Fifty children gather every Saturday at a Polish school in Limerick that operates out of St Patrick's girls school on the Dublin Road, one of 38 Polish weekend schools operating in the Republic.
Divided into five classes, the pupils learn about Polish language, history and culture.
“Parents are eager to enrol their children. They want their children to improve their Polish language skills.
“Although they are using the Polish language at their homes it is spoken Polish only,” says the school’s principal Malgorzata Halwa-Zderkiewicz.
“Writing and reading is a problem for children,” she says, particularly – but not only – for the children of mixed parentage.
"In such families the predominant language is English. These children speak Polish poorly, and often can't communicate with grandparents and cousins in Poland, which is why parents send them to the Polish school to learn spoken Polish."
Two of Lidia Zeglinska’s children attend the Saturday school. Serving at the school’s chair, she says “it is about building their identity”.
“For better integration they must be confident about who they are. This enhances integration because at the moment some of them are not sure about who they are, but if they are confident in their own skin then they will be able to interact better.”
Parents pay monthly fees of €65 for the first child, €45 for a sibling, while the third child is free.
"Our children's main education in Ireland is in Irish schools and we wouldn't interfere with the Irish curriculum.
“We don’t even cover subjects like maths or geography, it’s only about Polish language and Polish culture and history,” says Zeglinska.
Polish ministry
A second and much larger Polish weekend school operates out of St Clement’s School in Limerick.
It is one of Ireland’s five public Szkolny Punkt Konsultacyjny schools supported by the Polish ministry of education, which promotes the learning of the Polish language among young Poles who live abroad.
A further 33 schools are operated and financed by local Polish communities with substantial support from the Polish ministry of foreign affairs.
In all, the 38 weekend schools cater for 4,700 Polish children living in Ireland, employing 300 teachers, making it the largest such network of immigrant-led schools in the Republic, according to the Polish embassy.
Daily users
Following the post-2004 immigration after the EU expanded into eastern and central
Europe
, Polish is now the second most spoken language in Ireland, with 120,000 daily users.
More than 16,000 Polish children are attending Department of Education-funded primary schools in the current academic year, with a further 7,000 Polish students now attending Irish secondary schools.
Data from the 2016 census which took place last month is expected to reveal that the number of Polish children of school-going age living in Ireland has grown by almost 10,000 since the last census five years ago.
From Monday to Friday a fifth of the pupils attending St Patrick’s girls school in Limerick are Polish, but the Saturday school is open to students from across Limerick, which is home to 10,000 Poles.
School principal Donie O’Gorman said St Patrick’s offered to accommodate the Saturday school because of the good working relationship it has developed with the Polish community in recent years.
“Many of the pupils that attend are not from our own school. Indeed, now the school is so successful that they have outgrown our building and are actively looking for a bigger school to operate from.”
Popularity
Despite the success and popularity of weekend schools the Polish embassy is concerned that many Polish children who attend are missing out on time they could be spending with Irish friends and neighbours.
“So many Polish kids attend weekend Polish schools at the expense of other activities they could be doing with their Irish friends and neighbours, such as sports including GAA and rugby, workshops, scouting,” said a spokesperson for the Polish embassy.
Consequently, it has opened discussions with the Department of Education about teaching Polish at primary level.
Already short courses in the language are given in early secondary years, while Polish is an option for the Leaving Cert.
“Our goal is to have the Polish language introduced in primary schools first in whatever form possible – as a curriculum subject, extra curriculum subject or simply as an additional activity after school hours,” the embassy spokesperson said.
“We’ve been made aware that the process of introducing a new subject to the educational system is very complex and time consuming so we don’t expect results immediately.”
The embassy’s caution is just as well since the Department of Education says its priority is to make sure that students of all nationalities are proficient in “the host language”, with language support offered to primary and secondary pupils.
Tomorrow: The deepening ties between locals and more recent arrivals
