EDUCATE TOGETHER SECONDARY SCHOOL WICKLOW
NATIONWIDE DEBATING EVENT
Educate Together are launching a nationwide debating competition for second level students across the country. Students from Wicklow, Dublin, Galway and further afield will take part in the first round of these Zoom debates in February.
A planning meeting creating the debating competition was held on Wednesday, January 13, and was attended by more than 20 teachers, principals and deputy principals from Educate Together’s 21 second level schools. The format will encourage speaking without notes and involve students in judging and giving feedback.
Those in attendance chose motions connected to social media, online learning, freedom of the press and compulsory vaccinations. The competition promises to be a fantastic event for all participants – trials for the ETSSW team will be at lunch times next week in our online school.
RNLI SUPPORT
Well done to ETSSs PE teacher Michelle, who ran 5km each morning at 5 a.m. for five consecutive days in December to raise funds for the RNLI in Wicklow. And well done also to first year student Sonny, who ran the ‘Streets of Wicklow 5km’ for the RNLI over the Christmas break.
RUNNING CLUB ONLINE
Athletics club coach and coordinator Amanda has moved her club online for the duration of this period of online learning. Students are using the Strava app that they’ve downloaded on to their phones to keep track of their times and distances each week. Amanda is keeping the show on the road with her athletes over the next few weeks and the club will continue to meet virtually each Friday.
STUDENT COUNCIL
The ETSSW Student Council will continue to meet virtually over the next few weeks and will continue to represent the views of the student body.
Under the guidance of Student Council Liaison Teacher, Shauna O’Toole, the student representatives will meet to discuss important issues about aspects of virtual school life including how students learn best online and how to support student wellbeing during lockdowns.
Student Council president Hannah O’Callaghan’s observation that the strength of the council is that it ‘gives students a say in decisions that make the school a better place’ is as important now as it ever was.
PANCAKE TUESDAY.
Christmas Pancake morning took place on Tuesday, December 22, and it was a great success. Festive pancakes were enjoyed by staff and students alike. Sue and Alex teamed up again to prepare and cook the delicious pancakes. It was a real team effort and well done to all of the staff and students involved.
AN ONLINE LEARNING JOURNEY
In terms of our journey with online education, we were the same as everyone else last March when the first closure was announced – we had little experience of online education. We decided back then to take as progressive an attitude as possible in working online and looked at the possibility of pro
viding students with live classes. This involved training staff and building confidence in a form of teaching way outside everyone’s comfort zones at the time. We developed protocols for teachers and students and organised a normal timetable.
INNOVATION AND INITIATIVE – As skills and confidence grew, we were able to introduce new initiatives: (a) an online ASD class for ASD students; (b) an SNA support plan using breakaway rooms in Microsoft Teams; (c) a very modern online detention system which thankfully we never needed to use; (d) a system for tracking and working with students struggling
to engage; (e) a homework club; (f) wellbeing initiatives such as assemblies, student of the month awards and online chess competitions; (g) a full set of online exams for the summer; (h) invitation days (for the incoming first years to attend classes for a day; for the board of management to see how the online school functioned; for parents to join classes and meet the teachers). School ran as normal every day and teachers and students settled into the new routines.
VIRTUAL SCHOOL AT ETSSW – In September, when the school reopened, we decided that we wanted to hold onto this expertise
and ran a training day in November to prepare for any future closures that might happen.
We trained all new teachers and students into our system and now we are perfectly placed as a school to deal with the new school closure happening in January. The staff at ETSS Wicklow will run a fully functional virtual school during this school closure – the entire timetable, online.
Of course, there are challenges to think about such as how we can work best with practical subjects, but teachers are showing great creativity in this regard and students have brought plenty of resources home to help improve the quality of their practical classes.
FINALLY – We are proud to be pioneers in this new and challenging era and to be able to keep everyone’s routine as close to normal in an extraordinary time. Everyone at ETSS Wicklow is committed to making the most of this opportunity to work with an emerging educational model and it may well be that what is happening now will lead to changes in the way education works in years to come – ETSS Wicklow students will be ready.