills, given that there are currently 500 children in Galway attending Educate Together Primary Schools and these numbers are set to increase significantly in the coming years has the Minister any plans to provide a post-primary Educate Together School in Galway and if he will make a statement on the matter.