Project Description

There is often a lack of knowledge within communities about the quality of local education. Promoting this would strengthen local confidence, sense of pride and community engagement, as well as encourage other young families to move into an area. The latter contributes to the overall goal of the Loop Head Regional Development Strategy.

The components of the Loop Head National Schools Community Outreach and Celebration project would be:

• Development of a new, easy to update school website on Google Workspace/Sites to provide a vibrant platform to showcase what makes the school special (Unique Selling Points), ongoing projects, events and accomplishments of students and staff. A set of professional photographs/videos would be produced for the new website.

• Develop a mechanism to regularly update the website (blog written by staff and students or link to social media) to keep the community updated on events and projects in the school.

• Organise a Sense of Place art competition where students capture their favourite place / activity in the school or/and the local area in a painting, drawing or photograph. These artworks will be displayed on the website and at an exhibition at the school/community hall or other public space which will officially launch the new website. Students could also present their artwork, explain why they decided to draw, paint or photograph their picture.

• Develop projects that would strengthen the engagement with the community and link in with other Loop Head Together projects.

• Explore the possibility of a parents’ / students’ & parents’ council to connect the school closer to the community.

A pilot project built from those components is currently underway for Carrigaholt National School.

Project Justification & Objectives

Schools, national schools in particular, are at the centre of any community. Here the next generation of the community is taking their next steps into a bigger world, a sense and pride of place is being communicated, innovation and ideas are being developed. All this activity however often goes unnoticed or taken for granted, leaving a missed opportunity for the community to be more involved and for the schools to benefit from the wealth of resources a community has to offer.

Additionally, schools are one of the main criteria when it comes to young families deciding to live in a certain area. The main goal of Loop Head Together is to help reverse the population decline, so, as part of this, there is a need to showcase and celebrate the quality of education in the small schools on Loop Head to a wider Irish audience, encouraging young families to put down roots on the Loop.

The overall project objective is to increase the visibility of the school in the Loop Head community and beyond and increase awareness of their achievements.

Potential Project Stakeholders*

• Primary school students and their immediate family

• Loop Head Together and local development group

• Wider Loop Head community

*Potential Project Stakeholders means all stakeholders have not necessarily yet been contacted to help co-design the project, but are mentioned here as they would be a desirable project partner. We may have forgotten some - please let us know!