StKilian’s Community School

SOUNDWAVES

Soundwaves, our third music festival, took place from October 15 to October 19. By now, this is an established event on the school calendar and it allows us to create a space of fun and creativity to be enjoyed by the whole student body. It was a fun week of great entertainment. Most students in the school participated in the activities, which were on offer. Lunch-Time to Shine concerts were held every day between the music room and the canteen. Students get up on stage, sing, perform, dance in front of their peers who have their lunch and enjoy the talent. We had a wonderful line-up of students playing guitars, bass guitars, piano, keyboards, and drums. We even had our very own DJ, Patrick Dandoczi, who almost brought the house down on the Friday. People clapped, cheered, sang along and danced along with all the performers. The atmosphere was electric.

We had our joint talent showcase with the students from fourth, fifth and sixth classes of St Fergal’s National School. Students sang or played individually and in groups, interspersed with performances from our own students. All the participants received a certificate and a goodie-bag as a reward for their very talented efforts.

Kieran Gallagher of Kada Ka Boom brought his samba drums along and approximately 52 senior and junior students took part in workshops on Samba drumming. For students who never had this experience before, by the time the two-hour session was finished, all students could play the three or four types of samba drums: the four different pitches and sizes of surdos, repiniques, agogos, tamborims. The school resonated and vibrated with the lively percussive rhythms of these drums. We had a song-writing workshop conducted by one of our own past-pupils, Clara Byrne. 15 students took part in this. These students ranged in age from first year up to fifth year. Clara worked very creatively with them and they enjoyed finding their own voices and expressing that in their own original compositions. Tia Kenna and Jordan Maher, by now our regular entertainers, past-pupils and current students of BIMM, gave us a lovely concert of beautiful music enjoyed by about 150 students.

Thank you to all our exceptional student performers, and to our teachers who also performed and supported, and to those who came and shared their expertise, and who enjoyed all the activities. Some people were wondering if it was on again next week. That’s a good indicator.

Another resounding success (excuse the pun), from our wonderful music teacher Ms Louise O’Sullivan, who keeps everyone in St Kilian’s smiling with all her fantastic initiatives.

YOUTH SVP

The St Vincent de Paul (SVP) is an organisation that assists people who are in need. There are four St Vincent de Paul Conferences in Bray. We have just begun a Youth Conference of the St Vincent de Paul in our school. We have approximately 25 registered members from first year up to fifth year. These students meet after school on a Wednesday as it is seen as a voluntary group, which should be meeting outside of school hours. As a Youth Conference, the brief is slightly different to the adult groups so they do not conduct house-to-house visitation. The Youth Conference identifies issues of social justice that they would like to pursue. Ours has decided to focus on equality and kindness. It is student-led and we have a wonderful group of fifth year students who are heading up the conference. They will be engaged in different activities to benefit the SVP over the year. They have had three leadership training sessions with Clare Mander, the National Youth Officer for the SVP This provides them with leadership skills, group skills and organisational skills so that they can function more efficiently as a group to achieve their targets. Stay tuned for more information regarding this group. The teacher link for the Youth Conference is Louise O’Sullivan, who is already involved in the SVP St Patrick’s Kilquade Conference. Thanks to Louise for this very worthwhile initiative.

CREATIVE SCHOOLS

Our school is one of 150 schools nationwide to have received the Creative Schools Award. We have been designated a Creative Associate, Brian Cregan, for our school with whom we will be working throughout the year. It is an exciting initiative organised in conjunction with the Arts Council, the Department of Education and Skills, and the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. We hope to work on a cross-curricular initiative involving languages, music, art, drama. We have a committee of students and staff to work on this and keep it moving forward. It will be a wonderful collaborative venture into the creative arts and which we look forward to unfolding as the year progresses.

Again, we are delighted to acknowledge all the work of Louise O’Sullivan, who was behind the school’s application for, and successful achievement of, this wonderful addition to St Kilian’s Creativity.

TY ENTERPRISE

Our YSI class are in the process of choosing their topic and beginning their campaign but there is a lot happening at the moment around last year’s YSI project on Accessibility.

Our 5LCA class took part in the Irish Wheelchair Association Angel day on November 8/9 in Aldi.

There was also a workshop on disabilities that took place on Thursday, October 25. All transition years participated in this workshop and found it very beneficial.

Our mini-companies are in the very early stages with some fantastic ideas for products. Hopefully they will get up and running, ready to sell for the Christmas period.

A big thanks to Ms Brophy for her update on the Young Social Innovators in her care.

REHAB CARE LINK

We have formed a link with Rehab Care and our first outing with them was on Thursday, November 8, when 11 of our fifth year students took part in a basketball tournament fundraiser in the community centre. They played against basketballers from Rehab Care, The National Learning Network and the Gardaí.

As part of this link we will also be sending our fourth years out volunteering as part of their TY programme and some of our fifth years will also give up their own time to do some volunteering as part of their Gaisce Award.

Another lovely initiative from our very Socially engaged Ms Brophy. Well done, all.