Scoil Sinéad Ltd is community focused as we believe that the school is a reflection of the community. Our themes are linked to the different activities in the local and wider community. This ensures that students can respect, care and participate in the community and also to highlight the good work that others do in their community.

Parental involvement is vital and there are regularly opportunities for teachers, children and parents to engage with the school community and the wider community which creates a sense of togetherness.

Scoil Sinéad has form – from Cradle to Graduation.  Achieving this is only possible by our involvement with our community.  At pre-school and primary school, the children go out into the local community and important people in their lives come in.  There is instilled a sense of pride in family, school and community.

In our Secondary schools that takes on a different hue.  Not only do they go out and get involved in their community in a supported and planned fashion, but Community and Opinion leaders come in. They give talks and seminars and workshops.  Through Community programmes run in conjunction with the local authority and Entrepreneur programmes in conjunction with local industry, that pride of place and understand is enhanced and supports their curricular work.

At Secondary School simply ‘ramping up’ the same activities they undertook in primary school is not enough.  We have introduced a new subject strand called ‘International Development Strand’. Students will now begin to understand that they are also citizens of, not just the town but the country, the continent and the world.  To bring this about, we travel.  First year sees them going to an activity centre and staying overnight.  It helps bonding and brings about skills of planning, organising, budgeting etc.  By second year, it is overseas to the UK. This enhances skills of behaviour, self-regulation, planning and now the requirement to save and fundraise kicks in. In co-operation with the Irish League of Credit Unions we facilitate this and develop lifelong skills. By transition year, they are ready to visit Europe and the European structures of Government and Industry.  They will visit the European Parliament and the Commission in Brussels.  They meet industry and education specialists and all of this feed into their subject curriculum and develops the skills we said were necessary to succeed in an ever-changing world. Our partnership with the European Commission education team and the Irish Institute for European Affairs in Louvain make this happen.