StGerard’s School
Congratulations to the TY students who accompanied by their art teacher Ms Horan travelled to Dublin to the 3Arena to attend the national final of the ‘Junk Kouture Fashion Show’ on Thursday, April 19. DCW were represented in the final by Zara Hitchen and Chloe Hobbs with their stunning creation ‘’Tribal to the Cork’ which was superbly modelled by Charlotte Wallis. We are very proud of the girls to make it so far in this fantastic competition. It was a fantastic experience for the girls involved well done to all and many thanks to Ms Horan for all her hard work with the TY girls.
MODERNLANGUAGEORALEXAMS
The Spanish, French and German Leaving Certificate oral exams are taking place at the moment and we wish the girls Mucha suerte/Bonne chance/Viel Gluck.
All first year students experienced their first DCW retreat in the Ecology Centre last Monday, April 16. The girls really enjoyed a break from the school week. They enjoyed various activities throughout the day and really benefited from reflection time. Thanks to Sr. Colette in the Ecology Centre for hosting the students and Ms Walshe for organising.
HOCKEY FINALS
On Wednesday the 18th the two first year teams headed off to Sion Hill, Blackrock to play in the semi-final and finals of the Leinster league. Both teams played great matches. The B team had two extremely close tight matches against Mount Sackville and Sion Hill but unfortunately lost both matches 1-0. The A team lost to Cluny, Killiney, the eventual winners of the league and won their next game against Loreto, Beauford. Well done to all involved girls. It was a great achievement on getting so far in the league.
ATHLETICS
The DCW athletics team are gearing up and training hard for the upcoming schools East Leinster Track and Field Championship taking place Monday, April 30, and Thursday, May 3. We wish them the best of luck.
TANZANIA
The girls who are travelling to Tanzania in the summer are very busy with their fundraising activities. The latest events are: running marathon (over 26 days) and ‘signing a pledge’ for 20 days. The girls are busy with car washings at the weekend let’s hope the sunshine lasts. There will be a cinema day next Friday, April 27, in the Parochial Hall at 7.30 p.m. with ‘The Lion King’ on show. The girls have had a really successful run of fundraising with €22,000 raised to date. Thanks to all who have contributed and assisted.
EVENING OF MUSIC
On Thursday, April 26, the DCW music department will hold their annual ‘Evening of Music’ in the Dominican Convent Chapel. It is a performance by the junior and Leaving Cert students of their music pieces that they have performed for their practical exams. It is open to all families and friends of the school. It will begin at 8 p.m. and promises to be a great evening where the girl’s enormous talent and hard work can be experienced.
Congratulations to Ms Walshe and her TY RE class who presented a cheque for €1,000 to the ‘Irish Cancer Society’ the proceeds of the Daffodil Day coffee morning and cake sale held last month. Well done to all who helped and contributed to this very worthwhile charity.
PRACTICAL EXAMS
Well done to all the junior and Leaving Certificate students who did their practical exams in Home Economics and music over the past week.
GAA BLITZ
The first year GAA team are really looking forward to their upcoming blitz in Ballinakill which will be held on Wednesday, April 25. Best of luck, girls.
SHOWJUMPING
The EGS Showjumping team ended the year on a high when they traveled to Mullingar on Sun- day, April 15, to compete in the last round of the TRI Interschools League.
The team of Jazmine Arthur, Lauren Codd and Robert Cherry started the day in seventh place in the open league – a super achievement for this young team, considering they started out jumping at Novice level back in September. With all penalties counting as there were just the three of them, the team finished in fourth on the day. This placing brought them up to finish sixth overall in the league.
That ends the interschools for this season but already this enthusiastic and talented group are looking forward to next season. A huge thank you to all the parents who gave up their days to travel all over – from Wexford to Kildare to Westmeath. Congratulations and well done to you all.
TRACK AND FIELD
Well done to the EGS students who competed in the Wicklow Schools’ Track and Field Event in Greystones on Tuesday, April 17, in very wet, windy and mucky conditions. A special well done to Harry Stevens in 1G who won gold in the long jump in his age category.
CREATIVE WRITING
In sixth year, Claire Keegan, came to speak to the sixth years on Tuesday. She is an international author and wrote one of the books on the leaving cert. The talk was really insightful and informative.
First years will be attending Fighting Words, a Wicklow Town based creative writing workshop, this coming Thursday.
TY THEATRE NIGHT
Written by Sarah Jennings, Transition Year student – On April 13, the Transition Years went on our second theatre trip of the year to see ‘Postcards from the Ledge’, a Ross O’Carroll Kelly play written by Paul Howard. Set in 2029, the one-man comedy sees Ross, an estate agent, trying to value his childhood home for sale. On the same day his daughter is about to get married, with Ross refusing to attend, he slowly remembers the memories of his childhood in this house and realises he can’t put a price on it.
Preparations for the theatre night had been going on all week, buying dresses and suits, tanning in advance so as not too look too orange on the night, panicked conversations to make sure you hadn’t accidentally bought the same outfit as someone else. Everyone was very excited by the time the day finally arrived.
We got to the Gaiety a few minutes early and managed to get in a few photos before we had to go inside. We certainly got some weird looks from people, who were obviously not used to seeing 60 teenagers in evening dress wandering around Dublin at six o’clock on a Thursday.
I know I can speak for everyone when I say we were really looking forward to this play and it didn’t disappoint. Afterwards we stopped off in Burger King, with lots of photo breaks along the way. Everyone in the year had great fun and we can’t wait for the next trip of Transition Year.
MY WORK EXPERIENCE
Written by Shannon Mitchell, Transition Year student – For my transition year work experience I was in London working in the Royal Albert Hall with my aunt and uncle while Cirque Du Soleil was touring there.
My aunt and uncle own a production company that organises the two month period that CDS (Cirque Du Soleil) stay in the Albert Hall. They mainly coordinate the arrival and departure of the tour equipment, but recently were asked to organise the performers in the show. So this means the original jobs I was meant to do were changed.
My jobs were split; half the week in the production office doing paperwork, organising loads of dates, performers accommodation and attending meetings and half doing physical jobs behind the scenes with wardrobe and stage directors. In the production office the work was simple just filing and writing down, and the meetings were great as they were out of the RAH (Royal Albert Hall) and I got to see London.
The last three days I was with wardrobe and stage directors. Wardrobe was amazing because I got to talk to the performers while fitting their costumes for repairs. Some of the girls I talked to were younger than me.
At the end of the week I worked with the stage director and my uncle to help prepare for the BAFTAS the following week. I helped type Jennifer Lawrence’s speech onto the Teleprompter and Joanna Lumleys, and map the path of walking onto stage.
Overall I loved my experience in London and would go back in a heartbeat. I learnt so much and production is definitely a field I would go into in the future.
REPRESENTING IRELAND
Over the past number of weeks St Gerard’s has had a number of students represent Ireland and Leinster in hockey and rugby. It is a noteworthy recognition of the quality of coaching the students receive here in the St Gerard’s.
Transition Year student Abbie McCarthy, represented and Captained the Leinster under-17 hockey side at an International Tournament in the Netherlands over the Easter break. The squad picked up the ‘Fair Play Award’ at the tournament for their commitment to the spirit and ethos of the game. A tremendous achievement in itself and well deserved. We were also delighted to have past pupil and former Head Girl, Claire Byrne, coach the squad to their successes in the tournament.
In rugby two of our sixth year students represented Ireland in the recent International Series. Cormac Foley and Max O’Reilly represented Ireland at under-19 and under-18 respectively. Cormac played against France in the Showgrounds in Galway while Max played against Scotland in the Cardiff Arms Park. Once again this was a tremendous achievement for both boys, their families and St Gerard’s School.
Representing Leinster under-19 Schools vs. Welsh under-19s Clubs were Rory Wilson (fifth year) and David O’Brien (sixth year). Both SCT players were selected on the Leinster School under-19 team for their fixture against the Welsh under-19s Clubs in Donnybrook earlier this month. We congratulate both David and Rory on their selection and wish them every success with the Leinster School Squad.
Representing Leinster on the Leinster 7’s team were Ben Watson (fifth year) and our SCT Captain, Ethan Baxter (sixth year). They represented Leinster in the Interprovincial 7s Series over the Easter weekend.
Finally we congratulate Ben Watson (fifth year) who has been selected on the IRFU 7s Training Squad for the forthcoming under-18 7s International Series at the European Championships in Lithuania. The winning country qualifies for the Youth Olympics which take place in Argentina in October this year.
EQUESTRIAN TEAM
Congratulations to our equestrian team who have been competing in the Inter-schools Show Jumping Competition since September and have finished in fourth position in the all-Ireland League. A tremendous achievement for all our riders on the equestrian team. We have competed at 10 National Inter-schools Show Jumping competitions since September. Well done to all our riders for their contribution towards this fantastic achievement in coming fourth overall in the league out of a total of thirty-four participating schools.
CHEMISTRY OLYMPIAD
Finally, and by no means least in this edition, we sent out our congratulations to sixth year Nicolas Pochinkov, who has been selected to represent Ireland at the International Chemistry Olympiad in Prague and Bratislava this coming summer. Nicolas took part in a selection event which was held in DCU over the Easter break. A wonderful achievement and the best of luck.