StKilian’s Community School
GREEN SCHOOL INITIATIVES
On Friday, February 17. Two fourth year Geography classes and some selected Green School committee members attended a SEAI Workshop about renewable energy and gas effects. The students were accompanied by Ms. Ryan and Ms. Lawlor. The workshop was organised by Mr Donohoe, to help St Kilian’s work towards our next flag for Energy.
The workshop started by making students aware that the small things you do each day might consume a lot of energy – for example, making tea. Students had thought that all you needed was the energy required to boil the kettle, but had not considered the energy used in teabag production and transport of the tea. It made the students more aware of hidden energy uses.
Students were given an icebreaker task where they had half a sentence about energy but needed to find the other half to complete it. The students learned many energy facts from these sentences.
In the third part of the workshop students split into groups and were given different countries and then had to prepare a presentation about which renewable energy source would be best for that country. They had to discuss positives and negatives and could quiz other groups.
It was a very enjoyable morning and the students gained a lot of useful information about renewable energy. A big thank you to Mr Donohoe for all his hard work organising the Green School activities, and to Ms. Lawlor and Ms.Ryan.
BUSY RESEARCHERS
maths teacher, Ms. Aoife Kelly tells us that the transition years in St Kilian’s have been working hard on their entries for the John Hooper Statistics Competition, awarded by the Central Statistics Office. They have been researching topics such as – Does music help you study? What kind of a school journal does today’s technology era student need? Is there a link between anxiety levels and performing well in school tests? Do Junior Certificate students want their learning to be assessed differently?
Posters will be made to present the findings and submitted at the end of February. We wish them all the best in the final stages of their research. Thank you to Ms. Kelly for facilitating this enriching project.
VISIT TO I WISH 2017
Students Ciara Kelly and Kerri Keane, fill us in on the visit by 18 girls from fourth and fifth year in St Kilian’s, to the I WISH 2017 Conference in the RDS, Dublin, on February 14
I WISH is an initiative to inspire, encourage and motivate young female students to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
‘First, we listened to some successful stories of females who worked in different STEM fields and then we moved on to an exhibition hall with different exhibits from different colleges and STEM companies such as 3D printing, DELL, Symantec, Bio
PHARM AND AIB.
After perusing the stands and asking plenty of questions, we ended the day by watching a robotic suit, which had been designed to act out a comedy skit and interact with the audience. We all enjoyed the conference, and learnt something useful for the future.’
A big thank you to Ms Ryan and Ms Lawlor for accompanying the students, and to Ms Casey and Ms Fitzpatrick in the Career Guidance department for organising the trip.
LIBRARY ACTIVITIES
On January 31, Caith Amach E (highrockproductions.ie/caithamach-e/) visited St Kilian’s Library for a lively performance for our fifth and sixth years students. The two actors that make up Caith Amach E presented a comic sketch show based on the 20 picture sequences used in the Leaving Cert Irish Oral examination. The show was accessible to all, using elements of slapstick comedy, puppetry, music and audience participation.
With 40% of the Leaving Cert now being available through the oral component of the exam, this was a great way of promoting the language and having students think creatively about what they can do to not only pick up points but have fun with the language at the same time. Students came away entertained and inspired.
On February 9, Make Create Innovate (makecreateinnovate.ie/) ran a ‘Design and build a musical instrument workshop’ with a group of second year students.
This two-hour class looked at the fundamentals of electricity and conduction and how this can be used to create sounds. Students were introduced to MaKey MaKey, a simple circuit board than can be used to connect to and control a PC via pretty much any object that can conduct electricity: think of an electric key board with bananas for keys or a drum made with aluminium foil.
As always, our innovative librarian Chris Stokes plays host to fascinating and innovative activities in St Kilian’s multifunctional library. Thanks to Chris for filling us in on the latest events there.
SPONSORSHIP
On January 27. 2017, Brendan Doyle of Morrissey’s Concrete and Patrick Larkin (who produced the DVD’S), presented a set of these valuable teaching resources to the Construction Studies Department in St Kilian’s.
Construction Studies teachers Mr Paul Connolly, Mr Brendan Fitzpatrick and Mr Enda Forde were on hand to receive this most useful gift, and wish to express their gratitude for this kind donation.
MULTI-CULTURAL DAY
St Kilian’s hosted a hugely successful multi-cultural day on Friday, January 27. The whole school community embraced the celebration of our diverse school community. We counted over 30 different nationalities currently attending St Kilian’s. Everyone in the school had an opportunity to taste food from a wide variety of different countries.
There was music in the canteen at lunchtime facilitated by Louise O’Sullivan and TY students, face painting by TY students, a fantastic display of African games and culture by Ronke Arrogundade in the library, Japanese cultural workshops in room 41, and a variety of different multicultural classroom activities by subject teachers.
The school was colourfully decorated with international flags, bunting, and over 30 display boards representing all the different countries. A number of International parents volunteered on the day, preparing food stalls with foods from different countries, and also some displays of traditional items or clothing from their countries.
Many students and parents arrived on the day wearing colourful traditional dress, which added to the cultural atmosphere in the school. Many teachers and the parents’ association were involved in the organisation of the day. It really was a whole school success.
Particular thanks must go to Ms. Garvey, who puts hours of work into the planning and organisation of this wonderfully successful now annual event in St Kilian’s.
‘LIVING FOR SPORT’
On January 24 19 students from St Kilian’s Community School attended Sky Sports ‘Living for Sport’ academy day at the National Sports Campus in Blanchardstown.
On that day, students took part in a number of different activities hosted by different sports stars. One of the special guests included Irish rugby legend Gordon D’arcy.
Some of the activities the students took part in were Basketball, GAA and Boxing. At Basketball the students learnt new skills on the court such as communicating. They also heard stories from Aoife McDermott about how she broke barriers to get to where she is today. At the GAA skills session students learnt about working as a team and got to practice their skills. The students also got to work with Dermot Gascoyne to improve their boxing skills. They enjoyed getting tips from a past pro boxer.
The students thoroughly enjoyed their day from start to finish and even got to have a kick about with Christie Toye at lunchtime.
A big thank you to Ms. Ryan for organising this wonderful opportunity.
SENIOR GIRLS FOOTBALL
Our Senior girls’ football team, made up of students from first-6th year, has ‘come on’ in leaps and bounds this year. We have played three matches and improved in each one.
In our first match we played St Mary’s College Arklow and were defeated. In our second match against Gaelcholáiste na Mara we came back with a fighting attitude and scored our first goal of the season when our amazing goalie Katie Fitzpatrick came out field for the last few minutes and scored a beautiful goal. Our third match we narrowly lost to Colaiste Chill Mhantain but we had Ava Treacy make her scoring debut. With most of the team still here next year, including our dedicated captain Georgia Browne, we are looking forward to seeing how things will develop then.
Well done to everyone this year, and a big thank you to their coach Ms. Ryan.