Ms Niamh Bakker:

My name is Niamh Bakker and I am the Laois representative on the Comhairle na nÓg national executive. The findings of our survey was published recently as a report entitled "So how was school today?". It is important that the committee understands background to this research and where it came from. In 2014, at the Comhairle na nÓg national showcase, 500 young people voted that the areas of their lives in which they least had a say were school and education. As a result, school and education became the theme for Dáil na nÓg in 2015, where delegates voted that what happens in the classroom should be the priority question to be dealt with by the national executive. During the executive's two-year term, it developed a survey to explore how students are taught and how they learn in the classroom. It was assisted by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, the Department of Education and Skills, researchers from the School of Education in UCD and a steering committee of educational experts. The survey was completed by 3,242 young people at the 31 Comhairle na nÓg AGMs in late 2016. This is a huge number of respondents and is one of the most significant surveys carried out to date on young people's educational experiences. Ms Kate Lehane will now discuss the results from section 1, which looks at pupils' experience of teaching and learning in schools.