S.N. Oir Cheann

Ireland publishes no exam results school by school, and section 53 of the Education Act 1998 restricts comparing schools by them, so this school has no letter and nothing here ranks it. Its facts are the Department of Education’s; its inspection reports are linked below.

What the Department of Education does publish for S.N. Oir Cheann is on this page: its pupils each September since 2015/16, girls and boys, its patron and ethos, whether it teaches through Irish, whether it is in DEIS, and its inspection reports.

Newspapers print lists of how many of a school’s leavers go on to college. Those count destinations, not exam results, and depend on who a school takes in; we don’t use them.

The Department of Education’s Inspectorate visits schools and publishes its reports. The reports describe what inspectors saw; they give no overall grade, and we don’t make one. Reports for this school on gov.ie ↗

Inspectors visit every kind of school. Whole-school evaluations look at teaching and learning, leadership and management; subject inspections look at one subject; follow-through inspections check whether earlier advice was taken. Each report is published on gov.ie with the school’s response.

Families apply to S.N. Oir Cheann directly. Children can start once they are four and must be in school by six; the school’s yearly admission notice gives the dates for applying and for its decisions.

A school with more applicants than places admits on the criteria in its admission policy, often brothers and sisters, the area it serves and, for post-primary schools, its feeder primaries. A family refused a place can appeal.

No figures on applications are published, but the roll shows demand: S.N. Oir Cheann has shrunk by 32% since 2019/20. All the schools around Castletownbere together changed by −1%.

Pupils since 2019/20

Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018; Department of Education enrolments 2019/20 and 2025/26 (preliminary).