St Olaf’s National School

Founded in 1968, St.
Olaf’s National
School celebrates its 40th
anniversary this year. St. Olaf’s is a Catholic school under the
patronage of the Archbishop of Dublin.
Currently our school has 15 mainstream classes, 7 Resource / Learning
Support teachers and an enrolment of 380 pupils. We cater for both boys and
girls from Junior Infants to 6th Class. Situated on Balally Drive,
and backing onto St. Benildus College, the school is ideally located to cater
for children from a wide area  including the districts of
Dundrum, Sandyford and parts of Kilmacud.

Our school is called St. Olaf’s
because of its location in Balally (Baile Mhic Amhlaoibh) – the town of
the son of Olaf. Olaf has been identified as Sitric Mac Amhlaoibh – Norse
King of Dublin who founded Christchurch in the 11th Century
hence the Viking ship on our crest which was designed by a local heraldic
artist – Mr Séamas Cahill of Balally Avenue.

Many
changes have taken place since September 1968 when the school first opened its
doors to 33 Junior Infant girls and boys in a small prefab on what was then a
peaceful wooded site in the country. Our first Principal, Mrs Brigid Cannon was
in charge then until her retirement in January 1996 when the current Principal,
Mr Gerard Murphy, was appointed.

Balally was indeed a different place then
and, as the area grew, so too did the local schools. The present school campus
was finally constructed in 1972 and was split between what was then known as
Balally Girls NS and Balally Boys NS – each school having 8 classrooms
and shared access to the Hall. This amount of accommodation proved hopelessly
inadequate for the growing population of school children and it wasn’t
long before the playgrounds were filling up with prefabs and the Hall itself
had to be divided in two and used as classrooms by both schools. Both schools
were now catering for boys and girls and demand for places was extremely high.
We even had classes in the corridors in those days and had to move our 6th
Class over to a newly constructed St. Tiernan’s in the early eighties.
The school Hall in St Olaf’s became the Mass centre for Balally and the focus for Baptisms and even the occasional
wedding!

Things
settled down somewhat with the construction of Queen of Angels Primary
School  The ‘Boys
school’ moved to Wedgewood and the accommodation crisis was eased
somewhat.  Our current enrolment
figure of 385 pupils and 35 staff has necessitated the re-introduction of 3 new
prefabs and we are again awaiting the construction of an eight room permanent
extension to cater for our growing intake of pupils.

We offer a wide and varied range of sports to our
pupils including Soccer, Gaelic
Football, Hurling, Camogie, Basketball, Chess, Handball, Unihock and Athletics. Our large Hall provides the
perfect setting for P.E. which is probably the children’s favourite
activity. St. Olaf’s has a long and proud tradition in Cumann na
mBunscol, Áth Cliath, which is the organising body for Gaelic Games
& Athletics in Dublin, winning 9 of 17 final appearances in the last twenty
five years. Both girls and boys partake equally in all sports and we hope that
they leave our school equipped for the world of leisure as well as work.

Our extra-curricular activities are intended to
promote the creative and rewarding use of pupils’ leisure time by getting
involved in cultural and sporting activities. Irish Dancing ,
Little Singers and Ballet classes are available to all
classes, while Music / Recorder /
Keyboard Classes are available from Rang 1 onward. Speech & Drama workshops are provided for all classes up to
Rang 5. Word processing / touch typing
classes, French and Spanish tuition    are   also     offered    to Senior Classes. Both team
and individual sports are available to the children, mostly without charge,
thanks to the interest and dedication of our Staff.

Parents’ Association.

We have a very active and hard-working
Parents’ Association and are very grateful for the invaluable
contribution and input made by our parents over the years. Parents are actively
encouraged to become involved with the P.A. and thus play a leading role in
their children’s education.

Enrolment.

Application Forms for enrolment can be obtained by
contacting our school Secretary, Paula Christian and may also be downloaded
from our website. Our Enrolment Policy may also be viewed on our website
at homepage.eircom.net/~olaf /Enrolment.htm

Introductory meetings for parents of new
pupils are usually held in February each year, after which there will be an
opportunity to take a
guided tour of the premises. Parents are welcome to view the
facilities available in the school at any time, preferably by prior
appointment.

Further information may be had by calling
in to the Principal, Mr. Murphy, or by telephoning the school.

St Olaf’s N.S.,Balally Drive,Dundrum,D.16. Principal: Mr. Gerard Murphy

Tel: 295 6513; Fax: 294 1863 ; E
mail: [email-masked];

Website:
homepage.eircom.net/~olaf