This paper addresses the actual and potential role of strategic spatial planning in the context of educational infrastructure provision. Specifically, the paper focuses on the planning and provision of primary schools in the Dublin city-region in the context of rapid demographic and social change. The recent economic boom period has been accompanied by a rapid pace of population growth and significant shifts in the demographic composition of society in Ireland and the Dublin city-region, in particular. The analytical focus on planning for the provision of schools constitutes a critical case study of strategic spatial planning in practice. In particular, planning for school provision represents a policy domain where coordination between spatial planning and sectoral policy (i.e. education) functions is required in order to ensure the planning and provision of infrastructure to service the needs of expanding urban and peri-urban residential communities. Although, in most cases, schools are not required for development to proceed1, the need for additional school places may be particularly acute where residential development is accompanied by in-migration of households with a younger than average age profile and high proportion of young children. This paper outlines the challenges and problems associated with the practice of planning primary school provision in the Dublin city-region as well as critically assessing specific policy measures that have been introduced with the objective of improving the capacity of the state to respond to the need for new schools in areas of urban and peri-urban expansion. The analysis in this paper draws on qualitative interviews conducted by the author in 2008 and 2009.