Community Connections at Villiers Schools

A Case Study on Community Engagement

“We’re fully committed to understanding the complexity of global justice issues and the challenges for our local community, which is interlinked with communities all over the world.”

WWGS lead contact teacher Ryan O’Sullivan Glynn (maths and geography)

Context

Community lies at the heart of Villiers School in Limerick, both within the school and beyond. With students and staff from 52 countries, Villiers embeds diversity, inclusion and global citizenship in all aspects of teaching and learning, and reaches beyond its gates to impact the wider community. Its embrace of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) earned Villiers a Special Global Passport in 2025. Working closely with WWGS, lead contact Ryan O’Sullivan Glynn teaches a Global Schools module in Transition Year (TY), and students and staff run many clubs, including the People of Colour Alliance, the Model United Nations and the Social Justice Club.

This case study offers examples in the following Global Passport, Stamp 6 Categories:

• Communications
• GCE Trips and Visits
• Engagement with Other Settings
• Engagement with WWGS

Communications

Central to the school’s community engagement (Stamp 6 of the WWGS Global Passport) is its quarterly magazine RedSokz. Written and published online by TY students, the articles highlight GCE activities to the wider community. RedSokz aligns with the WWGS Ethical Communication Guide, reflecting the global justice values of equity, solidarity and shared learning.

“One of RedSokz’s main goals is to engage with the local community and share the good practices present at Villiers. It informs the community of future possibilities for engagement with the school and promotes our students’ work.”

Fifth year student Emily Sheehy who wrote for RedSokz in TY

Another communication which has borne fruitful community dialogue was a student letter to Limerick Council calling for more litter bins on the North Circular Road where the school is located. The letter prompted a visit by local Labour TD Conor Sheehan, who answered students’ questions and discussed local, national and global issues including migration and climate change.

GCE Trips and Visits

Students participated in the Model United Nations held in Vienna. Working with teams from other schools, they explored how to move from conflict to cooperation by tackling inequalities, climate change and other global challenges. These issues were researched and scaffolded beforehand.

Members of the school’s People of Colour Alliance (POCA) club toured Trinity College Dublin with a Trinity student, a former pupil and member of Villiers’ GCE club. They attended a lecture on hidden black history in Ireland, part of a Black Studies module, in preparation for a POCA club study on Matriarchs and Sisters in history.

As part of the European Parliament Ambassador School Programme, four TY students and two staff members visited the European Parliament in Brussels to learn about democracy, political engagement, social responsibility and global citizenship.

Villiers has worked powerfully with a local primary school to identify and challenge discrimination. After workshops with the author and anti-racism educator Briana Fitzsimons, TY Year students designed and ran their own sessions with fifth and sixth class pupils at St. Michael’s National School. This facilitation by secondary students impacted the primary pupils deeply, encouraging them to open up about their own challenges, and building a sense of belonging.

“The primary pupils shared their experiences of feeling different. And as students, we can serve as role models for them. Seeing us facilitate the workshops will help them transition to secondary school.”

TY student and workshop facilitator Dara Okuneye

The workshops also built confidence and skills in student facilitators to research, design and present lessons promoting diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, values which underpin the Villiers educational ethos.

“If you believe in the power of your message, confidence will come.”

Sixth year student Oyindamola Olomo

Doras Talent Show

With respect and welcome infusing every part of school life, Villiers students ran a talent show, inviting the wider community, to promote the work of Doras, an Irish NGO that protects the rights of refugees and migrants. This has become an annual event, part of European Week against Racism.

Film Club

Building on these values, the POCA club is planning a film club, for school members and the wider community, to show documentaries promoting these values.

“Global citizenship education is about preparing students to thrive in the world outside of the school environment. One aspect of this, and one area of focus of the People of Colour Alliance (POCA) is racism and discrimination: how it can exist in the wider community and how to recognise it and respond to it. Lots of the community engagement events that POCA are involved in are focused on anti-discrimination and anti-racism, as well as Black History.”

SNA and staff POCA Lead, Gerard Peña

IPlay

In this collaboration between Villiers, the University of Limerick and St. Patrick’s Boys National School, Villiers students organised activities for children with additional needs. Pairing up to enjoy active games builds empathy and broadens perspective, two fundamental qualities of GCE, and contributes to the Sustainable Development Goal 3, Good Health and Wellbeing.

“Seeing the engagement from the students was inspiring for us, it made the experience all the more worthwhile and made us look at it as a future career.”

Fifth year student Kate McNamara

The Global Garden

The school garden serves as a springboard for international learning, a source of food and a local community resource. In the Global Schools class, WWGS lead contact, Ryan, guides TY students to grow vegetables to eat in school while researching GCE topics such as the human impact of biodiversity loss, global food distribution and waste systems. The viability of indigenous Irish plants is compared to that of alien species, drawing on the knowledge and expertise of the school’s many international students. Local community members have volunteered in the garden during the summer holidays.

Global Games

 Beyond local outreach, Villiers staff and students make global links wherever possible (one of the WWGS Guiding Principles for GCE). The multicultural profile of the school facilitates this broader perspective. The PE department designed a module on international games, combining physical activity with multicultural learning. Sports included Peteka from Brazil, Kho kho and Kabadi from India and Kiorehi from New Zealand; their practice was combined with an exploration of their origins and cultural importance.

The creative, generous and ‘can do’ ethos of the school leads them to look beyond obstacles to bring ideas to fruition, however ambitious.

“Our response is not why can’t we, but how can we?”

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Lead, Susan Peña

Engagement with WWGS

This realisation of possibilities is facilitated by close engagement with WWGS and the energetic support of senior management. As well as regular connection with his regional Education Officer, Ryan values attending the WWGS Teacher Conference.

“Connecting with staff from various schools gave me ideas and approaches I had never thought of before. It allowed me to approach Global Schools [the Villiers TY module] from a different angle.”

Susan Peña, the Diversity and Inclusion Lead at Villiers, attended the Management Symposium with the Villiers bursar. “It opened the bursar’s eyes to GCE and WWGS, and brought him fully on board with the work,” she says.

In every area of school life, Villiers staff and students prioritise human rights and act in solidarity at global, local and internal levels, in line with the WWGS Guiding Principles for GCE. Susan Peña has noticed a beautiful fruit of this ethos across some of the school’s clubs. “There are members of the Additional Needs group who don’t have additional needs, and members of the LGBTQ club who don’t identify as LGBTQ, but they have joined the clubs as allies, to support each other.”

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