The Primary Seven students of St Mary’s were delighted to be accepted onto The Wool Innovators Project with Ulster Wool and Sentinus in recent weeks and months. The objectives and aims of this programme were to educate us as young people on wool, the importance of shearing in relation to animal welfare, to discover how wool is used in a wide diversity of ways and celebrate how wool is a natural fibre with so many important properties.
As one of only thirteen schools across the north privileged to be selected onto the programme, we were thrilled initially to welcome Jayne Harkness-Bones from Ulster Wool and Gerard Hughes from Sentinus into our classroom, for an extended science workshop. This was a fantastic opportunity to learn all about wool and its many properties and characteristics, and to carry out a range of experiments, firsthand. The day’s learning provided us with an insight and overall introduction to wool and sheep and shearing, and we extend much thanks and appreciation to Gerard and Jayne, as all of their colleagues and staff at Ulster Wool and Sentinus.
When we were invited to submit a project for the Wool Innovators Exhibition at the Balmoral Show on 15th May, our class agreed that we would try our best to focus on three elements: to design an eco-friendly and sustainable sheep shed for today’s busy young sheep farmer, keeping the health, welfare and safety of our 150 lambing ewes at the centre of everything, and then to make a model of it; to showcase the fantastic properties of wool by learning how to knit, thus creating our sheep and lambs for our model sheep shed; and to share in and reflect a little on some of the life lessons we can learn from sheep and nature, by reading some of Longford sheep farmer and writer - John Connell’s - book, ‘Twelve Sheep’.
Of course, we were very fortunate, too, to feel confident in approaching four most successful local businesses, for expertise, guidance, resources and support - Teemore Engineering, Eco Systems Direct, ACEL Energy, and Ernco Traffic, Signage & Safety. And our confidence was surely repaid because we have worked closely alongside all of the businesses in relation to the design of our sheep shed and creating a model for the Show, over the last number of weeks.
We hope that our video compilations, report and photographs will give you an insight into the journey of our project. However, without doubt, we could not have achieved the three sets of full marks - 100% - for our project on the day, as awarded by three different Sentinus judges/ambassadors, without the vital support, expertise and guidance of the four different businesses. Thus, we pay much tribute and our sincere thanks and appreciation to Colin Wilson, Emma Brownlee, Ian Jenner and Conan McGrath of Teemore Engineering; Peter Carolan and Emmett Drumm of Ernco Traffic, Signage and Safety, Derrylin; and Declan and Fionnán McDonald of Eco Systems Direct and ACEL Energy. We are very fortunate that Fionnán is a member of our class and very interested and passionate in the project from the very beginning, as his Dad, Declan.
As we worked on designing and then creating the model sheep shed, we also wanted to learn how to knit and to be able to knit, sew and stuff our own lambs and sheep, for the shed. We were delighted when our teachers - Ms Connolly and Mrs Smith - shared with us the great news that two very brilliant ladies were going to help us learn how to knit. The two lovely kind ladies are Mrs Joan Major and Ms Denise Kettyles. They taught us how to knit rectangular pieces and then showed us how to fold, sew and stuff them. Finally, we used little bits of felt for the animals’ faces. We are delighted to be able to showcase beautiful wool in our very own sheep and lambs. We say a huge thank-you to Denise and Mrs Major for all of the fun that we had knitting! We also thank Freya’s Granny for her lovely knitted sheep.
Finally, we must thank Sean and Ellie’s Mum and Dad - Annemarie and Mark - for all their help and support, especially, and all our parents and grandparents, some of whom travelled to Balmoral to support us on 15th May. We really appreciate how our teachers - Ms Connolly and Mrs Smith - helped us get on to the programme/project and worked so hard in so many ways to make sure we had it completed on time! We thank both of them, along with Mrs Rice and Mrs Major, for making all the travel arrangements to attend the Balmoral Show and ensuring we had a brilliant and safe day. We thank ourselves and each other for the fantastic experiences we’ve had!
We hope you like our work, videos, photographs and report and find them interesting. We trust they inspire all of us to continue to increase our knowledge of sheep and wool and to realise what an incredible and natural product, wool is.
Here are the links for our sheep shed video and VR:
https://youtu.be/m5k1BXJVPN0
https://kuula.co/share/collection/7cxQQ?logo=-1&info=0&fs=1&vr=1&zoom=1&thumbs=1
We also congratulate Rián and Sean, Jason and Daniel for all your great efforts and hard work in putting together our video compilations. Thank you.
