The STEPS Young Engineers Award 2024-2025 is now open for registration! Aimed at 3^rd and 4^th class teachers, this exciting competition will empower students to design solutions for a local community problem. There is also the opportunity to request an engineer visit to your classroom to inspire the children! Register at:https://steps.smapply.io/

Burrenbeo Trust is thrilled to announce that the latest round of the National Heritage Keepers Programme opens for applications on the 3^rd of September. Over 150 groups and schools have completed the free programme to date. Heritage Keepers are now looking for community groups and senior classes of primary schools to take part in its highly anticipated fourth round.

Through a series of online workshops Heritage Keepers empowers groups and schools to delve into their local heritage and provides funding to allow them to take positive action. Rather than seeking to separate built, cultural and natural heritage the programme works on the principle that all aspects of heritage are very closely inter-linked and that these aspects work together to create our distinctive Places.

In the previous year, 70 schools and communities participated in the programme, with the majority successfully completing local funded projects and actions. These actions included exhibitions, heritage trails, tree planting, podcast creation, booklets, wildlife ponds, oral history projects and ‘Place Celebration’ days. Funding for fieldtrips is also provided meaning participants get to visit local heritage sites in person rather than just learning about them online. Previous participants have highly praised the programme with one primary school teacher commenting “Its more than just talking about helping, its actually doing something”, and another participant saying “It definitely brought us together as a group and we are delighted with what we achieved”.

For those eager to learn more about this wonderful opportunity, an online information session is scheduled for Thursday, September 12th, at 7.30pm. Visit www.heritagekeepers.ie for additional details and to complete a brief application form (submission deadline: October 4th).

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We are delighted to confirm that the Blue Star Programme is running for its fourteenth year over the 2024-2025 school term.  

The Blue Star Programme teaches primary school pupils about European cultures, diversity and the EU through creative activities and projects which complement the national primary curriculum. The aim of the Programme is to foster better knowledge and understanding of the EU and how it affects our lives among Irish primary pupils through fun, creative classroom projects and activities.  

Since the first year of the Programme in 2011-2012, the Blue Star Programme has had just over 1,200 primary schools registrations across the country, as the Programmes grows from strength to strength! 

How does it work? 

Pupils of all ages, from primary schools all over Ireland, are challenged to get creative and think about Europe by carrying out projects in relation to four key elements: the history, geography, culture and creativity, and Institutions of the EU.  

The Blue Star Programme is designed to be as curriculum friendly as possible so it can fit in with lesson plans already in place.  It also aims to draw in the wider school and local community to engage and get involved.  

One of the advantages of this Programme is its flexibility: you, the teacher, can decide whether your entire school or individual classes participate.  Most of all, this is a fun Programme that encourages pupils and teachers to be as creative as possible in their project work, particularly in the use of online technologies and tools. 

Schools interested in participating:  

If schools are interested in taking part in the Programme, or just to learn more about what is involved, they can visit www.bluestarprogramme.ie. Registration for the thirteenth year of the programme is open until 11 October 202, schools can register at the link below.

https://www.bluestarprogramme.ie/register/

- The Blue Star Programme Team 

The Blue Star Programme is a venture of the Communicating Europe Initiative, supported by the Office of the Minister of State for European Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Education and Skills, the European Commission Representation in Ireland, the European Parliament Liaison Office in Ireland and European Movement Ireland who are the National Implementation Body of the Programme.