Sacred Heart Secondary School, Sunnyside, Drogheda began a special school initiative which students and teachers have undertaken since November. In November the Student Representative Council (SRC) and Student Leadership Council (SLC) discussed how as a school they could ensure that all students feel included in the school and have a sense of belonging to the school. These discussions with student and staff led to the idea of an inclusion badge. The badge would aim to represent every individual student in our school.
The first step in the process was to work with the representatives of each class to create a slogan that represented what inclusion in SHS means. After compiling slogan suggestions a vote during a full school assembly was taken and “Together as One” was voted as the most representative of the vision for the badge.
This slogan was then taken and presented to the full school community to launch a house competition for the artwork/design of the badge. Students form all year groups submitted designs and an overall winner was chosen by the SLC and SRC, students and teachers involved in the project. The winning design was created by a second year student, Ciara Hampton. Her badge design represented the image and idea we wanted to portray as a school, it displayed inclusivity regardless of our differences.
The badge design has now being made into a physical badge and on Monday 15th April, at a full school assembly, the badge was launch to the full student and teaching body. Two students representing the students involved in the project spoke to the full school community on what it mean to them to have the inclusion badge and to the symbolism in wearing it. The student of the winning design presented the meaning behind each element of the design and her reason for including the significant symbols.
Some of the key symbols include:
The school crest to represent the school community.
Each hand has a different skin colour to represent our different nationalities and cultures in the school.
The jigsaw pieces to show that we are all individual but yet make up one larger picture/piece – all coming “Together as One”.
The jigsaw pieces of different colour represent the colours of the different houses within the school of which each class is part of one. In explanation the school community is split into four houses. Each house has a class group from each year and throughout the academic year there are various competition organised in which the houses compete with each other bringing class from different year groups together.
The chosen slogan “Together as one” included in the bottom banner bringing the full design together.
This has been a labour of love for the full community since November and to see the sense of pride , belonging and coming together of a full school community has been a proud moment for the school as a whole that they wanted to share this initiative and feeling with the wider CEIST community.