Tús maith, leath na hoibre!
Our school recently received a ‘silver award of excellence’ for participation in the ‘Scoil Spreagtha’ scheme. This scheme was organised by Gael Linn, Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin, Ulster University and Foras na Gaeilge. The aim of this program is to encourage the use of Irish in the school environment and the wider community.
As part of this project we selected a variety of phrases and greetings, to promote throughout the school from P1-P7. These have now become a natural part of our school life and can be heard daily in the classrooms, dinner hall and on the corridors.
Our St Patrick’s day celebration was a huge success. Each year group proudly performed a poem or a song in Irish for the rest of the school community.
Irish has also become an integral part of our school assemblies, with Mr Treacy communicating in both Irish and English. Gaeilgeoir na Seachtaine (Irish speaker of the week) awards are presented weekly to children who have made an extra effort to promote the Irish language in the school and instead of singing ‘Happy Birthday’ we now sing ‘Lá Breithe Sona’.
Irish is also visible in our school. Each classroom has a noticeboard displaying our ‘Gaeilgeoir na Seachtaine’ winners, along with phrases, songs and poems.
The scheme, which boasted over 80 schools culminated in an end-of-year celebration at University of Ulster, Magee campus on 10th June 2024. Successful schools, who had fully met the scheme’s accreditation criteria, received their ‘Scoil Spreagtha’ status for the 2023-2024 academic year. Four children from P6/P7 accompanied Mrs Kelly and Julie to the event. They were delighted to accept a certificate to acknowledge our ‘Scoil Spreagtha’ status along with an additional silver award of excellence for our efforts to promote the language.
We are delighted with how the staff, pupils and parents of Holy Trinity have embraced the promotion of the Irish language this year and we look forward to building on this progress next year.
