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By Professor Niamh Stack, Head of the Psychology Department at 91��Ƭ��

Sitting listening to 6th class pupil Rio Correia from  in Cork perform the rap he had written with the support of Aaron Hennessy (a past pupil of the school), currently attending , and the fantastic creatives at  (who you may know from their work with young people on the Grammy nominated ).

Rio wrote his rap, which you can hear for yourself below, specifically for the opening of the new school library and performed it brilliantly to a standing ovation from everyone present.

His lyrics spoke of the benefits of reading not just to learning but also for positive mental health. He rapped about the importance of inspirational and supportive teachers ‘who help us progress and give us special powers’. He spoke of the importance of high aspirations for all learners and providing appropriate challenge in the curriculum. He rapped about dismantling stereotypes and the importance of inclusion and he rapped about schools being more than a sum of their parts - they are essential parts of their communities, and he did all of this in a three minute rap, a lesson to all of us verbose academics!

I was attending the opening of Leabharlann Sheáin Uí Shé in my role as Academic Advisor for the  funded Saibhriú project as the new library is one of the outcomes of this project. The Saibhriú Project is a community of practice based project which aimed to bring teachers together to develop and enhance existing inclusive approaches to providing challenge for all learners in the classroom including exceptionally able learners. Saibhriú, as you may know, is derived from the Irish word to enrich and the opening of this school library is a significant testament to the achievements of the Cork Saibhriú community of practice which included teachers from St Mary’s on the Hill, Terence MacSwiney Community College, Gaelscoil Mhachan and Nagle Community College  (supported by Edmond Hussey and the ). This new library is just one of four of the initiatives they developed which not just achieved but exceeded the aims of the project. 

At the library opening we were lucky not just to hear Rio’s rap, but to hear the school choir singing An Poc ar Buile written by one of the stalwarts of Irish cultural life, the late Seán Ó Sé who was also the much beloved first principal of St. Mary’s.  The whole event was expertly compèred by student Niamh O’Brien who at 11 years old had more charisma and confidence as a speaker than I have after almost 30 years experience of lecturing and public speaking.  After the event another attendee said to me that what she loved most about the library opening is that people do not expect this kind of proliferation of talent and creativity in DEIS schools and that every moment of this event proved just how wrong this misconception is. I could not agree more. 

One of the key aims of the Saibhriú project is to raise awareness about exceptionally able learners, their needs and to challenge stereotypes about who they are, where you will find them and what they need.  There is a long standing stereotype that you will only find exceptional learners in certain places, certain socio-economic classes and certain cohorts and in reality you will find them everywhere, in every school, every socio-economic class, every minority and majority cohort, you may just have look for them a little differently and open your understanding to what exceptional ability is (Stack, & Sutherland, 2017). This library meets these Saibriú project aim with abundance.

My role as Academic Advisor for the Saibriú project was not to roll out a predesigned intervention, as one intervention could never met the diversity of needs of exceptional learners in the diverse range of educational contexts we have across Ireland. Rather my role was to provide an evidence base and constructive advice to support teachers within the Saibriú communities of practice in recognising the strengths they already had, enhancing current provisions, upskilling where needed and to help them gain expertise in inclusive provision for exceptionally able students. The aim of the project was to empower teachers and schools to adapt provision in ways that meet the needs of their exceptionally able learners within their specific contexts in an ongoing and sustainable way. 

One of the evidence-based frameworks we used at the centre of this project was Prof Carrie Winstanley’s excellent . Within this framework Carrie examines the importance of having challenge within the curriculum and proposes six ingredients to achieving this. Most importantly she also provides practical suggestions and solutions for the every day classroom. Firstly, she reminds us of the essential need to experience cognitive conflict to progress learning. If we are only exposed to what we already know, we do not grow. 

Carrie also talks about the importance of being able to experience the risk of failure to have the opportunity to discover where our strengths and passions lie and to strengthen our willingness to move out of our comfort zones and to help us understand that when we are experiencing that cognitive conflict we need and when our brains are hurting, that is where all the good learning is happening. I was lucky enough to hear  Director of the fantastic  maths website speak a few years ago and she talked about the importance of ‘bringing learners into the cognitive pit of despair’ to help them acquire the skills, strategies and resilience to learn to thrive on, rather than, avoid challenge. We work really hard within education to create scaffolds for learners who may be struggling with concepts or subjects as we do not want them to be paralysed into inaction by a challenge that is too big a leap for their development at that point.  However, we need to pay equal attention to ensuring the right level of challenge is available to our exceptionally able learners as they too can become paralysed by challenge that is just too easy for them into pattens of perfectionism, disengagement, school refusal and disruption through boredom (Cross, 2021). Inclusive education means getting the level of challenge right for every learner.  In having students as partners in every step of the construction of the library, the student’s got to experience every level of success and frustration of the process rather than being passive recipients of the final outcome. 

Which leads us onto Carrie’s third ingredient of challenge autonomy. Decades of psychological and educational research has evidenced the powerful role of autonomy in development  We can all remember the empowering experience of being able to choose our own clothes after years of being dressed by our well-meaning parents/guardians. The same powerful feelings of engagement and ownership comes when we give students choice and autonomy in their own learning and development. In being part of the process of organising, cataloguing, designing and selecting the books for the new school library students clearly felt more ownership of the space, a space that reflected their needs and their decisions rather than just adults’ good intentions. 

One of my favourite bookshops is  bookshop in Belfast and the reason it is in my top five is because people who work in the shop put mini reviews under the books on the shelves, reviews by readers for readers rather than publicists. At the library opening, several of the St Mary’s students read reviews they had written to be displayed in their library for other students. I was particularly struck in listening to them by how much they had thought about the different potential audiences for these reviews, different age students, students with different needs. Carrie’s fourth ingredient of challenge is metacognition the opportunity to think about our own thinking, These students were not just being given access to lots of new books and writing perfunctory book reviews, they were really thinking about their reading, their learning and their audiences. 

My current book friends age from 30 to 80 but we can talk endlessly about what we are reading, endlessly share screenshots of passages that are too good not to share and make urgent demands of each other to hurry up and finish the book I need to talk to you about it. Having the opportunity to interact with like minded peers is the fifth ingredient of challenge identified by Carrie. One of the initiatives that a teacher within the Saibriu project set up was a book club in their school library, a lunch time in the week where staff and students could just come together and read. The teacher said it was her favourite time of the week as she came and just read her book for a lunch break in the company of an ever growing group of students – it was proving to be a very popular event!  The students were fascinated to know what she was reading and they sometimes talked a little bit about their books but mostly they all just sat quietly and read, just enjoying being in the company of others who shared their love of reading. 

As part of the process of setting up the library, students went to their local library to learn about what librarians do, what is needed in setting up a library, the different ways to catalogue books and all the ways in which libraries can be welcoming and inclusive spaces.  Having the opportunity to work with the local librarian Angela Hannon provided the students with a whole new experience and exposure to different perspectives.  At the library opening St. Mary’s ‘Reading Champion’ children’s author  also spoke.  She talked about writing books that focused on sport as a way of getting more children reading and the importance of breaking down the stereotypes of being either a sporty or bookish kid and getting all students into reading given its importance developmentally (Egan, 2023). Having regular access to an author like Emma within the school was clearly stimulating the students’ passion for literacy in all forms – reading, writing and rapping.  The evident mutual admiration club between the students and Emma was quite moving to witness. Carrie’s sixth and final ingredient of challenge Novelty and Passion were both clearly evident in abundance, students were being exposed to a range of new experiences and opportunities to both find, and feed, their passions. 

Also present at the opening were Aoife and April from  as the school had been successful with one of their book gifting schemes and been gifted 500 free books, a proportion of which must be selected by the pupils.  In fact, the idea for the Saibriu project within St Mary’s to co-construct a new school library with students came from the dilemma of what to do with all these new books, the existing positive relationship with the local library and Emma’s inspiring role as Reading Champion within the school. This provides a perfect example of a strengths-based approach to inclusive provision for exceptional learners, build on the strengths you already have as a teacher or a school and build in provision for the exceptionally able.

Reading provides so much more for students beyond enhancing cognitive development and academic achievement, it can also provide important supports for general wellbeing. Tallaght hospital recently hit the headlines for the introduction of their new  the first public library service in an Irish hospital. Sile Coleman, Acting County Librarian, said that “By bringing books from the public library service directly to the Hospital community, we are helping to support comfort, distraction and relaxation in a busy healthcare setting.” This is equally true in schools. A library provides more than a place to get books it can provide the opportunity to escape into other worlds when your own world may be a challenging place to be. In writing about her experience of growing up in care in her book ‼��dzٱ�����’ Scottish author  recalled this: 

"When I get home I am going to read a book under my covers by glow-worm. The library van stops outside our caravan once a week. It is loaning me everything it has to read and the librarian is always so nice to me. I have found a way to escape my world every night.

It is everything!

Words are actual magic

They take me away to the only place I belong without apology"

Let us never underestimate the power of books and libraries to change lives.  As Rio said in his rap ‘Get your head in the game, get your head in a book’.

References

Cross, T. (2021)  On the social and emotional lives of gifted children. Routledge.

Mallien Z, Luminet O, Hanin E (2025) Autonomy in children and adolescents with chronic diseases: A systematic literature review of the conceptualization and evaluation, Journal of Pediatric Nursing: Nursing Care of Children and Families, 2025; 83, 168-182

Stack, N. & Sutherland, M. (2017) Inclusive school and classroom provision for gifted and talented students. In Riedl Cross, J., O’Reilly, C. & Cross, T.L. (eds) Providing for the special needs of students with gifts and talents: Shared perspectives from international researchers. CTYI Press. Dublin

Winstanley, C. (2010). The Ingredients of Challenge. Trentham Books.