……Press Release…..Press Release……………Press Release…………..Press Release…..
TG4 Sundays 9.30pm from 21st March 2010.
For the first time ever cameras have been allowed in to Irish medium schools to follow the progress of teachers and students alike in their professional and personal lives from the beginning of the academic year until the end.
Three very different schools were chosen:A well established and very successful academic orientated school on the outskirts of Cork, Coláiste Choilm in Ballincollig shares its facilities with its sister English medium school
which has almost 1000 students.
In Belfast the fastest growing Irish secondary school in the country is 20 years old. Coláiste Feirste began with 9 pupils in a local Irish Language centre, An Chultúrlann, on the Falls Road but it quickly out grew its premises. Its campaign for survival was successfully spearheaded by the radical Irish language movement and today the school boasts 550 pupils and almost 50 teachers and has acquired a modern site proudly overlooking the rest of the city.
One of the newest Irish medium secondary schools in the country is located in North West Donegal in Buncrana. Coláiste Chineál Eoghain has only 23 pupils, no permanent accommodation and is under pressure to grow quickly or risk losing its funding from the Department of Education, which would spell closure.
Whether struggling for acceptance in inner city Belfast or enjoying the security of a long established English medium school in Cork, or fighting for survival in Donegal, all of the students and teachers alike experience the same joy at success and pain at failure. From September 2008 until June 2009 some of the key individuals share their lives with “Barr an Ranga”.
The 5 part series was funded by the Irish Language Broadcast Fund, and TG4 and is aco-production between Tobar Productions and Independent Pictures.
For further information contact:
Philip Campbell 0044 7961 577841, philip@tobarproductions.com
Or
Liam Lavelle 00 353 868141442, liaml@agtel.ie
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