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22 Oct 2025

Major award for Offaly primary school students at BT Young Scientists exhibition

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The students from Clara proudly display their award

Congratulations to the sixth class students from Scoil Phroinsiais Naofa, Clara who were awarded the prestigious Primary Science Fair Award at the BT Young Scientist Exhibition which was held at the RDS in Dublin last week.

Scoil Phroinsiais Naofa were one of only 35 schools countrywide who reached the RDS this year and the only school from Offaly to do so.

Their coding project called the “Magic of the Microbit '' involved coding and developing eight mini projects - such as a Step Counter, Times tables tester, Tilt Alarm and Rock Paper Scissors game using the BBC Micro Bit Computer.

Their project was judged by esteemed Dr. Diana Bura, a lecturer in Computational Chemistry from Trinity College , Dublin and herself  a former winner of the BT young scientist in 2016. Dr. Bura was amazed by the standard of their project and display. She complimented the students of Scoil Phroinsiais Naofa on their communication skills and their thorough and comprehensive knowledge of the Micro Bit computer.

The project also proved to be very popular with the general public, with a steady flow of students, teachers and parents visiting their stand.  Visitors were astounded to see how their students could programme the Microbit live in front of their eyes.

There was also great media interest in their project with an article on the project appearing in the online version of the Irish Times and also on RTE News2Day childrens TV programme.

Great credit is due to to all their staff for all their help and hard work, in particular Ms.Elliffe, Mr. Killane, Mr. Boylan , SNA Anna Marie O Neill and Mr. Ward, who left Clara early at 7.20 a.m. to travel with the students to the RDS . It was a long day but it was certainly worth it!

A sincere thanks to Mr. Ward who coordinated the project and also to the sixth class teachers - Mr. Lally ,Ms. Elliffe, Mr. Killane and SNA Anna Marie for their help with the project in the lead up to the exhibition.

Hopefully some students will be inspired by taking part in this competition and we look forward to some student from Clara winning the overall prize in the BT Young Scientist competition in years to come.

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