ST JOSEPH’S Girls’ National School in Clonakilty has been awarded a Yellow Flag in recognition of its commitment to intercultural inclusion and addressing racism through policies and practises in the school.

The primary school which has 220 pupils and 15 teachers received its recognition at the annual Yellow Flag Programme Awards in Dublin last week.

The Yellow Flag Programme (YFP) is a practical whole-school initiative, for both primary and post primary schools, which supports them to become more inclusive of all cultures and ethnicities, celebrate diversity and challenge racism and discrimination.

St Joseph’s joins 149 schools nationwide – reaching approximately 53,000 students and 5,500 teachers.

Teacher at St Joseph’s, Conor Mulcahy, described the development a whole school anti-racism and inclusion policy and how the policy supports the wider work of the school in preventing racism, discrimination and exclusion: ‘It gave us clarity around what is and is not racism within a school context and an agreed set of steps to combat this. Having the policy helped us to set standards and expectations around behaviour and respectful interactions.’

Sixth class student Grace Ajayi described special celebrations because of the Yellow Flag Programme and her favourite part: ‘We had a few special celebrations in the school over the last two years while we were taking part in the yellow flag. I loved the multicultural music morning. It was a fun and interesting way of learning about the music from other cultures.’

Speaking at the annual awards, Irish Traveller Movement (ITM) director (which houses the YFP) Bernard Joyce congratulated the whole school community at St Joseph’s Girls National School.

He highlighted the importance of the programme by referring to a survey launched at the awards which showed that 75% of teachers have no training in dealing with anti-racism or inter-culturalism in their school environment.

The awards also included RTE Nationwide presenter and Author Zainab Boladale as MC and Dancing with the Stars finalist Singer Tolu Makay as guest of honour.