Design of the new school

[TD]

Architecture is important. Let us assume that the new secondary school
will be built on a 12 acre site in Mooretown, Swords. Will Educate
Together design the school or liaise with the OPW on the design? It's
useful to flag this issue early as bland architecture usually makes
for a bland school.

[TD]

The following is from the minutes of a meeting of FINGAL
DEVELOPMENT BOARD May 2008. It suggests that FCC wishes to have
more influcence on school design in Fingal and has already made a
start with engaging with the Dept. of Education. However the official
position appears to be that the DOE still decides everything. Further
the
present County Manager, David O'Connor, used to be the County
Architect and so should be disposed to consider positive initiatives
on design.

FINGAL SCHOOLS MODEL
Senan Turnbull, Director of Services for the Community,
Recreation and Amenities Department, made a presentation to the
Board on the progress of the Fingal Schools Model.
He indicated that Fingal County Council has
a signed agreement with Department of Education
Science whereby the Council identifies school sites and assists
in their acquisition. He also added that 50% of any land acquisition
savings would be reinvested on the site to enhance school/community
facilities to a minimum standardised design. The 'Model' ensures a
guaranteed access by community to enhanced facilities outside of
normal school hours. The School then becomes the hub for the whole
community and opens up the possibility of co-location of other
facilities eg Health and Open Space.

[Robert Dowling]

Hi there,
Realistically we will be meeting with the politicos early in the New Year.
Please do not be fooled by the so called Fingal schools plan. I am very
familiar with it as both Senan and I worked on it's inception. It has been
morphed so much from its original plan to become a vehicle for putting
schools on lands which are lease profitable to developers and usually fails
to serve the central focus of the community as was first mooted back in 2003
when the Donabate complex was meant to be the hub of the community/
educational campus. ( Take Lusk ET located beside the waterworks plant)
Lots of work exist on school planning and site design. See the attached
blueprint the BOD approved recently, a wonderful piece of work by Fiona
Richardson.
Our primary mission objective it to make the claim on that site,sent the
message about we are planning to put a ET secondary school there and create
a bow wave of expectation that would be politically too dangerous for the
public representatives to deny and thereby lock them in to supporting the
project publically irrespective of whatever private reservations they may
have for the VEC.
We need to get the message out to the parents this is going to happen,
despite the long haul ahead we must create the lobby vehicle to hassle the
TD's before DES has a back room meeting with the others in the VEC. I think
we need to pull off a spectacular (Some form of publicity stunt with parents
and children) to get the profile and keep the foot soldiers on alert. Excuse
my enthusiasm, but there is a short window of opportunity and we can't
afford to miss it.
Enjoy the holiday festivities

[Robert Dowling]

forgot the attached

----- Original Message -----
From: "TD" <to...@dolanm.com>
To: "SETSAG" <set...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2009 4:00 PM
Subject: [setsag:10] Re: Design of the new school

[Emer Nowlan]

Thanks for sending around that draft, Bob. 

The final Blueprint is available online here if anyone hasn't seen it yet.

Emer

Emer Nowlan

Second-level Project Manager

-----------------------------------------------------------

Educate Together

8HA Centrepoint Business Park, Oak Drive, Dublin 12, Ireland

Tel: +353 1 429 2500

Mobile: +353 870549753

Learn Together to Live Together

No Child an Outsider

<Blueprint May 14th.doc>