Our Lady’s College students awarded Silver Medalin National ‘Young Economist’ competition!
ACS School Tour to Parisand Brussels2018
A group of students from Our Lady’s College, Greenhills have been awarded the Silver medal with their entry ‘ What has the EU ever done for us?’ in the ‘Young Economist of the Year 2018’ competition. The Greenhills 5th year Economics class project is a satirical piece acted out by the students reminding the audience of the benefits of EU membership. The students and their coordinators have been invited to the prestigious ‘Young Economist of the Year 2018’ national awards ceremony to exhibit the entry and receive their medals in Croke Park on May 2nd.
Now in its sixth year, the Young Economist of The Year ( YEOTY) competition is an initiative that promotes inquiry based learning by encouraging students to research an area/ topic that is of interest to them, facilitating the exploration of real life situations and important issues of modern society. YEOTY is open to all years and age groups, with separate Junior, TY and Senior categories, and there were over 500 entries this year. Students can work individually or in groups, with the final entries being presented in any format of their choice: the most popular formats are PowerPoint, animation, video, and PowerPointVideo. Congratulations are also extended to their coordinators Ms Aileen Hanratty, Ms Ciara Sheridan and Mr Liam Reilly on this fantastic achievement.
On Wednesday evening, 22nd March, 54 students and 5 teachers were packing to fly out to Paris the next day when the phone call came. Our flight was cancelled due to a French Air Traffic Controller’s strike. We had to speed ourselves up and be at school at 2.00 a.m. to catch an earlier flight to Brussels. What an adventure!
Half of us left on the early flight and this afforded us the opportunity to have a day in the European Parliament Museum and the Grand-Place Square which is the central square of Brussels and one of the most beautiful squares in Europe. We had a wander around the pretty city centre and then met with the remainder of our classmates who arrived in on the later flight. We had dinner and then went on a 4-hour coach journey to Paris with a few power naps along the way.
During a three-day adventure in Paris we took in all the major sites, the elegant Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, the Tour de Montparnasse with an altitude of 196m, the largest and most famous museum in the world, the Louvre, where the painting “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci is on view. We also had the great pleasure of taking a cruise of a lifetime along the famous Seine River and through the heart of one of the most breath taking and romantic cities in the world!
It has to be said that the highlight of our tour was a visit to Paris Disney Land where we had amazing fun on all the thrilling rides in both the Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Universal Studios. We finished the day with a meal together and all met up for the spectacular fireworks show to celebrate 25 Years of Disney Land Paris.
We had a wonderful holiday and it was an experience of a lifetime. Everyone arrived home safely and we were lucky to have the Easter holidays to recover from all the excitement.
Merci Paris et Bruxelles!