Award for Laois students who read with nursing home residents

A group of Laois students who visited a nursing home to read with residents, have won a national award.

A committee of Portlaoise College students and teachers attended the Wellread National Award ceremony on Monday April 28.

Pictured are Principal Noel Daly, English teacher Patrick Travers, Ben Campbell, Noor Fatima, Sean McComish Day, Lydia Keyes, Saoirse Fox and English teacher John Fitzpatrick.

The Portlaoise College Wellread Committee joined with other schools from around the country to be commended for their initiatives relating to reading and writing various genres of literature.

For the Portlaoise students, they had visited the residents of Ballard Nursing Home, to bring reading initiatives out into the community.

John Fitzpatrick is one of the teachers involved.

"While the initiative was due to start much earlier, due to Covid, we were only able to enter the nursing home in the latter part of the year. This is planned to continue in September with TY students visiting as part of their community engagement," he said.

It is the first time for this award to come to the school. The committee includes English teachers Mr Travers and Mr Fitzpatrick,  Over the course of two years, they have worked with the wider school community to promote literacy and reading for pleasure under the National Wellread Programme.

To be nominated for this award required the involvement of students, teachers, parents and the Board of Management, in reading, writing and associated activities.

The various initiatives that the school implemented were documented in a portfolio. They intend to retain the award by refreshing this portfolio every three years, and to engage with the Readers For Life initiative, and thus maintain a culture of reading for pleasure in the school and the wider community.

The Wellread National Award is a literacy initiative supported by the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST) and aims to promote the development of a reading culture in school communities.

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"Research has shown that this supports the personal and academic development of young people, which is something we are passionate about in Portlaoise College. We would hope that this award would be part of an ongoing milestone that would encourage the wider school community to continually engage in," Mr Fitzpatrick said.