Minister highlights family role

Pleased, he said, to be invited to speak, Mr O’Dowd credited prizegiving events not only with highlighting pupils’ success but also the commitment and dedication of teachers and staff.

“We have high-quality education professionals working in our schools,” he said, “but they alone cannot provide young people with a quality education. They need the parents and indeed the wider family circle to provide support and encouragement to the children, helping them do better at school.

“It is for this reason that I launched the advertising campaign ‘Education Works’ which will be running again in the coming days. This next phase of the campaign will help drive home the importance of parental and wider family involvement in a child’s education.”

In addition, the minister said, to encouraging parental involvement in education, he had also increased the number of courses available to pupils.

“The Entitlement Framework is the post-14 curriculum which became statutory last year and is one of my key policiesfor raising standards and closing the achievement gap,” he said.

“It is about meeting the needs of all our young people by offering all pupils, regardless of where they go to school, a wider and more balanced range of courses that are relevant to their needs, aptitudes, interests and future job prospects.”

Mr O’Dowd thanked principal, Dr Seamus Quinn, for the invitation and the warm welcome and commended school staff on their dedication and commitment.

“I believe it is also vital that we congratulate the pupil body as a whole,” he added, “whether they have collected an award this evening or not.

“There will be many who in the last year have surmounted personal obstacles and achieved above what may have been their expectations.

“I congratulate every child at the school for their efforts in the past year and hope that there is cause for optimism as future paths beckon.”