SCHOOLS ROUND-UP
Junior and Senior Houses attended an assembly on separate occasions. These assemblies featured talks on the importance of friendship and the damaging effects from bullying by Ms McCann and Mr Moore.
Head Prefect Andrew Connell also introduced all students to the various activities that took place within Friendship week, including a “friendly face” mask competition for first years, and a Poetry/Rap Competition that was open to all years. In the duration of Friendship Week, teachers were sent out presentations which included activities that students partook in to showcase the importance of friendship in a school setting. Transition Year’s who opted themselves into mentoring first years aided them with creating masks for the “friendly face” mask competition on Thursday of the same week.
November Remembrance Masses took place for each year group this week. These liturgies offer a special time for members of our school to remember & pray for their dearly departed loved ones. Fr Cryan celebrated the liturgies with students leading us in prayers and reflections.
NOVEMBER MASSES:
For the first time ever on November 22, the all-new team behind the Transition Year BOI School Bank was busy opening bank accounts for a multitude of Summerhill’s students! The team consists of members Andoni Oskoz-Beglane, Heath Jeffrey, Ciarán Flynn, Piotr Maciorowski, and Frank Kennedy, who were selected by BOI employee Rachel Watts. Rachel was in charge of conducting the interviews related to the school bank, training the members, and is currently in charge of the financial literacy module that all TYs participate in. The School Bank takes place every Wednesday and Thursday during lunchtime between November 22 and December 21, with the goal of helping students open their bank accounts, become financially independent, open the possibility of using payment services such as Apple Pay, and get their own debit cards. Students who are fourteen years of age are eligible for these services and must bring their phones and passports with them to room 206 if they wish to have any of these benefits.
Organised by the Bishop Christopher Jones Learning Centre and Ms McCann, Buddy Club aims to equip the learning centre’s students with a "buddy" to pair up with and play games with. Concurrently, Buddy Club takes place every Wednesday at 12:30 pm. The club is an excellent opportunity for Summerhill's ASD students to get in touch with someone from the general school population, and most importantly, these students will have the beneficial opportunity to make a new friend! Buddy Club commenced on November 15, in which students from the learning centre paired up with TYs who are partaking in the John Paul II Awards. It was a pleasurable day for each and every one of them; games were set up between the ASD students and the TYs, ranging from
TY SCHOOL BANK: BUDDY CLUB:
As part of a key assignment in RE, LCA1 students invited Fr Pat and Sabrina to CIC Summerhill, to speak with them about faith and their roles in the Parish. Many thanks to Fr Pat and Sabrina for coming to the school and well done to the lads for doing a great job preparing for it before and during the visit. Following on from this visit, the LCA1 students are organising a Carol Service for all 1st year students on December 21 in St Anne’s Church - huge thanks to all in St Anne’s for their help to facilitate this event. This will be part of the students key assignments task.
PARISH VISITORS:
An integral part of the LCA programme is work experience and every Friday all of our LCA1 and LCA2 students head off to various businesses and employers around Sligo to learn new skills.
WORK EXPERIENCE:
Well done to our LCA2 students who were presented with their Year 1 certificates. There were excellent results all round for this fantastic class.
LCA YEAR 1 PRESENTATIONS: NATIONAL SURFING SUCCESS FOR LC STUDENT TOM MURPHY:
Sixth year student Tom Murphy, who was crowned “Tides Surfer of The Year” recently took silver in the men’s senior category at the Irish National Surfing Championships Tom Murphy, alongside his younger brother, Rory, who is in second year, were among the eight juniors in the championships who participated in the Men’s quarter finals. In a thrilling competition, Tom managed to surf two impressive solid waves, one of which was a 7.0 point ride. As a result, he successfully managed to advance his way into the Men’s Final, alongside established senior surfers Ollie O’Flaherty and European silver medalist and past pupi lGearoid McDaid, to claim a sliver medal. Tom, along with past pupils Lorcan Southcombe and Oscar Choo are all heading off to Brazil to represent Ireland in the world junior surfing championships this month. We wish them the very best of luck.
Congratulations to Jack, Oliver, James and Manus who represented Summerhill on the North West Schools Regional team at the Inter- Regional Tournament at the University Limerick. A big congratulations also to our Under-16 Basketball team who won a tight semi final in the National Basketball Arena. They now proceed to the Cup final in January.
What a remarkable year for our Senior GAA Team. Our Connacht winning senior GAA team were recently honoured with their medals at a night in the Glass House
Hotel, where their hard work, commitment, skill, highs, lows and sportsmanship were recognised. The team were thanked for the incredible days out, for sharing their passion for the sport with everybody and for being such wonderful ambassadors for the school. Jonny Cooper was the special guest on the night while Micheal O’Domhnaill acted as MC.
Congratulations to the senior soccer team who had
BASKETBALL: SENIOR GAA AWARDS: SOCCER SUCCESS:
a comprehensive 6-2 win against St Clare’s of Manorhamilton with Sean Stenson scoring x3, Daire Patton x2 and Callum Lynch x1 against a determined Manor side. They also had a fine 6-3 win in their final group game with Sean Stenson x3, Callum Lynch x 2 and Keith Cotter adding one goal to his three assists.
SOCCER SELECTION:
Congratulations to Sixth Year student Dáire Patton and Transition Year student Callum Lynch who were selected for the Under18’s Connacht Interprovincial tournament in the AUL Complex. This is a well earned and well deserved call up for both boys.
Commiserations to our juvenile GAA panel who fell to a narrow one point defeat against StColman’ s College in the O’Haire Cup final in the Connacht Air Dome. The final score was
3-11 to 1-16. The encounter was very entertaining and the boys deserve great credit for their efforts. They now look forward to their championship campaign in January.
JUVENILE GAA:
Well done to our senior GAA team who had a comprehensive 1-16 to 1-6 win over Rice College in the A Championship.
SENIOR GAA:
Our First Year students took part in our annual First Year Cup. A big well done and congratulations to the winning class St Andrews on taking home the silverware!
Kudos to the impressive performance of Ardell Andaya, Daniel Sproule and Milan Varghese at the ISTA National
Final Science quiz in Trinity College recently. These Leaving Cert students are also the current regional winners.
ANNUAL FIRST YEAR CUP: SCIENCE SUCCESS: FIRST YEAR DIOCESAN QUIZ:
Our annual First Year quiz took place recently to celebrate our College Feast Day on December 8. FrFranklin from St.Mary’s Parish spoke to students about the Feast of the Immaculate Conception before giving all present a blessing. Many thanks to all our Transition Year volunteers for running the quiz and a special word of thanks to Jay who was MC for the afternoon. Well done to our top three teams who won themselves some chocolate treats and the chance to represent the school at the Diocesan Colleges Quiz in January.
Christmas Jumper Day in Summerhill was a festive and spirited event that brought the joyous holiday atmosphere into the corridors and classrooms. Both students and staff alike came together in colorful and crazy Christmas-themed jumpers to celebrate the Christmas season as well as helping to raise much needed funds for St Vincent de Paul, Sligo Social Services and UNICEF (Gaza). A big thank you to the Student Council who ran this event and to all those who donated.
Our annual Christmas concert themed ‘Peace on Earth’ was the culmination of meticulous planning, dedicated practice, and an unforgettable showcase of talent and holiday spirit. The packed college gym saw exceptional performances from our students and staff alike where the captivated audience saw talent displayed that demonstrated months of hard work and dedication. A mixture of song and narration evoked emotions, bringing joy, nostalgia, and a sense of togetherness, especially through classic Christmas tunes. Well done to all involved.
CHRISTMAS JUMPER DAY: CHRISTMAS CONCERT:
LCA2 celebrated the end of a successful term in style with an action packed day of activities. They started the day with breakfast in Dock 84, moved on to Lough Key Forest Park where they went to Boda Borg and next was go-karting in Carrickon-Shannon. They finished off the day with a well earned Christmas lunch in the Landmark Hotel. A thoroughly enjoyable day was had by all.
LCA2 CHRISTMAS TRIP:
Well done to Transition Year 5 and Transition Year 7 who organised
FOOD HAMPER COLLECTIONS:
a Food Hamper collection for
SVP and Sligo Food Bank. The collection was linked with their Young SVP module for Life Skills and RE classes. It was an ongoing effort over a few days with students and staff contributing. Three representatives from SVP visited the school where 18 hampers were ready for collection.
On December 5 and 6, the TY’s took part in a filmmaking workshop. The workshop gave them a fantastic insight into filmmaking; from videography, creating a script, and editing their respective short films. To introduce them to filmmaking, the facilitators of the workshop tasked all students to create a short clip on iMovie, teaching these Transition Years the importance of editing and videography in the creative process behind filmmaking. Following break, each individual class was separated into two groups. These groups were tasked with creating a short film of their liking, which was to be completed by the end of the school day. These short films were showcased to all classes, showcasing the movies that these Transition Years had a pleasure in creating.
FILM MAKING WORKSHOP: TY OVERSTOCK PROGRAMME:
A big thank you to all of the
Sligo Overstock team who facilitated some of our Transition Year students for a week-long programme. The students were expertly guided through a week of coding by tech leads Jamie Donohoe and Mark Curran and had a wonderful time.
While other years were hectically busy doing their Christmas exams, all seven of the Transition Year classes were fortunate enough to be treated to a Christmas Quiz prior to watching “Marvels” in Omniplex. The quiz itself was hosted by Marc Clifford, Callum Lynch, Gareth Cummins, and Finnán O’Mahony, and consisted of ten rounds ranging from general knowledge rounds, to dingbats and music rounds!