Sandford Park School
Sandford Park School is a private, non-denominational secondary school for boys, located in the inner suburb of Ranelagh in Dublin, Ireland.
School History and Founding Ethos
Sandford Park School opened its doors to its first School pupils on the 12th of September, 1922. Alfred Le Peton, its first headmaster, had been the joint headmaster with Ernest Exshaw of Earlsfort House School.
The joint headmasters of Earlsfort House had a shared ambition of moving their school from the frenzied atmosphere of a city centre street to the peace of the suburbs. The substantial property of Sandford Park was on the market in the summer of 1922. Originally built for James Pile in 1894, Sandford Park offered an ideal setting for a school. On 8 acres of mature wooded grounds with an ornamental pond and island, sunken tennis court, a mews yard, ballroom complete with a minstrel's gallery and a distinctive house on which great care had been lavished in providing paneled rooms, and ornate ceilings. It was a far cry from the terraced, houses of Earlsfort House School.
The school's pioneering secular ethos was controversial in its early history, because all other schools in Ireland were then linked to a particular religious denomination. The mother of Conor Cruise O'Brien (a pupil in the 1920s) was denounced for sending her child to a "godless" school.
There were fifty-three boys on the roll in September 1922. Le Peton also attracted the services of a gifted and enthusiastic group of teachers, two of whom would succeed him as headmaster of the school and thus established a continuity of tradition and style more usually associated with schools managed by religious orders.
Le Peton departed the scene in 1925. His departure was due to illness and strain. Although his time at the school in its new setting was short, he left an indelible mark on the future development of the school. He created the sense of family, which became a hallmark of the Sandford experience. He had no formal qualifications for his role, but he brought to it a passion and commitment that inspired those who worked with him. More than anything else, he had a genuine interest in the education of the young. He believed that education had to embrace the whole person and his regime at the school allowed for the experiences, which would foster this ideal. In the few documents which contain his writings there is a recognition that the young will benefit only by a growing awareness that they must take responsibility for their own lives; and that the role of the educator was to provide the opportunities and the motivation to bring about this desired end. If he believed in independence of spirit and individualism he also believed strongly in a sense of community, often expressed in the catch phrases of “ esprit de corp” and “play the game”.
Sandford Today
The school today is a very different school in some respects from the school of Le Peton in 1922; and although it is still set in 8 acres of mature wooded ground, it has always remained small. There are now over 200 boys at the school between the ages of twelve and eighteen years. The school now engages the services of twenty-three teachers to provide programmes at junior cycle, Transition Year and senior cycle level. The teaching staff is supported in its work by another ten staff in its administration, catering, maintenance and the Bursar's office. Sandford Park now looks to the future, with the development of a new library, canteen, music centre, changing rooms and classrooms completed in the summer of 2005 and a new school hall and teacher resourse facility on the cards for the future. the school's staff continue to take the lead in developing innovative learning programmes which not only benefit pupils of the school, but have been recognised by the Department of Education and Science as models of good practice and have been promoted in all schools.
School principals
- Alfred Le Peton 1922-25
- Trevor Dagg 1963??-1980
- Ian Steepe 1980-1985
- Willaim (Bill) Tector 1985-1989
- Dr John Harris 1990-1996
- Michael Whelan 1996-2003
- Edith Byrne 2003 - Present
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Famous Sandfordians
- Conor Cruise O'Brien diplomat, Labour Party politician, writer and academic.
- Justin Keating politician and former Labour Party cabinet minister
- Owen Sheehy-Skeffington, noted socialist and pacifist
- John Neill, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin 2002-
- Ben Carrigan, Drummer of the band the Thrills