David’s Goliath Almost Ready

Heaven’s below… MAY22

hen we visited the site for St David’s €15m supersize development back in November, you could already see the shape of things to come.

And now, with the main sports arena about to open its doors, it’s all beginning to feel very real.

“It’s been amazing, watching the progress over the past year and a half,” says St David’s principal Simon Carey. “And now it feels like Christmas Eve. We just can’t wait to open these presents…”

We’re talking a new three-storey building, part of a €15m reinvention of St David’s that will give the school one new science lab (bringing the total to four), one new construction studies & technology wood lab, two new visual arts rooms, one new graphics room, one new Design & Communications Graphics room, a new music room, two new standard classrooms, a new library (the old one being turned into two new classrooms), five new office and meeting places, and one new prayer room.

And taking an aerial tour of St David’s right now, you can see just how much all these new facilities are adding to the school’s last refurbishment, way back in 1975.

The plan is to have everything up and gunning by October. And the upshot of this  is that the current St David’s population of 673 pupils will reach 720 in September 2022, 745-760 in September 2023 and, finally, 775-800 pupils.

“The extension is all about giving the students as much facilities as we possibly can,” finishes Carey. “And for the teachers to have the coolest staff room in town…”