Children and Young Persons Hub

Primary school in Ireland consists of an eight year cycle: junior infants, senior infants, and first to sixth classes. There are 2 types of primary school in Ireland; national primary schools (often called ‘national schools’) which are funded by the State and do not charge fees and private primary schools, which charge fees.

In this section we look at:

• Entrants to mainstream classes in national school
• Average class sizes in mainstream primary schools
• Number of primary school pupils attending Catholic ethos schools compared to multidenominational schools in Ireland
• Number of Irish medium primary schools inside and outside the Gaeltacht