The Castleknock Print Blog

Not happy with their recent success in the D15 Chamber Awards in the Park Plaza Hotel, The Homework Club, located on Blanchardstown’s Shopping center, is now in line for a major national award for their customer service acumen.

'The O2 Ability Awards' are business awards for best practice in the inclusion of people with disabilities, both as customers and as employees. They look at companies that create an open and inclusive culture and have recognized how the inclusion of people with disabilities is an important goal for an organization.

“We applied on the grounds that we effectively incorporate students with learning difficulties into our classes without having to make any obvious changes to the way we teach,” commented educational facilitator and Homework Club founder Dr. Naoisé O’Reilly. “As we teach in a visual practical way that promotes participation and group learning in a small class environment, this is ideal for students with learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD and Aspergers syndrome'.

“It has been a fundamental aim of mine since starting the project to create a learning situation which suits these students but is not labeled as a special school. This is due to my own background and experiences as a dyslexic. I know very well that dyslexic students hate being taken out of ‘normal’ classes and being made to feel they are different.”

The Homework Club made the application in September for the awards but only found out very recently that they had made it to the shortlist of thirty companies. As most of the companies on the shortlist are large blue chip companies - previous winners include Microsoft, Eircom and McDonalds, for example - it a notable achievement for the Homework Club to have made it this far.

The shortlist was announced after a grueling day-long on site assessment of the club by a team of examiners, which included hours of interviews both with Dr. O’Reilly and with training facilitator Dr. Phil Kingston.

A final, even shorter shortlist will be announced in March before the judging panel announces the findings of its deliberations and the overall winners are announced.

It’s not just Santa who is busy at this time of year, as record amounts of Fingal’s young entrepreneurs also get down to business as part of the annual Student Enterprise Programme. This year, nine Dublin 15 schools are participating in the event.

Aimed at potential entrepreneurs from both primary and secondary schools, the educational programme inspires students to set up and run their own student enterprise with support from business mentors.

The programme was officially launched this week by Oisín Geoghegan, CEO of Fingal County Enterprise Board, who commented that “as the local Enterprise Board for the region, one of our long-term goals is to help create an enterprising culture amongst Irish students, giving them an insight into the world of business. We have one of the fastest growing student enterprise programmes in Ireland and we will continue to work in partnership with principals, teachers and parents to help create an enterprising culture in classrooms.”

The most innovative enterprises from each school will compete at the county final next March, with the category winners taking their place at the National Student Enterprise Awards in Croke Park.

The Dublin 15 schools competing in this year’s programme are Castaheany Educate Together NS, Mulhuddart NS, St. Mochta’s NS and Huntstown NS. Five local secondary schools are also participating - Castleknock Community College, Coolmine Community School, Hartstown Community School, Blakestown Community School and Castleknock College.