National climate change award for Nenagh school

Saint Mary's Convent Primary School, Nenagh, was recently named as this year’s winner of the prestigious annual Our World Irish Aid Award.

Fifth Class pupils and their teacher, Ann-Marie O’Sullivan, cheered with delight when Minister for the Diaspora and International Development Ciarán Cannon made the announcement at the national final, held at Dublin Castle. This is the second time in two years that the school has received an Our World Irish Aid Award, having been named ‘Best Newcomer’ at last year’s awards.

Entitled 'Children’s Voices on Our Climate Choices', the school’s project is the culmination of two months' work, which saw all 34 Fifth Class pupils learn about the important work done by Irish Aid and about each of the 17 UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development. The pupils themselves chose to base their project on climate change and how it impacts children in the developing world.
Much of their work explored what they, as children here in Ireland, could do to live more environmentally friendly lives in a bid to help slow down climate change and minimise its effect on the lives of children in the developing world.  This included writing letters to local TDs in support of the proposed Bill to ban new fossil fuel explorations on Irish territory, visiting a market that sells local fresh produce and creating and distributing a leaflet outlining 50 ways to save the planet.

Congratulating St Mary’s Convent Primary School on winning the overall title, Minister Cannon said that the judges had a particularly challenging task this year due to the extremely high standard of entries across the board. In relation to St Mary’s Convent Primary School’s winning entry, Minister Cannon noted that: “The range of activities undertaken and the depth of the students’ understanding and engagement with the local community and elected representatives really impressed the judges. Not only did they feel that the winning entry was a well-researched project, but they also felt that it had a very clear structure with excellent information and presentation, which helps people to understand quite complex ideas in a clear and concise way.

“It is evident that the pupils at St Mary’s Convent Primary School have learnt a considerable amount by taking part in the Our World Irish Aid Awards.”

St Mary's Principal Peadar O'Dwyer expressed his delight with the achievement, the latest in a long series of awards received by the school over recent times. “I'm so proud that of out of a thousand school entries, we were the overall winner,” he said. “This is a great acehivement for our school and for Nenagh.”

Teacher Mary Rose Cleary spoke of the emotional scenes when the victorious Fifth Class kids were welcomed home to Nenagh by their parents. She said the award underlines the extent to which staff at St Mary's seek to broaden the experience for their pupils, with the likes of social education and arts very much to the fore along with academic education at the Nenagh school.

Now in its 13th year, each entry in the 2018 Our World competition was assessed on its creativity and understanding of the theme 'Transforming Our World'.  The first round of judging resulted in a shortlist which saw 60 schools gather at four regional finals held in Sligo, Dublin, Limerick and Cork. These 60 schools competed for 12 places at the national final.