School tours: sans frontiers?

One Dublin national school with a long history of overseas travel was forced to discontinue its annual trip to Paris due to its changing student profile.

When the number of non-national students reached a certain level four years ago, an unforeseen problem arose.

"We have a high percentage of new Irish children in our school," says Principal Mick Shanley of St Patrick's National School in Corduff, Blanchardstown. "It struck us that if we took all of our children out of the country, some of them might have difficulties getting back in again. We got in touch with the Department of Foreign Affairs about it but they said they couldn't get the necessary paperwork for every child. They couldn't guarantee that every child would be allowed to return. We certainly weren't going to take a chance. We didn't want to bring some pupils and not all."

For over 20 years, St Patricks has been bringing its children on a foreign holiday - primary-level school tours overseas are still the exception in Ireland. The children benefited from the cultural difference and the independence from their families, says principal Shanley. Now they can enjoy cultural variety here at home. St Patrick's does an annual surfing trip to Donegal and no child is left behind.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times