Longwood school on target for early summer opening

Work on Longwood"s new primary school is progressing on schedule and, if everything continues to go to plan, pupils may be in the new school before the summer holidays. The new school is being built by Glenman Corporation, and includes 12 classrooms, a general purpose room, a number of resource rooms, administration office, photocopying area, principal"s office, library and resource area, disabled shower room and general stores. There will also be a basketball court that will double as the senior play area, a junior play area and a grass section for football. Pedestrian access will also be provided over a new bridge for the adjacent estates. School principal John Ennis said: 'Everything is running to programme, if not slightly ahead. The weather has been kind and things have gone well.' He said that, at this stage, the roof is on, windows are in, radiators are being fitted and carpentry work is being done inside. Internal painting is also underway. 'We are nearly at the final hurdle, they are quite close to the finish. The way it is looking, we will be in before September. If there are no hitches, we will be in before the summer,' said Mr Ennis. Longwood NS is currently operating on three sites - the existing four-classroom school, the parish hall and the GAA clubhouse some 700 metres away. Mr Ennis said he is looking forward to 'getting the school back together in a defined, closed-in, secure area'. He said the split means parents are dropping off at one site and moving on to another and they have had to have different start times with a split of 10 minutes to enable parents do that. 'All this will finish and we will have one school with one start time and one finish time,' he said. Fundraising is underway to equip the new school and a charity run/hunt will take place this Sunday, 25th January, starting from Longwood at 1.30pm. The event is being organised by Martin Rowley and over 100 riders are expected. A number of courses will be available to cater for riders of all ages and standards. An auction will be held afterwards. 'There will also be a parachute jump on 1st February where four brave teachers will jump from a plane at Clonbalogue, Co Offaly,' he added. While work is progressing on the new primary school, plans for the new secondary school have been stalled. A deal had been struck by Meath VEC to purchase the site for the new school adjacent to the primary school, but because of budget cuts, the Department of Education instructed the VEC not to complete the sale. VEC CEO Peter Kierans said: 'I raised it directly with the Education Minister when he visited one of our schools in December and he was aware of the situation, which had been brought to his attention by Minister Noel Dempsey and he is aware it is a priority case. However, he said that most of the finances for 2009 are already dedicated to named projects.' Mr Kierans said St Fintina"s new school is the VEC"s top priority in the county and that it is the one school that has not had any significant advance in its accommodation during the Celtic Tiger years. There are currently 180 students in the school. The home economics, woodwork, science and computer rooms are all in the permanent building but the rest of the school is in temporary accommodation. While St Fintina"s may be behind on the accommodation front, Mr Kierans said the school has been designated as an IT learning centre small school model and that all first year students will have laptops next year.