Announcing the winners of the Quality Framework Initiative (QFI) Competition sponsored by Promethean
 

The QFI competition was launched at the Youthreach Co-ordinators’ Conference in February 2009. The conference marked the 20^th anniversary of the Youthreach programme and the competition was one way of celebrating this stage of development while acknowledging that the QFI was built on all the good practice and expertise that had developed since the start of the programme.

The competition was open to staff in all Youthreach centres. Entrants were asked to write a short essay outlining the implementation and impact of the QFI in centres.

Every effort was made to ensure that the entries were judged fairly and that all centres had a chance to win. The competition entries were first screened and short listed by Niamh Mernagh, who has recently retired from her position as a DES inspector. The final ten entries were circulated to the judging panel. Care was taken to remove all reference to the names of the centres so that the judges could not identify where the entries were from. The judging panel including Mary Kett (Further Education Development Unit, DES), Paddy Lavelle (CEO of Co. Waterford VEC), Dermot Stokes ( National Co-ordinator Youthreach) and Shivaun O’Brien (QFI Co-ordinator), selected the winners at a meeting on the 21^st of May ‘09. After the anonymous winning entries were selected, Niamh Mernagh revealed the names of the winning centres to the judging panel.

The first prize won by Lucan Youthreach is a 78" Promethean Interactive Whiteboard. It will be a fantastic resource for the staff team and students and will open up the world of learning. Far beyond traditional lectures and notes, transparencies and slideshows, the world of knowledge is full of amazing sound and colour, shape and movement. With the Promethean Interactive Whiteboard the educational show starts as soon as the bell rings.

The second prize is the ACTIVslate and award winning ACTIV studio software will be a really useful tool for Rush Youthreach. It can be used without the need for an interactive whiteboard and is portable so staff in the centre can easily bring it around from room to room.

As third place winners, no doubt the staff in Lifford Youthreach will also put the Prim Ed Publishing voucher to good use.

The three winning centres scored highest using the judges scoring system but special mention was given to the entry from the Tralee LCA Youthreach centre for its creativity and amusement value.

Shivaun O’Brien would like to thank the centres that submitted entries for the competition and acknowledges that it took a lot of effort to write the essays considering the competing pressures that exist in every centre. Hopefully, for those centres that entered, it was useful to reflect over the developments in the centre over the past 4-5 years as a result of the QFI processes.

Thanks to the National Association of Youthreach Co-ordinators for allowing the competition to be launched at their national conference in February.

Thanks to Promethean for providing such excellent prizes and to Jessica Murphy (Marketing Manager Prim- Ed Publishing) who has worked with Shivaun since November 2008 on the development of this competition.

Finally, thanks to Niamh Mernagh who received and screened the entries and to the judging panel (named above) for all the work that judging the essays involved (more time than was anticipated).

At least there is plenty of time to plan the competition for the 40^th anniversary of the Youthreach programme and who knows what kind of prize modern technology will have to offer for teachers when that time comes.