Talented fifth-class pupil wins bookmark competition

A FIFTH-CLASS pupil from Glasheen Girls’ National School has been announced as this year’s winner of the ‘design a bookmark’ competition run by the ACCESS UCC PLUS programme.

Nathifa Huda is the overall winner of the annual competition, which invites students to design a bookmark interpreting what the word ‘university’ means to them.

“The bookmark competition has been running for the last five years. It came originally from our Professor Fluffy schools programme, which we introduced 10 years ago,” ACCESS UCC PLUS programme manager, Martin Flynn, told The Echo.

Professor Fluffy is a model designed by the University of Liverpool to widen participation in third-level education.

This year, ACCESS UCC is celebrating 10 years of working with Professor Fluffy, the fun purple mascot encouraging DEIS primary school pupils to consider going to third-level education.

“We go out to the local DEIS schools in Cork city and introduce the pupils to the concept of going to third level and also about UCC,” Mr Flynn said.

“The schools carry out a programme and then they come on campus for the last day for a graduation where we bring themselves, the staff of the school, and the parents for a fun day just to show them the campus itself.

“The bookmark competition is a second part of the programme, where for College Awareness Week, which is usually the second or third week of November each year, which is a national event, we invite all of the DEIS schools in Cork city to get their fifth-class students to come up with a bookmark for Professor Fluffy based around the theme of university and what it means to them,” Mr Flynn said.

The Professor Fluffy bookmark launch was recently held in UCC.

Finalists won sponsored class prizes from Fota Wildlife Park and the Mardyke Arena, and book tokens.

Mr Flynn congratulated all those involved and thanked the schools for their participation in the programme.