Coláiste Feirste: School facing accommodation 'crisis'

Coláiste Feirste has about 900 pupils

Northern Ireland's biggest Irish-medium school is facing an accommodation "crisis", its head has warned.

Mícheál Mac Giolla Ghunna said Coláiste Feirste may have to use its staffroom and sports facilities as classrooms from September.

The west Belfast school is expected to have around 900 pupils in the 2022/23 school year.

The existing school building was only completed in 2018, but it was designed to accommodate 600 pupils.

Coláiste Feirste, which was founded in 1991, is one of only two Irish medium post-primary schools in Northern Ireland.

In recent years, its enrolment has been rising by around 50 to 60 pupils a year.

'Unprecedented situation'

Mr Mac Giolla Ghunna said that had left the school in "an unprecedented situation".

"It's important to emphasise to parents that we will accommodate pupils for next year," he told BBC News NI.

"There are 161 coming to us, and we will accommodate all of them and we will ensure their educational experience is very good in line with the standards in this school.

"But the school library is now a classroom, the technology classrooms are used for modern languages, there's no sixth form common room as that's used as a classroom.

"Store rooms are used for smaller A-Level classes.

"That's not acceptable because it was foreseen and that's what's really frustrating us.

"The crisis is continuing: at present we will have approximately 900 pupils in September and we estimate conservatively that we'll be over 1,000 in three years time.

"We are looking at using the staff room as a classroom.

"We're looking at using sports facilities as classrooms, we're looking at trying to get extra mobiles, but time is very short here."

There has been a significant rise in the number of pupils at Irish-medium primary schools in Belfast over the past five years and that has led to more demand for places in Coláiste Feirste.

The school has been attempting to find a second site in the north or west of the city to run a "satellite" campus but Mr Mac Giolla Ghunna said that had "hit a wall".

He said there would soon be a need for a second Irish-medium post-primary in Belfast.

'Crisis'

"That's a separate issue from the accommodation at Coláiste Feirste but we believe that demand is there for other provision," he said.

"That's an issue for the department as they have a duty to encourage and facilitate Irish medium education.

"The problem is that we're carrying that responsibility and we should never have been in this situation where we're approaching 300 extra pupils.

"Irish medium education is expanding and if we had a proactive partner in the Department of Education we could plan for that increase in a smooth and effective way.

"We'd avoid a lot of these crisis situations.

"To be fair, the department has engaged with us and is working with us, but we should never have been in this situation.

"Our frustration is there's no clear path forward over the coming years.

"We're crisis-managing the development rather than doing it in a strategic way.

"What we need to see from the department is a strategic approach to the development of Irish medium education."

Coláiste Feirste has around 130 staff including 65 teachers.

BBC News NI has contacted the Department of Education regarding the accommodation and planning issues raised by the school.