Coláiste Chill Mhantáin
CAREERS/COLLEGEAWARENESS
On Tuesday, November 21, the Guidance department organised a Careers and College Awareness Day, whereby twenty-nine different speakers representing different areas of industry and different college courses, came into the school and gave presentations to students from third Year right through to sixth Year.
The objective for the day was to give third Year and Transition Year students an opportunity to review different courses and hear about different areas of industry before they embark on the process of selecting their subjects for Leaving Certificate, whereby they are required to have particular subjects to apply for specific courses, and in some cases specific subjects when applying for certain areas of employment in the future.
The day was also an opportunity for fifth and sixth Year students to gain a better insight into the various courses and opportunities that are available to them, once they graduate from school. Many thanks to the Guidance Department for this innovative and highly successful undertaking; the students both enjoyed and benefitted greatly from the many presentations they attended.
PUBLIC SPEAKING
On Monday night, four of our girls took part in the Soroptimist Ireland Girls’ Public Speaking Competition in Bray. They faced competition from St Gerard’s Bray, Holy Child Killiney, Loreto Foxrock, Rathdown School Glenageary and Coláiste Bhríde, Carnew.
Cordelia Daly Ronayne (fifth Year) spoke on how ‘Guns kill terrorists but education kills terrorism’, Irlanda Lorita (TY) posed the question ‘How can we build our resilience to protect and improve our mental health?’, Jessica Finnigan (TY) debated ‘Democracy: Myth or Reality’ and Niamh O’Toole (TY) spoke about empowering women and used Thomas Edison’s quote ‘If we did all the things we are capable of doing we would literally astound ourselves’.
Our girls all spoke wonderfully and we were very proud of them on the night. There were 20 speakers on the night and two were chosen to go through to the regional finals. Niamh was chosen to go through to the next round along with a student from St Gerard’s. We wish Niamh well in the next round on January 20.
TY WELLBEING
All Transition Year students attended a talk given by Youth Suicide Prevention Ireland today. The aim of the talk was to give the students some helpful and practical advice on the four steps of suicide prevention.
The speaker detailed some of the warning signs that someone who is thinking about suicide may have and what to do in order to help them. He spoke about active listening and the importance of not keeping it all to yourself. He gave students the free text number 50115, operated by the YSPI, where they can access advice and necessary help. The students found it very interesting and it will
Glendalough was the venue last Monday week for the Leaving Cert Geography field trip. The weather conditions were ideal for this river study investigation at the Loughduff brook. All students were inspired by fantastic scenery and managed to gather the important data for the write up of their coursework.
PAIRED READING
This fantastic outreach programme will run each Friday from 9.11 a.m. in St Patrick’s National School. Well done to the Transition Year students involved.
NCH PERFORMANCE
Last week the National Concert Hall presented a Leaving Certificate Guide to Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. The presenter worked with the conductor and orchestra using digital media to provide a visual guide to the music. They pulled Romeo and Juliet apart to uncover curriculum concepts and provided clear listening posts for students. This very visual presentation gave the students a deeper understanding of the piece. A great day was had by all the Leaving Certificate Music students who attended.
DIGITAL DESIGN CLUB
There was a great turn out for the Digital Design Club last Thursday at lunchtime. The students worked on a digital comic. They were given a script and used their iPad to create a professional format and layout with excellent results. Next week students will be working with an app to create animated sequences from their drawings.
CAKE DECORATING CLUB
First and second Years made their own individual cakes last week after school in G23. Second Years created cakes for young children with everything from Teletubbies to Paw Patrol to Lego. first Years learned how to cover a cake and chose their own design to decorate it with. Well done to all the students.
SCIENCE CLUB
Students investigated the salt content in a variety of crisp brands in last week’s Science Club and were quite surprised to observe that sometimes the ‘healthy’ options are not so ‘healthy’.
WOODTURNING CLUB
Week two and the students were off to a very busy start. Please see the short video they have created to showcase the Turners in action. The club has doubled in size within a week. Keep an eye out for some of our decorations at the German Market.
UNDER-15 SOCCER
The second round of the under-15 (minor), Wicklow/Wexford League was played at a wind swept CCM pitch last Thursday against Woodbrook from Bray. With 10 minutes on the clock, Sam Brown put in a perfectly weighted corner. The Woodbrook defence cleared into the path of the oncoming Reilly Hogan to place a low drive into the right hand corner. Sam Brown and Noah Sheridan were now driving at the Woodbrook defence with solo runs and brilliant crosses, but to no avail.
On 20 minutes Toby Lee Curran went on a solo of his own and let fly with a shot from 20 yards into the top left hand corner which the keeper could do nothing about. Toby then fired home a few minutes later to put CCM three nil ahead. Ross Quinn, having missed chances of his own, scored from close range just before halftime to make it four nil.
CCM were now playing into the wind and they made the Woodbrook defence work hard once more. When Tom Hodgkinson came on for Max Kearney, he created havoc on the left wing. Midway through the second half and some lovely interplay between Tom Hodgkinson and Shane Marah saw the latter put a lovely through ball for Scott Bushe to seal the result. Daniel Dunne and Conor Leonard were immense at Centre Half again today.
Final score CCM 5 – Woodbrook 0. CCM topped the group and look forward to a home semi-final. Thanks to Owen Gregory, Seán Leonard and Mark Whelan for their continued help and guidance and to Mr Cassidy for his encouragement and commitment to the team.
JUNIOR RUGBY
CCM 24 – St Mary’s Enniscorthy 28: The Junior Rugby team hosted St Mary’s Eniscorthy in Wicklow RFC in the Duff Cup first Round on Monday. An ominous start from the visitors saw them score from the kick-off but, to the credit of our lads, they struck back with two well-taken team tries finished off on both occasions by Thomas O’Neill with Aaron Byrne adding one conversion. St Mary’s added their second try on the stroke of half time to go in 14-12 ahead.
The second half was more of the same open rugby from both sides and St Mary’s again scored early to extend the lead to 21-12. Thomas O’Neill, who led from the front all game, scored two more tries with Aaron Byrne again adding a conversion to put CCM ahead 24-21 with five minutes to play. St Mary’s forced a turnover in their own half and fed their outside centre who ran in from half way to seal the win 28-24.
GIRLS’ BASKETBALL
The CCM Senior Girls’ Basketball team played in a very tight quarter-final last week against St Tiernan’s Community School Dundrum. The CCM girls started well with Alba Galban and Emma Cruise scoring five baskets in the first quarter. However St Tiernan’s came back and by half time they were only two baskets behind.
Luci Hobbs, Kerry O’Toole and Lucy McGettigan worked well in defence and kept St Tiernan’s to a low score in the third quarter. The fourth quarter was very close. Weronika Kuzio, Katie McAuley and Adelaide Kane prevented St Tiernan’s from scoring for most of the last quarter, however they managed to score two baskets with four minutes to go. This left CCM ahead by only one point.
St Tiernan’s had all the possession and looked like they might score but Alba Galban managed to gain possession and scored a great three pointer in the final minute of the game to ensure a win for CCM the final score was 27 – 23. The girls are now through to the semi-final which the have home advantage for. They are really looking forward to this game.
Congratulations to the Coláiste Chraobh Abhann students who took part in the Poetry Aloud semi-final in the National Library on Friday. Roisín Connaughton and Sophie Heaton delivered wonderful performances of their poems. A special congratulations to Roisín, who was chosen to proceed to the final of the competition which will take place on December 1 in the National Library. A big thanks to Ms O’Driscoll for supporting and mentoring all the students who took part in this poetry competition.
SHOEBOX APPEAL
A big thank you to all the students who were involved in the Christmas Shoebox appeal for Team Hope. Through the generosity of our staff and students, children from the poorest countries in the world will receive a Christmas gift this year. Team Hope will send the shoeboxes to street children, orphans, children in hospitals and victims of war from a wide range of countries, including Kosova, Albania, Malawi and Rwanda. It’s not too late to support this very worthy charity this Christmas by making your donation on teamhope.ie.
FRENCH TRIP
The fourth and fifth Year French exchange students thoroughly enjoyed the time they spent with the students from Thomas Cornelille School in Rouen, France. The students benefited greatly from the opportunity to make new friends and improve upon their spoken French. Thanks to all the French Department, who organised this exchange, and especially to Ms O’Brien and Ms O’Reilly, who accompanied the students on the trip.
PRIMARY SCHOOL TRANSITION
CCA celebrated LGBT week from Monday, November 20, to Friday, November 24, with some fun activities and lunchtime events taking place, including face and nail paining and other fundraising activities. There were some excellent talks organised for students in the Viewing Gallery, as well as a brilliantly designed art display in the GP Area. Thanks to Ms Walsh and the Student Council for all the work that was put into this great event.
SPIRT OF ENTERPRISE
Building on the success of last year’s spirit of enterprise week with ‘Find your light bulb moment’, this year CCA are ‘Sharing the Light’ as the theme for Enterprise Week. There will be a number of activities taking place, with our entrepreneurs from First Year and Transition Year students displaying their products in the GP Area. There will also be interesting talks on entrepreneurship from Niall Mullen from Nikafit studios, and Dr Therese Moylan from IADT will be meeting the Second Year students to do some design thinking challenges.
CCA’s weakest link competition takes place along with the Wicklow Inter-schools’ Business Quiz on Wednesday.
SECOND YEAR PTS MEETING
Second Year Parent, Teacher, Student Meetings will take place on Thursday, November 30, in CCA Classes will end at 3.40 p.m. and the meetings will begin at 4.15 p.m. and end at 6.45 p.m. We are looking forward to discussing your child’s progress with us and to see how we can support your child going forward.
BOYSBASKETBALL