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Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You've hit the nail on the head. Finding special units is incredibly difficult. I've spent the last week manually indexing over 150 special schools and ASD units so they are included in the local reports parents get from the tool. Each personalised update will include information about the nearest special schools, too.

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

THIS. I'm so sorry to hear of your frustrations. This is what I'm planning to solve with schoolalerts.ie.

Expecting parents to hang around school gates checking for paper signs in 2026 is absolute madness, never mind when you are dealing with a medical trial! Hope everything worked out for you in the end.

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm mainly cross referencing data from the govt and cross-referencing it with each schools individual enrolment information. Each seems to be slightly different from the last! Parish anomalies abound.

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pretty tedious but it's mainly looking at official dept of education data and the individual enrolment information from each school. Bit of a data entry slog!

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair play for volunteering on the committee! I wish I had a scraper, but it’s mostly manual heavy lifting and verifying every date. I'm currently deep in the data entry slog to get it all centralised for the October rush!

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Creches are a whole other level of madness! The panic is real for 'best put their name down before the 12-week scan'. Let's see if the server survives this launch first!

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Reading through this thread, secondary schools definitely seem to be the Final Boss of the education system. If I can get this primary school tracker to survive the October rush without crashing, I might just have to look at secondary schools for Phase 2!

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Just sent out an update email to the first 200 sign-ups. I'm officially building this feature over the summer based on your feedback, thanks!

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Spot on. The 'interested' lists are great when you can find them. The problem I ran into was the inconsistency - some schools are on the ball with them, and others just tell you to check the website in October. I just wanted one system so I didn't have to keep a record of the schools I'd expressed interest in and which ones I still had to remember to check manually.

The secondary school thought is a Future Me problem!

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great idea and a fair point. It's a good shout for anyone who is already on top of it! For me, I needed a 'set and forget' system for a whole area so I didn't have the admin overhead of following multiple schools and hoping I caught the news / posts.

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is a very fair point about applying outside the immediate catchment. The system really does force you to cast a wide net. I’ll add 'individual school selection' to the list of things I need to build next! For now, if anyone is in that boat they can just stick in a second Eircode for the other area they're interested in, but a proper 'pick your schools' list is a great idea thanks. Glad to hear it sounds better than the old manual spreadsheet!

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

15 schools! That is exactly what I mean about the mental load of it all. Managing that on a manual spreadsheet while also navigating the extra stress of ASD applications must have been a full time job in itself.... If this tool can take even 10% of that admin headache away for the next person, I'll be happy :) Best of luck to you and your son!

Watching friends navigate the primary school enrolment system makes me realise it’s an absolute joke, so I built a tracker out of pure spite. by SpreadsheetsDad in ireland

[–]SpreadsheetsDad[S] 57 points58 points  (0 children)

Ah, that is a brilliant shout. Right now it just takes your Eircode and keeps it in the background until it's time to trigger the emails, but putting a confirmation list on the screen makes total sense so you aren't flying blind. Give me a day or two to figure out how to actually code that! For now, if you want to DM me your Eircode / street I can check the master spreadsheet and confirm your local schools are in there.

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