St Louis Secondary school make integration upgrades for students

St Louis Secondary School in Dundalk has benefitted from an integration project run by the Department of Justice and Equality.

Sonya Mc Eneaney, St Louis Secondary School’s EAL (English as an Additional Language) teacher pursued the funding to offer assistance to students in the school.

She did so with a changing Ireland in mind where there are large numbers of students in every school in the country for whom English is not a first language.

Sonya was delighted to receive €4,700 in funding .

The projects granted funding are small community based projects. A maximum grant amount of €5,000 could have been awarded so Principal Michelle Dolan was delighted when Sonya gave her the good news about the award for St Louis.

“I heard about the grant on a teachers’ forum,” said Sonya McEneaney, “and I realised that the funding could make a real difference to St. Louis.

“We have a diverse school community with students from many different cultures and backgrounds and it’s important to us that interculturalism is present in communal areas”.

The project ‘Library Update’ aimed to create a dedicated welcoming space within the school library for multilingual resources which will help to improve literacy skills and encourage independent learning. Books in mother tongue languages, talking pens, picture dictionaries, novels about migration and refugees, dual language materials and devices will all be available in this space.

“Due to the pandemic the school library was converted into a classroom so we’ve had to alter our plans slightly. However this did not prevent us from creating a wonderful space.

“We are delighted to have it ready to welcome our students in September.”