Naíonra Mhic Amhlaigh • Gaelscoil Mhic Amhlaigh

Permanent Facilities

Naíonra Mhic Amhlaigh was founded in 1993 in conjunction with Gaelscoil Mhic Amhlaigh. Even though the Naíonra and school were in temporary accommodation the Board of Management always envisaged a more permanent structure for both.

The founders of both these schools understood the importance of early education and the essential role it played in supporting Irish through the generations.

Now our school is most fortunate to have an ultra-modern and well equipped building on our school site, Áras Mhic Amhlaigh.

This structure not only accommodates the preschool children but also caters for a before and after school care service.

These services are provided for us by Comhar Naíonraí na Gaeltachta which is the nationally recognised Early Years Provider throughout the Gaeltacht. The Naíonra provides early education that develops the emotional, social, physical and cognitive skills of each child.This is done in a playful and creative way in an environment that is welcoming, motaviting, supportive, safe, healthy and happy. Children attend Naíonra 5 days per week for 3 hours per day.

Comhar Naíonra Objectives

To provide high quality early years services through Irish in the Gaeltacht areas.
To ensure that the child and the child’s needs and development are central in all our policies.
To promote and develop the natural use of Irish among the children attending the services.
To have ongoing co-operation compliant with Tusla to ensure that the Childcare Regulations (Preschool Services) (No. 2) 2006 are being implemented in all our services and that those services are compliant to national regulations.
To co-operate with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in administering the ECCE, CCS and TEC schemes for the services for which we are responsible.
To ensure that the national frameworks Síolta and Aistear are being implemented in our services and to provide relevant training on this to our employees.
To co-operate with all the relevant national and statutory bodies to ensure the delivery of the best service to the children in our services.

The services they provide include:

Recruitment and employment of staff for the various services. • Ensuring that all our employees have the relevant childcare qualifications and that the CNNG Recruitment policy is strictly implemented.
Development Officers are employed in all the regions in which they operate to provide support and advice to the services.
A Development Officer who is an Accredited Trainer for the Keeping Safe Child Protection Training Programme available to provide training for the employees of CNNG regarding all aspects of child protection. Develop support materials for the services such as the ‘Loinnir’ preschool activity programme, the ‘Borradh’ language planning series, Policies and Procedures Manuals and a Forms Manual.
Organise regular support meetings with all staff to ensure that they have all the support and resources they need to provide a high quality service.
Liaise with Tusla to ensure that our services are fully compliant with the Childcare Regulations (Preschool Services) (No. 2) 2006.
Organise Parent Meetings for parents whose children will be attending our services.
Administration work for the various State funding which our services receive.
Providing a competitive Insurance Group Scheme for our services.
Providing a Toy Library in the Gaeltacht Regions where services can borrow educational equipment and toys for their service.
Publishing a twice yearly newsletter ‘Bláthú’.
Providing language support to services.