About Us
Welcome to Catherine McAuley School
We Support Equality in Learning
Catherine McAuley School has a well established, long and successful history of catering for the needs of pupils with learning difficulties. The school is based in a beautiful green belt environment in Limerick city and has a catchment area extending to county Limerick, Tipperary and Clare. We are committed to ensuring that our pupils receive the very best teaching and support in every aspect of their learning. We ensure that our pupils’ success is recognised and celebrated. With a current pupil -teacher ratio of 11 – 1, we can provide extra attention and individual assistance to our pupils. Our school community thrives on it’s obvious happy and purposeful atmosphere, where each pupil is valued and respected and we aim to maintain positive relationships between our pupils and staff.
Why We Were Established
Catherine McAuley school was established in 1961 by the Mercy Sisters in Limerick as a response to the perceived needs for a minority of students who were experiencing difficulties in mainstream education. The first class of twelve students were taught in a single room in St John’s Primary School. As the numbers of students grew in the early years, the school moved to a classroom block in Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School in Rosbrien, Limerick. By the 1970’s, the school was catering for pupils of both primary and secondary school age, which also brought an increase in staffing. A purpose-built school was built on the beautiful grounds of Westbourne Convent and opened in 1979. By the mid 1980’s there were over two hundred students in the school.
Our Staff History
Sr Killian Bugler, the school’s first Principal, retired in 1993 after more than thirty years of dedicated service to the school and was succeeded by Mr. Liam Lawlor, then by Mrs.Kay Barry and recently by Mr. Greg Browne. The school has embraced many of the recognised secondary school programmes and consequently, a vocational unit and P.E. hall were added in the early 2000’s. A dedicated staff has ensured that pupils receive a broad-based curriculum, encompassing literacy and numeracy along with a wide variety of vocational subjects including horticulture, woodwork, home economics, hair care and information technology. The development of the whole person is integral to the school philosophy and consequently subjects like religious education, art, drama, physical education and social education are also on the curriculum for each student.
Mission Statement
It is our understood and shared aim to foster a community where life is lived according to the gospel values and whereby each member of that community is afforded every personal opportunity to realise his or her potential, which is to be a true imitator of Jesus Christ, who Himself said: “Love one another as I have loved you”.
We endeavour to educate our pupils to appreciate the dignity of the human being and develop a good personal and social attitude and learn long term skills to help them well into their futures. We wish our students to experience a sense of belonging, sharing and community and to grow to live a meaningful and fulfilling life as independently as possible. We aim to cultivate an environment where learning can enrich their lives so that they can celebrate their personal, developmental and academic successes. We also aim to nurture and encourage our pupils to take advantage of this centre of excellence and in the provision of their education, to help our pupil’s to reach their full potential and develop a sense of community, value in diversity and encourage inclusion in and out of the classroom.;”>We endeavor to educate our pupils to appreciate the dignity of the human being and develop a good personal and social attitude and learn long term skills to help them well into their futures. We wish our students to experience a sense of belonging, sharing and community and to grow to live a meaningful and fulfilling life as independently as possible. We aim to cultivate an environment where learning can enrich their lives so that they can celebrate their personal, developmental and academic successes. We also aim to nurture and encourage our pupils to take advantage of this centre of excellence and in the provision of their education, to help our pupil’s to reach their full potential and develop a sense of community, value in diversity and encourage inclusion in and out of the classroom.