Gabhaim buíochas libh as an fáilte iontach a thug sibh dom. Ba mhór an áthas dom glacadh le cuireadh do phríomhoide cuairt a thabhairt ar an scoil seo.
Tributes
Today is a great day of celebration for Gardiner Street School. Not only are we celebrating your talents and creativity. Today is also an important anniversary for your school.
This day 11 years ago, I opened this newly refurbished building. And it is great to see the way your modernised school has facilitated the marvellous work you are doing in the classroom.
Because of my great fondness for the students here, I have been looking forward to this visit. Not only is your school in the heart of my constituency, I also know that we share much in common – in particular our shared enjoyment of gardening, the visual arts and reading.
Your Principal invited me along to give you a little advice on hanging baskets today. But from what I am seeing now it looks like I am out of my depth! You are the people with the gardening expertise! That said, we can all agree on one thing and that is the versatility of hanging baskets and window boxes. For those who do not have a garden, hanging baskets are a great way of adding nature’s bright colours to our cities and towns. And the great thing is if you spend a little time reading up about plants, you can fill your home with colour all year around. It is a great pastime that can last a lifetime. And with people in this country taking more interest than ever in their gardens, it is also a great career choice. That said, gardening needs a creative mind.
And that is where your revised curriculum comes in. It will give you the chance to explore ways to be creative and to develop your talents in the process. Your work today represents different strands of the new curriculum – painting and drawing, using fabric and fibre, clay and construction.
I see that two of the fabric and fibre displays celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of Hans Christian Andersen’s birth. Hans Christian Andersen rightly became known as the father of the modern fairytale. His fairytales had a special appeal for everyone. And dare I say it, adults have enjoyed narrating his stories to their children, just as much as children have enjoyed reading them over the years.
Hans Christian Andersen was a prolific writer, a poet and a dramatist with a rare gift for telling his story and the moral that lay behind it. We owe him a debt of gratitude for his originality and in particular for his way of conveying the triumph of good over evil – an important theme in so many of his fairytales. I am sure his stories will remain the timeless classics they have been for so long.
Under the title of “fabric and fibre” many of you have prepared original works with your needlework and puppet making. I would like to thank the parents, loved ones and friends of the children here who have provided the materials you needed to make today a success.
We are living in fast changing times. Dublin today is a much different place from when I was growing up. For one thing, living and going to school here in the heart of the city involves contact with families from other cultures and backgrounds. I am particularly pleased to see there has been a great welcome in the school for children from different countries who now live in the area. Your warm welcome for me today, expressed in so many languages, shows the extent to which you have embraced the cultural diversity we now enjoy.
I believe that a fair society is one that caters for people’s individuality and their shared identity. And education has a key role to play in building awareness of the diversity of values, beliefs and ways of life that enrich our world. I am really proud of the fantastic work, which is going on in schools like this to promote a greater awareness of the importance of inter-culturalism.
It is right that children of all backgrounds and cultures can join our schools and are offered equal educational opportunities, irrespective of where they come from. I want to commend the school management and the teachers for their work in equipping our young people to participate, so confidently, in an increasingly diverse Ireland, Europe and global society.
I believe that a measure of the success of this school can be gauged by days like today. The teachers, ancillary staff and volunteers under the stewardship of Eileen O’Doherty and, indeed all of the parents and guardians, must feel a great sense of fulfilment at seeing the spectacular work on display today.
The ethos of this school is rooted in the beliefs and values held by Mother Mary Aikenhead and the Sisters of Charity. I am delighted to see that Sr. Beatrice continues to link the school to those important values, which I hope will continue to have a central place in Irish life going forward.
Go raibh rath Dé ar obair na scoile sa todhchaí.
Go raibh maith agaibh arís agus comhghairdeas le ch’uile dhuine a bhí páirteach sa taispeántas álainn seo.
ENDS.