Navan schools come together for inclusion project

Students from St Ultan's Special School and Mercy Navan have joined together for a pilot project focused on inclusion.

As part of this national pilot programme LCA (Leaving Cert Applied) students in St Joseph's Convent of Mercy's studying hair and beauty will train students from St Ultan's in various modules of their course.

The overarching purpose of the programme is to provide for collaboration between mainstream and special schools in teaching, learning and assessment practices.

St Ultan’s Special School Teacher Sarah Andrews explains how it all came together.

“The NCSE (National Council for Special Education) have a pilot programme called “Towards Inclusion” and they were looking for proposals for special schools and mainstream schools to work together in inclusion projects and it was very open ended,” she said.

“You could take on any activity or hobbies and a lot of our senior students would have a lot of interest in the areas of hair and beauty and would like to go into this area when they leave us,” she added.

“Mercy Post Primary has a salon on site now for their LCAs and they can do hair and beauty as a subject in their leaving cert so we touched base with the teacher there to ask if it was something they were interested in coming on board with and they jumped at the chance.” Sarah says the project has brought “ a new energy” to the school.

“We are in the very early stages so far and we have started with module one which is customer care and we are moving on to beauty and make up next,” said the St Ultans Special School teacher.

“We have set up a temporary salon here in St Ultans now so the girls can practice what they learn,” she added.

“A combination of practical, theory and role play classes taking place in both St. Joseph’s Salon and here at St. Ultans.”

“As part of the programme we also have some guest speakers coming in from local businesses.

“The girls are loving it and the feedback from parents has been great too that it has really increased motivation in coming to school.”

Leaving Certificate Applied is a self-contained two-year Leaving Certificate programme aimed at practically preparing learners for adult and working life. The four modules available within the Hair and Beauty subject are; salon and customer care, haircare, beauty care, and body care.

The new facilities allow students to complete the course using the best facilities and resources possible and empower their educational experience with their teacher Amy Dignam and a host of guest educators in the industry.

The salon was built ‘in-house’ by the school's talented caretaker Dermott Coffey. Salon equipment was sourced from Our Salon in Ratoath owned by Fearghal Flanagan and Derek Bruton.

“Our students here in Mercy are absolutely loving working on this project and they said to me that they wish they could go up there everyday and the girls from St Ultan's are just so happy and appreciative,” said the LCA teacher.

“It is just a fabulous initiative,” she added.

To showcase this inclusion project and the hard work of students from both schools. They are hosting a charity fashion show on a Thursday 10th April in The Newgrange Hotel.

“We are hoping to use this event as an opportunity to fundraise for local charity Meath River Rescue and we are currently reaching out to local businesses in the town to see if they would be interested or available to offer sponsorship for this event,” said St Ultans teacher Sarah.

“In this role, businesses would provide monetary donations or their services/coverage and be promoted as the event's official sponsor on all advertisements of the event, business logos would be visible on the night of the event on posters and leaflets and advertised throughout the duration of the project on a social media account run and managed by staff,” she added.

“Additionally, prizes, vouchers or hampers would be much appreciated for raffles on the night.

“We really feel having some local businesses on board would promote inclusion between local schools, business and community which is at the very heart of this project.”