Summer School / Scheme

Teachers - Mr Adrian McGurn, Miss Orla Nugent, Mr Niall Jones and Mr Stephen McGullion at the Healthy Living Centre, Belcoo

A Summer School/Scheme which was set up to get vulnerable children back together and working cohesively described it as a “fantastic experience” for the children and teachers who took part.

The two week project, funded by Lakeland Community Care, and held in Belcoo and Derrygonnelly gave pupils from four primary schools, St. Columban’s, Belcoo; Killyhommon Primary School; Derrygonnelly Primary School and St. Patrick’s, Derrygonnelly the opportunity to get back together and learning again before the resumption of schools at the end of August.

With schools closed for the last four months due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Adrian McGurn, who came up with the project called ‘Closing the Gap’ said it was a chance to bring children from Primary Five, Six and Seven back together and bring some kind of normality into their life before they go back to school.

“It was targeted at all families of parents who have tried to home school their kids while juggling work and it has been very difficult for families,” explained Adrian. “I suppose a big thing was getting them back together and building their confidence again and improving their social skills and character building and freeing the children from phones and devices.”

The project consisted of a mixture of education based activities in the morning followed by recreational activities in the afternoon while guest speakers were also brought in to chat with the children.

“We had Caroline Greene in to talk about mental health and wellbeing and to get the children talking about their experiences during the lockdown and the pandemic and how they felt. And there were some comments that came out of it like children were annoyed and frustrated that they couldn’t see their friends and some couldn’t go back to play football.

“I think it was very important because I think it has affected a lot of people mentally and that’s what we were trying to do to get the children to speak about that. And then she gave an exercise class after that and the kids loved it.”

Children from St Patrick’s PS and Derrygonnelly PS taking part in an exercise class with Caroline Green in the MUGA pitch, Derrygonnelly.

Margaret Gallagher who lives in a cottage with no electricity or running water outside Belcoo also spoke to the children about her life. She spoke about her growing up in the cottage with no running water, no electricity, no cookers to kind of bring the children back to a wee bit of reality.

“We take everything for granted what we have in our homes compared to what Margaret has and some of the kids just loved it and couldn’t believe that this is how she grew up and how she cooked her dinner on the fire and baked the bread on the fire.

“The kids were in awe compared to what we have nowadays.”

Adrian hopes that ‘Closing the Gap’ will give the children a taste of the new normal as they prepare to return to their schools.

“With Covid-19 there were so many new measures and precautions with the children.

The three different classes they had to enter through different doors with their teacher, they had to hand sanitise as they entered and left the building and they had to practise social distancing.

“We gave them a little taste of what its going to be like when they go back to school because that the measures that are in place. They’ll now go and it will not be as daunting for them, we kind of relieved them of that bit of stress for the children and the teachers.”

Adrian thanked the parents who sent the children to take part in the project and also to the eight other young local teachers who helped make the whole thing a huge success.

Teachers - Mr Garvan Jones, Mr Adrian McGurn, Mr Caolin Love, Miss Tara McLoughlin, Miss Aine Hoy and Miss Sinead Ward at the Derrygonnelly Community Centre.

“All the staff were excellent and it was good to have local people running the scheme. Some parents said we were a credit to our profession. It’s nice to hear you’re making a difference to their children’s lives. It was a fantastic experience and hopefully fingers crossed if we can get funding next year we will run the scheme again.”