Sir, - I write on behalf of a group of first-year students at the Rosses Community School, Dungloe to bring a very important matter to your attention: the weight of our schoolbags. Unfortunately, we have no lockers in our school and therefore we must carry all of our books all day long from one class to another. The average weight of one of our schoolbags is just over 2 st. Many of the pupils in our class weigh between 6 st. and 7 st., which means that most of us are carrying more than a third of our own weight on our shoulders and backs.
Obviously we are doing a great deal of damage to our developing bodies, but nobody seems to care. The Department of Education should ensure that each school is equipped with lockers, even if there was only one locker-room for first-year students to start with. We hope that everybody will help us in our aim to stay healthy and fit. - Yours, etc.,
Class A25, Rosses Community School, Dungloe, Co Donegal.