How to find a school for your children?

national | education | press release Wednesday February 27, 2013 13:14 by Jack Wieczorek - Ireland Stats jw at irelandstats dot com

There is a new website that might be of help to anyone, with a particular interest in how to find primary schools in Ireland by County. It is called irelandstats.com and has just launched in the beginning of 2013. The innovative formula, as well as clarity of data presentation might boost its position in search engines. Other than that, it is greatly suited to the needs of anyone, who wants to find out more about Irish schools.

What's the innovation?

The builders of the site took a completely new route and decided to give up lengthy texts for the sake of graphical elements. Hence, we get school-specific pages that are full of graphs and tables, presenting information in a transparent way. In addition, the innovation in case of Ireland Stats is all about presenting not only present-day information, but also historical data. There is a pile of elements that let the user compare the state of things at a certain school throughout the years. For instance, it is possible to check on the school's popularity among students, as every single school page includes a table showing annual enrollment data, starting from the year the given educational facility was established. Furthermore, it is also possible, whether a given institution admitted more boys or girls, which might also be an important factor influencing the final decision about the choice of the school.

How is it structured?

The schools are divided on the basis of their type and location. In order to find out more about a certain school, one needs to indicate the province, as well as school district, then, choose the type of school. In the future, the list of schools will be further expanded, so as to include preschool institutions (like kindergartens,) or some later educational tiers (like college, for instance.) At the moment, one can easily check information on Irish primary, post-primary or special schools.

Putting the user in the centre

Browsing through the site proves to be really intuitive, which is probably due to the fact that the people behind the site went for brevity of information. Each school page contains only the most essential data, like contact details (both phone number and e-mail address,) or the name of the principal. In case anyone wants to see the educational institution themselves, there are GPS coordinates that will provide directions.

More is yet to come

Despite the fact that the website is really easy to navigate on, some new modules for improving the user experience will soon be introduced. For instance, there are plans to launch a new dynamic search engine.

In terms of content, there are some big plans as well. Soon, the site is going to include data on medical care services in Ireland, with a complete list of practitioners from all around the country.