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Sixth Class Donegal Student Takes National Award for MACE Safe to School - County GAA Manager Brian McIver "Safe Pair of Hands"

There was huge excitement in the tiny village of Termon, Co. Donegal yesterday (Wednesday 20th June 2007) when Noel Brett, (Road Safety Authority CEO) and a Road Safety team travelled to Gaeltacht school, Scoil Cholmchille, to surprise a sixth class student and present her with the national award in the MACE Safe to School Art competition.

Winner

12 year old Nicole McLoughlin was stunned when the team announced that she had beaten off stiff competition from thousands of primary school pupils throughout the country to win the national award, which was launched by the previous Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen in February of this year.

"Safe Pair of Hands", local GAA hero Brian McIver, Manager of the Donegal Football team came along especially to congratulate delighted Nicole, an avid GAA player and part of the under 14's County panel. Brian's arrival was greeted with a huge cheer from the school - as they had just been announced the County Winners of the Primary School Gaelic football league.

Nicole is particularly popular among the 4 teachers and 107 students at Scoil Cholmchille. Not only did MACE present her with a €500 voucher to spend on equipment for the class and a €1,000 voucher for the school - the team also threw a surprise party for her entire class in the local Lagoon restaurant!

Nicole's winning Safe to School poster was selected from more than 8,000 entries received from over 389 primary schools across the country.

Class teacher Christy Gillespie said this was the perfect finish to the school term for Scoil Cholmchille. "We finish this Friday, which is quite early as we didn't take many holidays during the year. It is a particularly nice way for Nicole to bid farewell to 8 years of primary school".

He went on to say that taking part in the MACE Safe to School competition has done wonders in driving the Road Safety message home to the entire school.

“The whole competition created a great awareness of what road safety is all about. As a County we have seen a lot of tragedies on the roads over the years. This has been a very positive contribution as it made the children think more about safety on the roads. Money couldn't buy that. And winning the national award is the icing on the cake. We're delighted to become champions, but any child in Ireland who took part in this is winner!”

For the past three weeks, the MACE road safety team has traveled to schools in every county in the Republic to surprise County Award winners in the high profile national Road Safety competition, before announcing the overall national winner from Donegal.

The 'MACE Safe to School' campaign focuses on walking to school and was launched by Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen, T.D. last February. The competition called on all primary school students to draw a poster on the theme of walking to school safely and is part of the overall MACE Safe to School campaign, which is supported by the Road Safety Authority.

Congratulating Nicole on her win, competition organiser Brian O'Toole of MACE said "This campaign has been a phenomenal success in terms of driving the road safety message home to primary school children. We received immense support from teachers who recognised how fundamental an issue this is and we were blown away by how seriously the children took road safety themselves when we travelled to schools in every single Irish County."

Noel Brett - RSA "The RSA is delighted to partner MACE is this innovative road safety project. School children are among our most vulnerable road user and this project has mobilised thousands of young people, their parents and teachers in promoting road safety and I have every confidence that this project will save lives and prevent serious injuries on Irish roads".

Every day in Ireland, in excess of 100,000 primary school children walk to school. With so many of our children walking to school every day, road safety awareness and education are of paramount importance. MACE partnered with the Road Safety Authority to launch the Safe to School Campaign which is aimed at helping our primary school children learn effective road safety lessons. The campaign is inspired by the Safety and Protection strand within the Social, Personal and Health educations segment of the primary school curriculum.