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Hazelwood Integrated Primary School students help launch a new disability sports programme06/03/2009
Pupils from Hazelwood Integrated Primary School have celebrated Integrated Education Week by helping to launch Disability Sports NI’s exciting new “Five Star Disability Sports Challenge” in the W5 centre.
This recently developed programme has been designed to encourage young children to gain a better understanding of disability and is specifically aimed at Primary Five, Six and Seven students.
On Monday 2nd March, representatives from Disability Sports NI, a charity which supports disabled athletes, paid a special visit to Hazelwood, in Newtownabbey, and encouraged a lucky group of pupils to take part in the Five Star Challenge.
This meant they had to try their hand at five Paralympics sports, including wheelchair racing, kurling and wheelchair basketball. They also got to watch a specially made presentation and had the chance to meet some Paralympic athletes in person.
According to Principal Jill Houston, the visit went very well. She said: “We make a point of celebrating Integrated Education Week every year and have covered topics like race and religion in the past.
“However, we thought this time it would be a great idea to explore diversity and inclusion by looking at disability, especially since we have students of all-abilities at Hazelwood.
“Becoming involved in the Disability Sports NI’s Five Star Challenge just seemed like a very positive way to tackle the issue.”
So far 60 schools in total have decided to take part in the Challenge, but as Hazelwood was the first to sign on, a group of staff and students were asked to attend the official launch. The school decided which pupils should go by running a poster competition.
The children selected then travelled to the launch on Thursday 5th February and got to demonstrate Paralympics sports for the other guests, who included footballer David Healy and Sports Minister Gregory Campbell
Mrs Houston was very impressed with the whole event. She said: “The children will remember this for a very long time. They did very well and were delighted to meet David Healy. Most of them got him to sign their arms or legs!”
Hazelwood was also lucky enough to receive a visit from MLA Anna Lo as part of their Integrated Education Week celebrations. She attended a special assembly, discussing diversity with the students.
As well as this, Hazelwood pupils were involved in making special displays as each of their classrooms was transformed to represent a different country.
Mrs Houston explained: “We have a lot of diversity in the school and we thought this would be a great visual way for the children to explore it. Integrated Education Week has gone very well for us this year.”
Hazelwood pupils with David Healy
