About

Oatlands College is a Voluntary Secondary School founded officially in 1951 in Stillorgan Dublin. It is of Roman Catholic Denomination and the founding brothers were Edmund Rice order Christian Brothers. The motto of Oatlands College is Facere et docere which means “to do and to teach”. The School has always been a single sex school and this is due to it being a Christian Brother School, this reasoning will be explored more in the Founding Organization section. The school is readily accepted as one of the best Schools in the Dublin area, often placing quite highly on lists comparing non-fee paying schools. Not only is it an excellent school in terms of academics it is also a brilliant school when it comes to how they treat their students and the experience each student has when they come to the school. This is in my opinion because of the school ethos and their commitment to their motto “to do and to teach”. As a past pupil myself I cannot speak highly enough of the school and my own personal experiences of the school, and for the large majority of students that have attended the school these feelings are mutual.

There are currently around 540 students registered in the school,approximately 70 students are preparing to complete their leaving certificate exams this year. When the school first opened there were only about 30 students graduating per year in fact according to the history of the school provided by Collins and Madigan (1) the very first graduating class of 1956 had just 8 students. This number increased fairly rapidly so much so that by 1960 there were 26 students graduating.

In the late 60s were there was a huge increase in the number of students attending the school. This increase coincided with education policy change whereby the school entered the ‘Free Scheme’, this will be investigated more in the Facilities and Subjects section of the website. The ‘Free Scheme encouraged nearly all children to stay in school and complete at least secondary level education, giving them a better chance of succeeding in what was considered a new modern Ireland (O’Reilly, 2012(6)). The increase in the number of students has impacted the size of the working staff and the physical size of the school.

The changes in educational policy has also resulted in far more subjects being offered as exam subjects and governing bodies have made changes to ensure that only qualified teachers can register to teacher certain subjects. There are over 50 teachers employed by the school and two full time secretaries due to the huge amount of administrating work required. School facilities have had to improve to allow the school to increase the number of students. New facilities have also been added to the school since its founding. A huge number of pupils have passed through the doors in Oatlands College since its founding and it is no surprise to learn that there have been a number of students go on to fame in varying fields from writers, actors, entrepreneurs and outstanding athletes.