A Growth Engine for Europe

Despite being a small rural school with fewer than 100 pupils, the Scoil Mhuire National School in Lacken is a pioneer of ICT education in Ireland. In 2015, the school received a Europe Code Week grant from Google to set up a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths) room – the first of its kind in the country. They used the funding to fill it with technology like laptops, tablets, programmable drones and robots. This equipment has enabled hands-on learning across a range of disciplines. According to Tony Riley, Teacher and Kevin Foley, Principal at Scoil Mhuire, these opportunities are important since there's no ICT curriculum in Ireland. “Now the kids aren't just consumers of technology – they're creators,” he says. “They aren't just playing games, they’re making their own.” The room has given pupils access to more than just a new set of learning tools, too. “We're in a remote part of the country. Now we can link up with other classrooms across the globe and this opens up the world to the kids,” Tony explains. Google’s backing has had an impact for Scoil Mhuire both in and outside of the classroom. “It opened doors to people and organisations that we would never have been in touch with before,” Tony says. “That was huge for us.” The Department of Education in Ireland has also taken an interest in how the school is using the resource to teach other subjects. “Coding will be introduced to the secondary school curriculum in the near future and there is a hope that it might be part of the primary curriculum at some stage also, which is pretty exciting.”