Photo: Colin Park · CC BY-SA 2.0More children at the schools around Castlepollard: +17% since 2019/20, above Co. Westmeath’s towns and Irish towns
That puts Castlepollard above both Co. Westmeath’s towns (+4%) and Irish towns (+4%). Pupils: 512, up 17% since 2019/20. These schools are described rather than graded, because Ireland publishes no school results and the Education Act 1998 restricts comparing them.
Every school in the town or within 3 km of its outline, from the Department of Education’s lists for 2025/26; Ireland’s figures are every school in the lists.
What stands out about Castlepollard’s schools
Extra support for many schools
Many schools here are in DEIS, which gives schools in disadvantaged areas more teachers, money and help; across Ireland, 30% of schools are. In DEIS: Castlepollard Community College (318) and Castlepollard Mixed N.S. (169). Who runs them ↓
More pupils every year
Pupil numbers at the schools here have grown faster than across Ireland (+5% since 2019/20), so classes and new places are a question worth asking. Pupils over time ↓
From the Department of Education’s school lists: facts, not judgements of how well a school teaches.
Who runs Castlepollard’s schools
Ethos as listed for 2025/26: each bar splits the schools by who runs them.
1 of Castlepollard’s 3 schools have a Catholic ethos, against 80% across Ireland. The patrons with most schools here: Longford & Westmeath ETB (1), Bishop of Meath (1) and Bishop of Meath & Kildare COI (1). 2 of the 3 are in DEIS, the extra support for schools in disadvantaged areas (30% across Ireland).
Department of Education school lists: ethos 2025/26, patron 2024/25 (the 2025/26 lists don’t give it). DEIS list 2025/26.
Pupil numbers around Castlepollard
Each September’s pupils at every school in or within 3 km of the town, counted where the school stands today.
The schools in and around Castlepollard had 402 pupils in 2015/16 and 512 in 2025/26. Castlepollard Mixed N.S. grew most: +20% since 2019/20.
Pupils at schools in and around Castlepollard
Department of Education enrolments at 30 September each year, 2015/16 to 2025/26 (preliminary), for every school placed in the area today; schools that have since closed or merged count where they stood.
The 3 schools in and around Castlepollard
Every school in Castlepollard or within 3 km of its outline, each linked to its own page. No letters and no results: Ireland publishes none school by school.
Where the 3 schools in and around Castlepollard are
Each school where the official list places it, shaded by who runs it and sized by pupils; squares are secondary schools, triangles special schools. The dashed shape is Castlepollard’s outline; schools within 3 km of it count.
Places from the Department of Education’s school lists (its own coordinates for all but a handful); map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Teaching through Irish in and around Castlepollard
Schools by the language they teach in; the black tick is Ireland’s share.
None of the 3 schools in and around Castlepollard teaches every subject through Irish.
Who Castlepollard’s schools serve
The pupils at the area’s schools by share, beside Co. Westmeath’s and Ireland’s, 2025/26
Each bar is the area’s share; the tick marks Ireland’s.
DEIS by stage: pupils at DEIS schools
| Share of pupils | Around Castlepollard | Co. Westmeath | Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pupils at DEIS schools | 95% | 23% | 27% |
| Pupils at all-Irish schools | 0% | 3% | 6% |
| Girls | 46% | 51% | 49% |
More of the pupils around Castlepollard are at DEIS schools than across Ireland: 95% against 27% (Co. Westmeath: 23%). Set beside Ireland, pupils at all-Irish schools stand out most: 0% against 6%. The largest DEIS school here is Castlepollard Community College, with 318 pupils.
Each of the 3 schools
| School | Pupils | Girls | DEIS | All-Irish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Castlepollard Community CollegePost-primary · ETB | 318 | 47% | ✓ | |
| Castlepollard Mixed N.S.Primary | 169 | 46% | ✓ | |
| Castlepollard Paroc.n.s.Primary | 25 | 36% |
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary): enrolments by sex and the DEIS list. Shares are of pupils, not of schools; a county’s are the schools listed with its towns.
The 3 patrons of Castlepollard’s schools
Each school has a patron that owns it and sets its ethos; its board of management runs it.
Longford & Westmeath ETB is patron of 1 of the 3 schools around Castlepollard, which teach 62% of their pupils; 3 patrons run them in all. The local Education and Training Board runs one.
| Patron | Ethos | Schools | Pupils |
|---|---|---|---|
| Longford & Westmeath ETBCastlepollard | Multi-denominational | 1 | 318 |
| Bishop of MeathCastlepollard Mixed | Catholic | 1 | 169 |
| Bishop of Meath & Kildare COICastlepollard Paroc.n.s. | Church of Ireland | 1 | 25 |
Department of Education school lists: patron 2024/25, ethos 2025/26.
How children get a place in Castlepollard
Starting primary school
Children can start primary school once they are four, and must be in school by six. Families apply to each school directly. Every school publishes an admission policy and a yearly admission notice; a school with more applicants than places admits on the criteria in its policy. Since the Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018, a Catholic or other majority-faith primary school can’t put baptised children first; a school of a minority faith still can, to keep its ethos.
Moving to secondary school
Children move to post-primary school at about twelve, after sixth class. Again, families apply to each school, usually a year or more ahead, and an oversubscribed school admits on its published criteria, often brothers and sisters and its feeder primary schools.
Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018; each school’s admission policy and notice are on its own website.
Which schools are growing
Of these 3 schools, 3 have grown by at least 5% since 2019/20 and 0 have lost as much; Ireland’s pupils changed by +5%.
Department of Education enrolments at 30 September, 2019/20 and 2025/26 (preliminary). No capacity is published, so how full a school is can’t be shown.
Inspection reports for Castlepollard’s schools
The Inspectorate’s published reports for each school, linked, without ratings
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.
The reports describe what inspectors saw and what each school should do next. They give no overall grade, so none is shown here; the 3 schools below each link their own.
| School | Reports on gov.ie |
|---|---|
| Castlepollard Community CollegePost-primary · ETB | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Castlepollard Mixed N.S.Primary | Inspection reports ↗ |
| Castlepollard Paroc.n.s.Primary | Inspection reports ↗ |
Department of Education Inspectorate reports on gov.ie, found by each school’s roll number.
Post-primary schools within reach of Castlepollard
All post-primaries within 10 km; at about twelve, families choose and apply school by school
The only post-primary school within 10 km of Castlepollard is Castlepollard Community College, an ETB school. It takes girls and boys. None within 10 km teaches every subject through Irish.
| School | Takes | Also | Pupils | Away |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Castlepollard Community CollegeETB · Multi-denominational | Girls and boys | DEIS | 318 | 1 km |
Department of Education post-primary list 2025/26; straight-line distances from the town’s centre point.
Special schools and classes around Castlepollard
No special school is in or near Castlepollard. 1 of the 2 primary schools have special classes for children who need more support. Their cards ↑
Special schools and primary schools with special classes as the Department lists them; the National Council for Special Education places pupils in special classes.
Castlepollard beside the 135 other Irish towns of 900 to 1,800 people
Towns of a similar size, with the schools in or within 3 km of each; ordered by population, never ranked
| Town | People | Schools | Pupils | All-Irish | DEIS schools | Nearest post-primary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collooney | 1,797 | 3 | 580 | 0 | 33% | 3.4 km |
| … | ||||||
| Stradbally | 1,404 | 2 | 375 | 0 | 0% | 10 km |
| Moville | 1,390 | 5 | 1,100 | 1 | 40% | 0.8 km |
| Ballinroad | 1,389 | 7 | 2,813 | 1 | 14% | 1.1 km |
| Rathdowney | 1,368 | 2 | 627 | 0 | 50% | 1.1 km |
| Castlepollard | 1,349 | 3 | 512 | 0 | 67% | 1 km |
| Lismore | 1,347 | 3 | 1,250 | 0 | 0% | 0.5 km |
| Ballybay | 1,329 | 4 | 772 | 0 | 50% | 0.4 km |
| Ferbane | 1,324 | 2 | 630 | 0 | 50% | 0.3 km |
| Johnstown | 1,320 | 13 | 7,322 | 1 | 0% | 3.3 km |
| … | ||||||
| Clarinbridge | 905 | 2 | 451 | 0 | 0% | 5.5 km |
Of these 135 other towns, 80 count more pupils at their schools than Castlepollard. An all-Irish school is within 3 km of 14 of the 136.
Department of Education school lists 2025/26 (preliminary); CSO Census 2022 populations.
Schools in the towns around Castlepollard
For each nearby town, its schools in or within 3 km of its outline, with straight-line distances.
Mullingar has the most schools teaching through Irish nearby: 2. Pupils around Castlepollard: +17% since 2019/20. Among the neighbours, Granard led (+21%) and Oldcastle trailed (−1%).
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Which schools count. Every school in Castlepollard or within 3 km of its outline, as the Department places it: families here use them. Schools further out are on the map of each school’s own page.
- The kinds of school. Primary schools take children from junior infants to sixth class, about ages 4 to 12. Post-primary schools teach the Junior and Leaving Certificate, about ages 12 to 18: voluntary secondary schools (mostly with a religious patron), ETB schools and community colleges run by an Education and Training Board, and community and comprehensive schools. Special schools teach children with particular needs.
- Teaching through Irish. All-Irish: every subject taught through Irish, in the Gaeltacht or, outside it, a Gaelscoil or Gaelcholáiste. Partly in Irish: an Irish stream (some classes entirely through Irish) or some subjects through Irish. Every other school teaches Irish as a subject.
- DEIS. DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) gives schools serving disadvantaged areas more teachers, money and support; the Department decides which schools are in it.
- Ethos and patron. Most Irish schools are owned by a patron, mostly a church; the patron sets the school’s ethos. Multi-denominational schools (Educate Together, many ETB schools) teach children of every faith and none together.
- No grade. Section 53 of the Education Act 1998 lets the Minister refuse to release information that would allow schools’ exam results to be compared, and no results are published school by school. So Ireland’s schools have no letters and its towns no School Grade; nothing on this page ranks them.
- What isn’t here. What the UK and French pages show from results, these can’t: results charts, results against pupils’ backgrounds and towns ranked by their schools (no published results), and how full each school is (no capacity is published). Every post-primary school teaches to the Leaving Certificate, so there is no sixth-form split to show.
- Inspections. The Inspectorate’s reports are linked from each school’s page. They give no overall grade, so none is shown.
- The year. The 2025/26 lists are the Department’s preliminary release; numbers can change a little in the final lists.
Questions about schools in Castlepollard
How many schools are there in Castlepollard?
In Castlepollard or within 3 km of it: 2 primary schools and 1 secondary school, with 512 pupils between them.
Are there schools in Castlepollard that teach through Irish?
None in Castlepollard or within 3 km of it teaches every subject through Irish; some teach it as a subject only.
Are there fee-paying secondary schools near Castlepollard?
No: the secondary school here is free.
What is the best school in Castlepollard?
We don’t say. Ireland publishes no exam results school by school, and section 53 of the Education Act 1998 restricts comparing them; a ranking would rest on guesses. Each school’s page has its own facts and a link to its inspection reports, and visiting the schools you are weighing is still the best guide.
How do I get a place at a school in Castlepollard?
Apply to each school directly: every school publishes an admission policy and a yearly admission notice with its dates. If it has more applicants than places, it admits on the criteria in its policy.
Sources: Department of Education, school lists 2025/26 (preliminary) and enrolments since 2015/16, CC BY 4.0 · one school placed with OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL). Under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).
Contains Central Statistics Office (CSO) data, Census 2022, and Tailte Éireann boundaries (CSO Urban Areas, Small Areas, local electoral areas, constituencies), under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).