LGBTQ+ Quality Mark – 44 schools and education centres recognised
Last Friday, March 14th, 44 schools and Youthreach centres from across Ireland received the Belong To LGBTQ+ Quality Mark recognising their work over an 18-month period to foster LGBTQ+ wellbeing and inclusion for their students. We here at Presentation Secondary School in Castleisland are so proud to say that we were one of those schools who received this prestigious award.
Our school was presented with this award at an event in the Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire, which was attended by over 350 staff and student representatives and hosted by social media influencer and TV presenter James Kavanagh. Our school was represented on the day by teacher and co-ordinator of the programme Mairéad Lane and SNA Elaine O’Shea, who is also an active member of the Pres LGBTQ+ Quality Mark team in the school.
The LGBTQ+ Quality Mark
The accreditation initiative was developed by Belong To – LGBTQ+ Youth Ireland in 2022.
The initiative draws on national and international best practice to create an environment where students feel safe and welcome regardless of who they are. This is done through a host of practical, proactive actions such as establishing an LGBTQ+ and Allies Club for students, training whole-staff teams on supporting LGBTQ+ students and promoting the representation of LGBTQ+ families and identities in classroom teaching.
Our school as a whole has shown through our actions over the last 18 months a huge level of commitment to fostering a truly inclusive environment in our school, showing support to all students in our care. The actions we have taken throughout this process have made us feel extremely proud in showing that diversity and inclusion is such an important part of our school. Our main aim is that as a school our girls always feel safe and content in knowing that they are cared for and always have someone to go to when needed. We will continue with this programme with our next step to create a Colours Library. We hope to have a ‘Colours Spill The Tea’ fundraiser in the coming weeks to raise money for this library. The future continues to be bright for us all here at Presentation Castleisland and we thank parents, staff and students of our school for the continued support with this programme.
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