Ms Doreen Vella Galea, Ms Bertagna Ali Hassan Paris, & Ms Suzanne Aquilina from St Nicholas College Rabat Primary school, embarked on an Erasmus journey to Dublin on 4th March 2024 where they spent a week Job Shadowing, exploring, and discovering how different schools in Dublin go about their academics.
The Educators visited ‘Our Lady of Consolation Primary School’ and ‘City Quay National School’. These schools are called DASH School because they are based in areas that are considered less privileged and some or most of the attendees (students) in these schools have different social problems such as lack of education, drug issues, and lack of finances. These DASH schools take these situations into consideration and provide support to both students and parents using different means such as financial support from private institutions, and school support by a special teacher for children with difficulties in behaviour.
Another visit was also scheduled at ‘St Joseph Co-Ed Primary School’ where they had the opportunity to take part in a Robotics activity with students in different Grades. They learned that both Schools in Malta and the ones in Dublin work in a very similar way and the outcomes are basically the same throughout. They could also see some differences which we really liked. Children with SLD (Specific Learning Difficulties) attend Special Classes within the school where they spend most of their time with other children that are on the same spectrum, however they also participate in some of the activities with children in Mainstream classes. Therefore, they get the best of both worlds.
Another thing that the educators really enjoyed learning about is teaching stations within mainstream classrooms, where the class teacher and SNAs (Special Needs Assistants) work in collaboration with other teachers, that provide specialized or general help within the school, to carry out a particular subject-based activity using three different methods / stations at the same time in the same class.
Parent involvement is something that Schools in Dublin value. They believe that the closer the parents are to school the better the system works, and therefore some parents are involved first-hand within a building where they provide support to other parents that might lack education by helping them gain more general and academic knowledge through simple activities, engage in sport and yoga, and provide them with moral support when needed. This whole experience sums up to one main thing being, that although we live in different places across the globe, teachers and LSEs shower children with love, respect, care, and do anything that they could possibly do to see them happy and learn.
