By Michelle Crean

A new mural being created by local children manifests the ethos of their school in embracing and celebrating diversity and creativity.

Artist Tricia O'Connor, who has a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Social and Art Theory, has been working with a small group from the Third and Fourth multidisciplinary classes in St. Oliver's Primary School in The Department of Education BLAST Residency initiative.

"I'm currently delighted to be working in St. Oliver's Primary School Killarney," she told the Killarney Advertiser.

"The children, coordinating teacher of Intercultural Education and the BLAST project Terry Landers, class teachers Mairead Greene and Amy O'Shea, the SNA team Mags McCarthy, Mandy Lynch, Martina Dineen and I based our initial idea on this year's St Oliver's intercultural poster and poem," she said.

"Together we explored the words of the poem by Charles Bennafield "I'm diversity, embrace me and we'll journey far, I'm diversity include me and we will reach the shining star".

She added that they focused on creating stars through different mediums such as modelling clay, paper and cardboard.

"We also jumped on trampolines outside to explore different forms of movement that our bodies can make while looking at the colours of the sky, the shapes of the clouds and faraway stars. I then designed a mural using figures and a colour pallet chosen from our group explorations."

The mural has been very much led by the children and each child is bringing their own creativity and talent to the project.

"The mural will be finished by Easter and will take pride of place mounted in the school's inner courtyard. This is a special meeting place for all classes from pre-school up to Sixth. It is a place where children play, staff meet, parents gather and graduations are celebrated."