National accolade for Inagh school website

A NORTH Clare primary school emerged top of the class on Friday, winning a major national prize.

St Flannan’s National School in Inagh was named top of the country’s primary schools in terms of its innovative internet usage. The winners of the 2010 eircom Junior Spider Awards were announced at a reception on Friday in the Helix in DCU, hosted by RTÉ’s and 98FM’s Aidan Power. The awards, created to recognise and reward the most talented and innovative users of the internet in primary and post-primary schools, received a huge response throughout the country.
There were three categories, best school website, best school blog and best project, and St Flannan’s took the honours for the Best School Website, www.inaghschool.org.
Anne Quinn, principal, along with teacher Sarah Blackwell, travelled to Dublin with three pupils last Friday last.
“The website was revamped last May in preparation for the official opening of the school extension in June. It was all set up and driven by one of our teachers, Sarah Blackwell in conjunction with the ICT co-ordinator, Caroline McGeary. All the work on the website was done in-house and involved the whole school. All the classes are putting up their own blogs and some of them are putting up their own projects. Some are even emailing in project work from their homes to try to avoid virus problems that can arise when using memory sticks. Emailing also reduces paper use and is therefore better for the environment and it has created a greater awareness in the students’ homes of the benefit of technology because almost 12 months ago about half of our families had a computer in their home, now computer ownership has gone way up,” said Ms Quinn.
“One thing I am particularly proud of is that we have overcome the problem of very poor broadband access here in Inagh. It is a major problem in our area. I have to give due credit to the staff of the school who have overcome that adversity because it would have been a lot easier for them to say ‘we’ll do it when the broadband is up and running’. They have really embraced technology in the classroom and are consistently modelling the benefits and uses of information technology for the children and that is the best teaching method, leading by example,” she added.
Ms Quinn pointed out the school’s leaning towards information technology is something that stands to the children when they go on to second-level education. “We also got marvellous support and encouragement from the board of management, which equipped all the classrooms with interactive white boards and I commend the staff for using their free time to learn how to use these to their maximum potential. The children are so open to technology and I just feel, as principal, that when the children leave the school they will have the technical expertise to equip them for living in the 21st century,” Ms Quinn concluded.