TWENTY FOUR PUPILS from St Benedict's Primary School in Raheny, Dublin, represented Ireland at the international children's summit in Disneyland, Paris, last week.

The four day visit to France was part of the students' prize for winding first place in Ireland in a competition organised by UNESCO and Disney. Their class project, a four page newspaper filled with good rather than bad news - which they put together themselves under the guidance of their class teacher, Nuala Shanahan - was picked as the winner out of a total of 300 Irish entries.

The judges said it was the simplicity and innocence of the content of the newspaper that impressed them most. One story by Paul Worthington tells of the response a huge earthquake in China. Karen Hennessey wrote a story about a miracle cure for a little baby from Kerry. Another story explains the idea behind Luas. "I tried to get them to bring in happy news, Shanahan says. "God love them it was difficult for them to find anything in the papers other than murders and rapes.

St Benedict's School, situated in one of Dublin's less well off areas, stood shoulder to shoulder during the summit with classes from wealthier and better equipped schools from around the world.

The 11 and 12 year old students from St Benedict's sixth class, who wrote their own stories without the aid of sophisticated computers or printing equipment - they were handwritten - were delighted to see their newspaper on display beside entries from 30 countries at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris. During the summit, the class of 11 boys and 13 girls also took part in a series of workshops, parades, singing and dancing events.

The disco each night was the highlight for many. The Disney theme park was another - though the Space Mountain ride was out of bounds, much to the students' annoyance.

Geraldine Carey from Kilbarrack said the highlight was dancing with kids from Australia. "No, New Zealand," her friend Jessica O'Neill helpfully interjected.

Language was never a barrier, according to Michael Bane, the school's principal, who was also in Paris with the class. The boys and girls made friends with many of the young people who were at the summit representing their own countries - places as far flung as Slovenia, Egypt, Croatia, Norway, the US, Japan, Kuwait, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. The class was also accompanied by another class teacher, Patricia Dolan.

On Thursday, the children were met by Frederico Mayor, the director general of UNESCO, and George Mitchell, the US senator and Northern Ireland peace broker.

"I don't really want to go home," said Catherine O'Sullivan, who had been a bit homesick at the beginning of the week. "They have seen that there's a big world out there," said Michael Bane with a smile and a weary sigh, looking at all the happy faces around him.

"It was a tiring week, but as they'll write in the school essays later on, `we all went home tired but happy'."