Four in 10 students have suffered discrimination
The schools, five primary and secondary schools based in Cork, Dublin, and Galway, have now achieved Yellow Flag status, which indicates that they are a safe place for all children.
The schools have created an environment where identity and racism bullying are challenged, and diversity and equality are embedded in school practice.
All of the 1,700 students from the schools were asked if they had experienced racism.
Only half responded and four in ten said they had.
The Yellow Flag programme is an externally assessed and accredited eight-step model co-ordinated by the Irish Traveller Movement. It was launched as a pilot programme in 2008.
Programme co-ordinator Elva O’Callaghan said they found that children, especially Traveller children, who had been hiding their identity in school at the start of the programme were talking proudly about their culture at the end.
Four of the five Yellow Flag recipients this year are primary schools, and the organisers described the findings as very worrying.
The recipients were Scoil Ghráinne Community National School, Clonee, Dublin; Good Shepherd National School, Whitehall Rd, Churchtown, Dublin; North Presentation Primary School, Cork; Merlin Woods Primary School, Galway; and Riversdale Community College, Blanchardstown, Dublin.
Aoife Scully, a teacher at the North Presentation Primary School, said every Yellow Flag participant took something different from the programme but, ultimately, it had promoted an atmosphere and practice of inclusivity in the school.
“It provided us with a framework to appreciate our unique identities, opening the dialogue between families and the school on issues of race, ethnicity, culture, discrimination, and language — issues that were previously unaddressed,” she said.
At a multicultural ceremony in Dublin, Communities Minister Catherine Byrne praised the five primary and secondary schools who joined the programme last year.
Pupils representing 66 nationalities and cultures attended the event, some wearing their traditional national dress.
Ten new schools have begun work on the eight steps of the programme in this academic year — four secondary and six primary schools.
It brings to 69 the number of schools involved in the programme.
