‘We’re moving with the times’: Private all-girls’ school in south Dublin to admit boys for first time

St Joseph of Cluny, an all-girls secondary school in Killiney, Co Dublin, is to admit boys from next year in the latest sign of a shift towards coeducational schooling.

The 250-pupil secondary school, established in 1956, said the move was in response to growing demand among parents in the area for a mixed school. School principal Ben Healy said the plans had been under discussion for several years.

“There’s almost an expectation now that the coeducational piece will be offered,” he said. “There is quite a wide and diverse parent body now – it’s more international and from different parts of Europe – and they expect there to be co-ed. That was the main driving factor.”

Ireland has the second-highest proportion of single-sex schools in Europe, second only to Malta, and among the highest proportion of single-sex schools globally outside the Middle East.

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At second level, about 35 per cent of girls and 28 per cent of boys attend single-sex schools. However, the tide is changing as more all-boys and all-girls schools change to become coeducational.

Some 25 primary and post-primary schools had made the transition to co-ed status in the past three years, driven by parental demand for their children to attend the same primary or secondary school and for a broader range of subjects to be available to their children.

Despite the trend towards mixed schooling, there is still a high proportion of single-sex secondary schools across much of the south Dublin area.

While single-sex schools can attract polarised views – passionately in favour and against – Mr Healy said the plans have broad support from staff and parents.

“We discussed it with the parents’ body and even parents who were past pupils have agreed that it’s time to move with the times,” he said. “The school itself has a fine academic record. We feel it’s important to reflect the views of modern, 21st-century Ireland. That’s the reality. Ten years ago, perhaps, that wasn’t there.”

He added: “We have the facilities, we have the space, a full sports hall, a fantastic hockey pitch, basketball, tennis and good relations with the local community in terms of offering GAA and soccer.” There are no plans yet, Mr Healy said, to add rugby to the sports offering.

Admitting boys will require some small changes, such as changing facilities, toilets and the addition of new subjects such as technical graphics.

Mr Healy said the school’s fees – €5,450 a year – allow it to offer a student-teacher ratio of 18:1, as well as access to extracurricular activities and evening study up to 8pm. “Our price is mid-level, it’s not prohibitive.”

On the wider question of whether private schools should have teachers paid for by the State, he said it suited the Department of Education as it would cost more to bring fee-charging schools into the free sector.

The plan – subject to formal agreement by the department – is to admit the boys into first year in September 2025, and for subsequent years.

[ Number of schools switching from single sex to co-ed increases significantly ]

Sr Maeve Guinan, provincial superior of the order of St Joseph of Cluny, was the school’s principal for 18 years up to 2000. She said there was a time when it was assumed girls did better academically in all-girls’ schools.

“Girls didn’t want to be seen as too bright before the lads because they felt they didn’t want to be seen as nerds, to put it bluntly, so they held back a little bit,” she said.

“That has changed,” she said, pointing to research by the ESRI and others which indicates there is no academic advantage for teenagers attending single-sex schools.

There are other changes afoot at the school, founded almost 70 years ago by the French missionary order of St Joseph of Cluny. The convent adjoining the school will close shortly and is being sold off. It will have a new life as a nursing home and preschool.

Sr Guinan says the ethos at the school will live on, despite the changes.

“It’s why the Le Chéile trust was set up. It’s not a rigidly Catholic school. There is a focus on faith but there is a welcome for everyone,” she said. “I think you’ll have quite a few [boys] here once the news is out there. It should be a comfortable cohort. It won’t be just three who stick out like sore thumbs ... it’s easier to go from girls to co-ed, than boys to co-ed. It’s a smoother transition.”

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