Ms Karen Murphy:

Everything comes back to the fact of the power of the student voice. As Ms Collier and Mr. Peak have said here today, the purpose of YSI is to show students that they have the power to make change in the world. We did YSI training in which we were told that the one thing the facilitator must pass to his or her students is that they have the potential to change somebody's life with what they will do in class today. It is not that one cannot do that in every other class, but a facilitator has to let students believe that they can make the change. In recent years, because of Covid and for various other reasons, students have not had that opportunity. For Mr. Rawson, Ms Sheppard and the students in our school and our community to see the change these students have made, and to hear the discussions we had in the art room of Coláiste Bhríde at 9 a.m. on a Thursday morning happening in the media or on national radio, shows the power of student minds and what they can achieve when they work together.

To answer the question about how it can fit into the school curriculum and where it can be fit in across other years, there is massive potential in that regard but it must be student-led in order for it to be as powerful as it is in transition year.