Pioneering founder of Home-School Community Liaison Scheme
CONCEPTA CONATY was was the pioneering founder of the Home-School Community Liaison Scheme and became national co-ordinator for disadvantage. initiatives. Her radical ideas and research on involving the home in the education of children were set out in her book, Including All.
She was born in Munterconnaught, Co Cavan in 1947. One of four children, she was the only daughter of Charles and Mary Conaty. Her father was a farmer and her mother was a national teacher.
She attended Ballinalough National School, where her mother taught, and from there she completed her secondary education in St Louis Secondary School in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan. After secondary school, she joined the Presentation Order in Kildare, and while there she went to Carysfort Training College where she qualified as a national teacher.
However, life in the convent was not what she wanted, and shortly after leaving the Presentation Sisters, she started teaching in Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan. Always wanting to further her education, she moved to Dublin, taking up a teaching post in Bonnybrook in north Dublin.
This allowed her to enrol in UCD to study for her BA and H.Dip by night. Teaching by day and studying by night, she graduated with a degree in philosophy and economics.
Later she attended Maynooth College from where she graduated with an MA. In the meantime, she had moved from Bonnybrook to Killinarden in Tallaght, taking up a post first as deputy principal and later principal of Sacred Heart Junior School, Killinarden.
Her experiences with the marginalised communities of Bonnybrook and Killinarden fostered her deep interest in and great passion for those communities who are economically, socially and educationally disadvantaged.
She recognised early on in her teaching career that for schools to effect positive change in the lives of their pupils, it would be necessary to reach out beyond the school walls to the homes and communities from which those pupils came.
Believing in parents as the prime educators of their children, she began inviting parents into the school, initially for simple basic courses, and later into the classes to partner teachers in reading and numeracy activities. From this courageous and radical beginning grew the Home-School Community Liaison Scheme.
In 1990, when Mary ORourke was minister for education, Conaty was approached by Seán Glennane, then chief inspector, and she agreed to set up a pilot scheme in 55 schools. The scheme ran as a pilot for three years and was then mainstreamed and has since become the “cornerstone and force for integration of service in all departmental strategies that are designed to address educational disadvantage and early school leaving”. The scheme has grown in strength, depth and number over the intervening years and is now embedded in 651 schools. Conaty also became the national co-ordinator for disadvantage initiatives.
Since this initiative was innovative and unique, it required a different approach to professional development for those teachers who became home-school liaison co-ordinators. Conaty designed and delivered these professional development modules, drawing on the works and philosophies of Paulo Freire, Pantin in Trinidad and Tobago and Ruth Paz in Israel. At the heart of the Home-School Community Liaison Scheme is the fundamental concept of partnership. She described it as a "crucial insight" and truly believed in its power to transform schools and communities. She wrote that "partnership is brought about by the consistent commitment to the demanding and painful work of human relations." The Home School Community Liaison Scheme is rooted in its 12 basic principles and these guide the work of the co-ordinator. Conaty wanted the scheme to have credibility and value, and set about researching the core elements of the scheme and its outcomes on the ground. This extensive research, conducted while she travelled all around the country visiting schools, formed the substantive part of her doctoral thesis. Her thesis in turn led to the publication of her book, Including All.
Her work ethic and courage were remarkable, as were her passion and advocacy for the poor and marginalised. She was forceful when she needed to be and did not tolerate any compromising of the basic tenets of the scheme.
Her legacy is not only a strong, vigorous Home-School Community Liaison Scheme, but also many school principals, who originally worked as co-ordinators, are now transforming their school communities through the empowering work of partnership. She has bequeathed the vision; those who are left behind must continue the journey.
Not only has Conaty’s death left an immense void in the whole landscape of Irish education, but also in the lives of her family, friends and work colleagues. For those friends and family, who had the privilege of knowing her on a more intimate level, her death is even more devastating because they have lost a woman with a unique energy, a big heart and that most precious of all gifts, the ability to see goodness in everybody.
She is survived by her brothers Patrick, Cathal and Micheál, her sisters-in-law May and Paula and her nephews and nieces Simon, Martina, Justine and Warren. Solas na bhFlaitheas dá hanam uasal.
Concepta Conaty: Born June 2nd 1947; died February 13th 2000