The Church of Ireland College of Education is one of the oldest teacher training colleges in Ireland. It maintains a long established and proud tradition of training primary teachers and will celebrate its bi-centenary in 2011. The College has grown substantially over the years, facilitated by its move to a new location in Rathmines in 1969. The Church of Ireland College of Education is one of the oldest teacher training colleges in Ireland. Founded in 1811, it traces its origins to the Kildare Place Society Training Institution. This society, the full name of which was the Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in Ireland, was a pioneer non-denominational organization which supplied grants to schools, published schoolbooks and trained teachers in its model schools in Kildare Place in Dublin, in the years before the establishment of the national school system in 1831.