Wexford Education Support Centre is one of twenty-one full-time Education Centres throughout the country which provides support for teachers, schools, principals, Boards of Management and allied school personnel in counties Wexford, Carlow and South Wicklow. We also provide specific support to Carlow Education Centre which is one of nine part-time Education Centres in the country. The Education Support Centres of Ireland (ESCI) is the umbrella organisation of the 21 full-time and 9 part-time Education Centres throughout Ireland. Each Education Centre has a defined geographical area of responsibility, our Education Centre forms part of Region 3 along with Kilkenny Education Centre and Waterford Teachers’ Centre. The Region has approximately 224 Primary and Post Primary Schools. We support over 4,000 teachers locally. Our mission and vision endeavours to deliver the highest quality of support for professional learning and to foster continued development and improvement for school communities. We aim to do this by
A) delivering quality service to school communities and education partners,
B) building capacity, talent and excellence within the education sector,
C) embracing innovation and growth to maximise effectiveness,
D) recognising diversity as an asset essential to accomplishing our goals,
E) building strategic partnerships to guide us in our mission and
F) exercising fiscal responsibility and operational accountability in achieving our goals. Since we were awarded full-time status in 1996, Wexford Education Support Centre has continued to evolve and grow into a thriving Education Centre that provides a large range of supports to the wider education community while working closely with the National Support Services. From its inception, Wexford Education Support Centre was progressive in supporting innovation and growth in all areas of Education. Last year due to the global pandemic we moved our provision of CPD to online webinars which was a new departure for the Centre. Wexford Education Support Centre has also developed and forged strong working links and partnerships with various agencies and institutions. These active partnerships provide for the provision of specific educational interventions and the development of new opportunities to access post-graduate level study and the administration of a wide range of ancillary programmes. The Centre’s Local Course provision is extensive, it enables numerous worthwhile projects and programmes including TL 21, Something Fishy, Scríobh Leabhar, Concern Debates, School Excellence Award, Write A Book, Creative Clusters Programme, CraftEd and the Teacher Artist Partnership projects to mention but a few. Our Centre is the National Base Centre for PDST Post Primary Health and Wellbeing and is also the base for two NCSE Special Educational Needs Officers. In addition to this the Centre also acts as a meeting place, a resource centre and a research base. Facilities include meeting rooms, a photocopying service and a vast local Resource Library for our local ILSA members. A Post Graduate Leadership Library is also available. The Centre is funded by the Teacher Education Section of the Department of Education and Skills under the European Social Fund National Development Plan. All Education Centres are statutory bodies and are managed by a Voluntary Management Committee elected annually at the Centre’s AGM. The day-to-day management of the Centre is the responsibility of the Director, Lorraine O’Gorman.
