FIRST year students at Loreto Community School in Milford next term will be “pioneers” the Taoiseach Enda Kenny told more than 700 pupils and staff yesterday.
He was speaking as the school celebrated the success of 5th year pupil Shaun Sweeney when he won a €150,000 worth of computer equipment in a nationwide competition.
The SmartClass initiative was run by Intel, the Educational Company of Ireland, and technology company Steljes.
Representatives of all the companies were at the school yesterday to officially hand over the prize.
“This Digital Curriculum Prize of €150,000 will make a huge difference not only to the 140 First Years, but to everyone in the school, to all their families, their teachers and the wider Milford community,” Mr Kenny told them.
“This prize marks a new chapter in the long and already-proud history of this school. And, indeed, it marks a new departure for the companies involved.
“I know that every one of the 140 children who will benefit, is excited about what this new means of learning will mean for them this year, and intrigued about the effect it will have on them and their learning in the years ahead.
“It’s hard to imagine that the entire Junior Cert Curriculum is now loaded onto this tablet-style laptop. No more struggling with mega-kilos of books. Your spines will thank the companies involved.
“And I have every confidence that the opportunities given to you here in the e-notebooks, e-workbooks and other electronic learning and teaching resources, will impact powerfully on your thinking ability and your imaginative capacity.”
Mr Kenny told the students that many of them would have jobs in the future which hadn’t been thought of yet.
“What goes on in here in the heads and hearts of our children is what will make or break this country in the years and generations ahead,” said the Taoiseach.
“It behoves all of us then to make sure we create the kind of environment that ensures that what goes on in here is the best, the deepest, the most original, often unusual but always sincere.
“Our children are masters at technology. It’s about time that their facility with, and affinity for that technology was a critical part of their school life.”
Mr Kenny said there are many students all over Ireland who would find that this new system of learning brings new joy to their school day, and perhaps new purpose, to what might be otherwise, a somewhat tedious school experience.
“I note you have a meditation room here and I would urge you all to use it,” he said.
“The world now is one of instant reaction. We’re always on, primed and expected to respond. But, equally, in that world, we must have time to reflect. Something that is true of us all, especially our politicians.
“Your new e-curriculum will allow you to explore new worlds not alone in the crucial areas of maths and science but equally in literature and the Arts. This technology will bring right into the classroom the recorded voices of writers such as Yeats and Joyce and TS Eliot.
“I leave by saying well done Loreto Milford. You must be proud of yourselves today. I know that your teachers, your school will help you to make the very most of what you have been given. But in the end it’s all down to you: your courage, your hard-work, your ambition.
“These are the things we need for Ireland’s recovery.The qualities necessary for our better future in a better Europe true to the ideals of Schuman and Monnet.”
