LGBTQ+ And Allies

Our LGBTQ+ and Allies Club at ETSS Wicklow is a welcoming and inclusive space where students can connect, support one another, and celebrate diversity. We aim to promote understanding, acceptance, and equality throughout our school community. The club meets every Thursday at lunch in the Bowie Room. While we offer a safe environment for open discussions, creative projects, and advocacy initiative, it is also a place to have fun, sing some songs, lipsync for your life and make some new friends. Recently, we proudly organised a successful Stand Up Awareness Week, raising awareness and fostering a strong sense of belonging among students and staff. Currently, we are working hard to achieve the Quality Mark from Belong To, this will let the wider community know that ETSS Wicklow is a safe and welcoming place for everyone!

The Quality Mark Programme

The Quality Mark Programme is a programme designed by Belongto and endorsed by the Department of Education. It is a programme designed to support schools to become inclusive and safe school for LGBTQ+ people. In Ireland, 76% of LGBTQ+ students have indicated that they do not feel safe in schools. It is our goal in our school to try to ensure that this number is kept to a minimum.

Some of the main areas that we will be focusing on are increased education around the importance of language and developing our policies to ensure they are inclusive for all, not just the LGBTQ+ cohort of our community.

As part of the programme, we have completed staff, student and parent/guardian surveys. It is vital that we have as many responses to these surveys as possible to ensure that our action plan reflects our school and the areas that we need to work on as an individual school.

In February, we were awarded our Quality Mark Accreditation in recognition for all the hard work we have done in ensuring our school is a welcoming, supportive and inclusive environment for all students and staff. It was no easy feat, but the hard work of the LGBTQ+ & Allies club has finally been recognised. By achieving this, our school has committed itself to upkeeping and evolving these ideals as set out by the Department and Belongto.