ICD Commits to the Welcoming Schools Project

Our college is involved in the Welcoming Schools Project, funded by the IEF, to promote invitational education. We are a college committed to educating our students within a safe, happy and inclusive environment and we are undertaking this project as part of our continuous self evaluation and in our bid to seek recognition for the work we are doing in this area.

The Award itself is a rigorous, in depth review of every aspect of college life, under five headings:

• Child Centred Provision – Policies;
• High Quality Teaching and Learning – Programmes;
• Effective Leadership – People;
• A School connected to its local community – Places;
• Processes.

We reviewed what we do at ICD to make our college a welcoming place for all and then planned how we can be even better.

The main improvements we have made as a result of our participation in the Welcoming Schools Programme are:

• New 6 th Form Study;
• New 6 th Form Common room;
• Creation of Welcome Centre;
• New Careers Suite;
• Refurbished meeting room;
• Review of all signage and communication.

Our college was proud to showcase our good practice regarding our child centred ethos on our post-primary cluster day. Staff and students from local schools and the Welcoming Schools Project visited us and gave us wonderful feedback on our college. Visiting staff and students were all very impressed with the way we do things here in ICD and all voiced their praise for the warm, friendly atmosphere which we all enjoy and sometimes take for granted.

We will be visited by Welcoming Schools assessors in Term 1 of the new academic year and we hope to begin another great year at ICD by celebrating our successful completion of this award.