All-Ireland hurling medal winner, Podge Collins, visited Gaelscoil Mhíchíl Cíosóg in Ennis to raise the school’s new Yellow Flag.
The Yellow Flag programme recognises a school’s work in promoting interculturalism, equality, diversity and inclusion in both the school and wider community. The programme works through an eight-step model, which allows schools to apply those steps to the day-to-day running of the school in order to promote and support an environment for interculturalism.
According to teacher Aoife Ní Conchúir, the whole school was involved in achieving the flag, and all classes were involved in the sports day held to mark raising the Yellow Flag.
“It was a great day. We have about 11 different countries represented in the school community, between children and parents. To achieve the Yellow Flag, we held a series of events in the school celebrating diversity and involving the wider community. We made contact with different groups from different countries and held events. We had African drummers, singers and dancers into the school. We also had story-tellers, origami workshops, international food tastings and futsal. It was all organised by a committee, which included representatives of the school, parents and other organisations,” Ms Ní Conchúir explained.
“We decided to celebrate raising the Yellow Flag with an intercultural sports day because a lot of parents would come in for our sports day anyway. We thought this would be a good way to show off what Yellow Flag was all about. It was the perfect time to showcase the interculturalism of the school,” she added.
All activities on the day had an intercultural theme, reflecting the intercultural makeup of the Gaelscoil. Activities included Futsal from Brazil, African storytelling, international face-painting and salsa. Pupils, staff and parents were entertained by local Moroccan musicians and musicians from Rice College. In keeping with the World Cup, each class represented a country or culture by wearing the country colours on the day.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.