Student Council

Congratulations to all members of the Student Council, who have been hard at work improving our school recently. We purchased new basketball hoops and a pump for the top yard and chalkboards for use as welcome/inspiration noticeboards, inside the entrances to the two school buildings. Corey, Harry, Emma and Cara told everyone about this at Friday's senior assembly. Enormous thanks to the Parents' Association for providing the funding for these purchases and to Mr Russell (in advance!) for helping us secure them safely, for use.

Student Council representatives have begun to deliver workshops in classrooms, to promote awareness among staff and pupils of the United Nations Convention on the rights of the Child. Sofia, Ryan, Harry and Josh spoke at last Wednesday's staff meeting about our plans. Children's Rights are of vital importance everywhere, especially in schools. Article Two is our focus for the moment: No Discrimination.

For the next two months especially, we will aim to make fair treatment and equality real in our lives on a daily basis. We will try, as a school community, extra hard to give everyone a fair hearing, in the case of disputes. We will include everyone, during group work and games on the yard. We will not leave anyone out, for any reason at all, but especially due to difference. We will embrace and enjoy what makes us different from each other - no one can create a beautiful picture of a rainbow using just purple paint! We will update you on how the workshops went, in a week or two.

What makes all this news really brilliant is the fact that these actions are examples of intentions set out by council members themselves during initial meetings last October. We are very proud of all our reps and to the other pupils and staff who support the work of the Council.

This Wednesday, February 21st, is the annual United Nations Mother Language Day.

The Student Council of St Patrick's NS, along with many pupils and class teachers, will celebrate the linguistic diversity of our school community. This is a fancy way of saying that we will make a special effort on Wednesday to use all the different languages we have in our school. Through sharing the languages of our homes and other parts of our lives, we will enjoy all the lovely differences and sounds and musicality of the ways in which we communicate.

The Student Council began in September with the explicit aim of making St Patrick's NS more inclusive. This keeps coming up in meetings. Ms Griffin and Ms Fox are very proud of the children's passion about this very worthwhile goal. Respecting and embracing the different languages we speak is a great way of thinking more inclusively.

Languages are also really important for our learning, in obvious and less obvious ways.. According to the United Nations' website: "The theme of International Mother Language Day celebration 2024 is “Multilingual education is a pillar of intergenerational learning”. We have just celebrated Grandparents' Day and we will soon begin marking Seachtain na Gaeilge in March. Let's pay attention to the message: "Mother tongue education supports learning, literacy and the acquisition of additional languages" and make a huge effort this Wednesday to use and to share our Mother Tongue, especially if it isn't English 

What a wonderful week! Well-being week went very well.

I want to say a very big Thank you to the children from the student council who were amazing at helping out this week. You should all be very proud of yourselves! 

Mrs Hickey