Support for Caritas Co-ordinators

At the beginning of each school session SCES host a meeting for all Caritas coordinators.  To find out the date of the next coordinators meeting and to book a place, please contact SCES.

During the coordinators meeting we cover issues relating to:

• enrolling for the award
• timelines and assessment support
• helping students to reflect on the impact of their Caritas experience
• enrolling pupils with in parish activities
• preparing students to ensure that their evidence is organised and well-structured.

The PowerPoint  used to cover these points is attached below

Enrolment details

Schools complete the on line enrolment form to register pupils for the award each year.  This registration form simply asks for the name of the school and the number of pupils participating.  Enrolment must take place before the 30th September each year.

Once enrolment has taken place, schools will receive the resources to accompany pupils on their Caritas journey.  For those schools that have registered before the co-ordinators meeting, journals can be collected at the meeting.  All other journals will be posted to schools.  Following the on line registration process, schools will be invoiced schools for the first part of the enrolment fee.  This fee will be for the number of pupils registered.  The second part of the fee will be invoiced after the assessment process.  This fee will be for the number of pupils recorded as having completed the award by the school.

Enrolment in Parish activities

In order to ensure that candidates have opportunities to contribute to appropriate parish activities, we would suggest that pupils approach their parish priest/ parish co-ordinator in late August.  If schools find it helpful, a parish proforma is included with the award documentation – this will allow schools to keep a record of which activities in which parishes pupils have committed to working on.  A certain degree of responsibility lies with pupils to approach their parish and organise an appropriate activity – it is not the role of the school co-ordinator to do this, but they may want to assist pupils.  Pupils should be reminded that their parish log sheet must be must “signed off” by either the parish priest or the parish co-ordinator – the school co-ordinator cannot do this.

Assessment

The Caritas award has uses a process of internal assessment by the school, for parish log sheets, school log sheets and journals and external verification by a board of assessors.  Schools submit the names of all pupils who have assessed evidence to demonstrate that they have successfully met all of the success criteria* to SCES by February 28th.

During March, the board of assessors arrange personal visits to each school to undertake a verification process.  During this visit, they sample the assessed evidence and verify that the standard for assessment has been achieved.

SCES informs all schools of the final results for Caritas in April of each year and pupils are invited to receive their award at the annual national ceremony, usually hosted in June.

Please note that the Excel sheet to submit the names of pupils can be downloaded from the sidebar.  

Documentation

Please note that the information sent to SCES by schools is used to administer the award.  Please check that the names of pupils have the correct spelling, to avoid disappointment when their certificates are printed.

ALL DOCUMENTATION can be downloaded from the side bar on this page.