Jennifer Hutton, a teacher at St. Fiacc’s National School, Graiguecullen, Co. Carlow, received the prestigious Teachers Inspire Ireland Desmond Award.
At a special ceremony at Dublin City University, Ms Hutton was recognised for the inspirational role she played in the lives of her students.
Ms Hutton was nominated by Susan Maguire (the mother of one of her students), as she showed compassion and kindness during a difficult family time.
Susan faced an early delivery of her baby (Dáire) at only 27 weeks while on holiday in Spain, and was forced to remain in a Spanish hospital for 2 weeks due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Her son, Christopher (6), returned to Ireland with family until Susan, her husband Brian, and baby Dáire could return home safely.
Ms Hutton, Christopher’s Senior Infants teacher, assured Susan that she would look after him as if he was her own and went above and beyond her duty as a teacher to look after his wellbeing during a tumultuous time.
Susan said, “I will spend the rest of my life being grateful to her for her kindness and compassion to my family.”
What is the award?
Organised and run by Dublin City University, Teachers Inspire is an Ireland-wide initiative that seeks to celebrate teachers and recognise the transformative role they play in our lives and in our communities.
Acclaimed Author, Louise O’Neill, returned as this year’s curator and host of the Teachers Inspire podcast where she spoke to some of the nominees about the challenges they faced at school and how their teachers helped them overcome them.
On her involvement with the Teachers Inspire initiative, Louise said: “It is an honour to curate and host the Teachers Inspire podcast once again. I have loved and felt immensely privileged to listen to and share the stories of the nominators and nominees from across Ireland. Coming from a family of teachers, I have seen first-hand how much love, passion and effort goes into the job, and every single teacher deserves to be recognised for the work that they do when it comes to shaping the lives of future generations.”
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