Ó Fiaich College is set to take part in an award ceremony for this year’s Trinity College School of Distinction Awards after being deemed a ‘Future Vision’ school in Ireland. The achievement was awarded following a submission by the school to the Trinity Access team, under the core practices of ‘College Awareness’, ‘Leadership through Service’ and ‘21st Century Teaching and Learning’. The future vision award acknowledges progressive schools that have a clear vision for educational change.
Trinity Access 21 (TA21) endorses 21st Century teaching and learning spaces along with fostering college going cultures in communities where advancement to further and higher education is low. Statistics show that 99% of secondary school leavers from affluent backgrounds go to college while 15% go to college from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, this is starting to change through the innovative practices of the Trinity Access Programme. Students from less affluent areas that are linked with the practices of the TA21 programme show higher progression rates to further and higher education. Due to the success of the programme, it is being expanded over the coming years with an aim to reach more schools, teachers and students across the country.
Included in the submission Ó Fiaich College made to TA21 was a description of the current 21st century teaching and learning methodologies and activities that take place in the school every day, the leadership shown by students and teachers, the many mentoring opportunities provided through varying in school and extracurricular activities and the efforts being made to promote pathways to careers and educational progression to students.
The TA21 programme aims to effect change in the Irish education system using the ‘Bridge21’ teaching model of “team based”, “technology mediated” and “project based” learning which allows for richer and more authentic collaborative learning environments. This teaching model combined with the quality mentoring opportunities as provided for in Ó Fiaich College has had a meaningful impact upon student self-belief and aspiration.
As a Future Vision award recipient, Ó Fiaich College will receive a number of benefits, including consultation sessions with the Trinity Access team and access for staff and students to TA21 workshops in Dublin throughout the 2018-19 academic year.
