Top award for Kyle Park NS
St Patrick’s National School, Kyle Park, near Borrisokane, has been crowned national winner in the school category of Agri Aware’s farm safety programme ‘Safe Farm Futures’.
In a prizegiving ceremony, Minister for State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine with special responsibility for Farm Safety, Martin Heydon joined the Agri Aware team in congratulating the school and in presenting the overall national school award on Thursday, June 20.
Acknowledging the wonderful work the school has undertaken on its farm safety journey, Minister Heydon said:
“I want to congratulate the pupils of St Patrick’s NS, Kyle Park for the passion and commitment they showed to farm safety. I was blown away by their projects, the artwork on tractor blind spots and how they went about educating themselves on machinery safety and safety around livestock. They can be extremely proud of their efforts and I am confident the wider farming community will benefit from them.”
The Tipperary-based primary school came out on top out of almost 330 primary schools participating in the programme to win the top prize of €2,000. The school intends to put the prize money towards student wellbeing/learning.
The purpose of the Safe Farm Futures programme is to deliver a rounded guide to farm safety, ensuring that the work we do on farms is safe by recognising and increasing awareness around the dangers on farms, so that we can all farm sustainably in a safe environment for all.
‘THOROUGHLY DESERVING OF FIRST PRIZE’
Speaking at the prizegiving ceremony at St, Patrick’s NS, Kyle Park, Agri Aware Executive Director Marcus O’Halloran said: “We were delighted to welcome Minister Heydon here today to celebrate with St Patrick’s NS, Kyle Park on their success in winning the national award as part of our farm safety programme, Safe Farm Futures. Pupils prepared an excellent project as part of the programme.
“From excellently created and informative farm safety posters, through engagement with our farm safety webinars and to visiting a local dairy farm to put the knowledge learned in class into practice, their engagement with the programme really shone through in their project and the school is thoroughly deserving of first prize”.
Approximately 23,500 students across almost 330 schools took part in the programme since its launch earlier this year. It provided an opportunity to visit many of schools over the course of the programme through 60 in-person farm safety workshops delivered by Agri Aware’s farm safety officer to 2,300 students.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, Minister Heydon concluded by saying:
“The Safe Farm Futures programme plays a vital role in educating primary school pupils of the need to keep safe on farms. This programme is an opportunity to ingrain a lifelong culture of farm safety from a young age.
This programme is making an important contribution to changing the culture of safety on Irish farms by empowering every generation to play their part.”