As an Edmund Rice School, we strive to create a welcoming, inclusive community that fosters and develops an understanding of all cultures and diversity. In our world today there are currently an estimated 25.9 million refugees around the world, the highest ever recorded. Half of today’s refugees are children. We find it extremely important to ensure each child feels welcome and safe in our school and by becoming a school of sanctuary we are showing that we are fully committed to this.

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What are we doing?
In 2022, we designed a welcome sign to place on the outside gates of our school. This sign displays ‘Welcome’ in all of the various languages that are in our school. During the month of October/November each year we celebrate multicultural week. During this week, the children learn and celebrate the different cultures around the world, particularly those in our school community. Previously, we have designed a multicultural awareness board and created a video of the children from various nationalities in our school community.

Multicultural Awareness Week video: https://fb.watch/bWR_O8xbVi/

We also continue to update our EAL policy to ensure that the needs of every learner in our school are met. We have celebrated ‘Refugee Week’ where each class learned what it means to be a refugee and how we, as a school community and individuals, can help. We aim to celebrate ‘Refugee Week’ each year. Our aim is to continue to find different ways to celebrate diversity in our school and to ensure each child feels welcome in our community.

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School of Sanctuary Award
We were delighted to hear that we had been accredited as a School of Sanctuary in November 2021. We were the very first school in Cork City and Cork County to be recognised as a School of SAnctuary. In February 2022, members of our student council, Mr.Murphy,

Mr.O’Keefe and Ms.Howard went to Dubin to the Schools of Sanctuary award ceremony to receive our School of Sanctuary plaque. This is proudly displayed in our school corridor.

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What’s next?
Keep your eyes on our social media pages and our school website in order to follow our journey in maintaining our status as a School of Sanctuary.

 

If you want more information on our work we have done to become a School of Sanctuary, please have a look at our portfolio below.