February 2011 

The days are getting noticeably longer and the College has reverted this past week to the summer timetable. Much sport has taken place this term with hockey, basketball and rugby teams all very busy as their leagues and cups reach their concluding stages, and we will report on all this in the next newsletter.  The essential course work for the public examinations is almost completed as the 'mock' exams start soon after half-term.

We hope you enjoy reading about some of the main events of the term so far.

Junior Play

The 2011 Junior Play was Gizmo by Alan Ayckbourn, and was performed in the BSR on Friday 12th and Saturday 13th February. Directed by Mr Evan Jameson and Dr Jeremy Stone, it featured a large cast headed by Mark Agar as the paralysed Ben, whose movements can be controlled by a gadget called the 'Gizmo', operated variously by characters played by Ludo Stewart, Hugo Hollis, Siobhan Brady and others. Specially written for young actors, it was a technically challenging and most enjoyable production. Click here for a slideshow.

Kezia Wright of Transition Year, who acted in last year's Junior Play The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, has written a detailed review here.

'Irish Times' article

On February 8th the Education Supplement of the Irish Times featured a lengthy interview with the Warden about the College. It focussed primarily on the College's outstanding academic record in recent years, culminating in an average points score in the Leaving Certificate in 2011 of 459 per candidate.

College News via SMS/Text

Many parents are already following regular College news via Twitter accounts; several times a day in term-time there are updates about events in school, sports matches and results, and changes of routine. These 'tweets' all automatically feed through to the bottom of the Latest News page of our website, and they can also be seen on the SCC Dublin Twitter page . If you have a smartphone such as an iPhone or Android phone, you can use a free app such as Tweetdeck to check this feed easily:

All mobile phones can receive these updates via SMS/text messages. First you need a free Twitter account at www.twitter.com. Once you have signed on, go to 'Settings', then 'Mobile', choose your country, and then fill in the rest of the details. You can control which accounts you receive texts from, by following the instructions on the 'Mobile' page. Fuller guidance is given on the Twitter Help page here.

By enabling this feature, parents and others can keep right up to date with College news.

Trip to Krakow

Forty pupils and seven members of staff took part in this highly successful trip over the January Exodus. Kraków is the former capital of Poland and was fortunate to escape structurally unscathed from the Second World War. The hostel was in the very centre of the city, overlooking the magnificent Rynek Główny (the largest main square in Europe).  The visit was a mix of the cultural and historic. On the first day there was a guided tour of the town and the now sadly deserted Jewish district of Kazimierz. On the second day, the group visited the museum of 19th century Polish art in the Sukiennice and also a very enjoyable interactive museum of the history of Kraków. 

On the final day, they travelled to Auschwitz concentration camp, which all found to be a very powerful experience. Finally, they were hurtled 300 feet underground to see the vast chambers and tunnels of the salt mines of Wieliczka, carved largely by hand over the past 900 years. This UNESCO world heritage site accounted for a third of Poland's wealth in the Middle Ages.

Polish cuisine proved to be a pleasant surprise to many, who expected beetroot and buckwheat groats at every meal. Pupils enjoyed an excellent choice of traditional food including pierogi, gołąbki and bigos. Overall, all enjoyed what is one of the most beautiful cities of Eastern Europe and many plan to return.  Click here for a slideshow of photographs.

Information Technology

Like all schools in the country, the College has recently received a substantial grant for the provision of computer hardware. This is part of a scheme to provide all classrooms with fixed projectors and PCs; after this has been done, any money left over may be used for other equipment. We are starting on installing the projectors during half-term, and the grant will enable us to cover all classrooms in the school.

The College continues to show its commitment to the use of information technology in teaching and learning. Before the pupils returned this term, the staff had an in-service day sharing ideas about the use of Google Apps (which the College now uses), educational software and visualisers.

At the recent Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI) annual conference in Portlaoise, Mr Girdham (SCC English) and Mr Jones (The Frog Blog) gave a joint presentation on how these subject blogs have developed and gained widespread national and international attention. This talk also featured in an article in the Irish Times by Marie Boran, 'Time for Show and Tell as Teachers Embrace Technology'.

Our head of IT, Mr Crombie, has started a blog called 'ICT & Education' "with articles to help both staff and pupils with ICT issues as well as offer information on new technologies and resources that could be of use in a learning environment."

Old Columban Society

Many OCs are on our news email list, which regularly gives details of OCS events (and entirely separate to this newsletter). If you don't receive these, please just send an email to ocs@stcolumbas.ie with 'newsletter' in the subject line. Also, please send to ocs@stcolumbas.ie news of yourself or other Old Columbans, since right now we are gathering material for the 2011 edition of our annual magazine, the Bulletin.

Year reunions are being planned for 2011 for those who left 10, 20, 25 and 30 years ago. If you haven't heard about the one relevant to you, please email the Secretary.

And finally...

Many congratulations to Victor Wachs who has accepted a place to read Modern Languages (French and Spanish) at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.  Special subject prizes have been awarded to Seniors Miriam Poulton (English), Mimi von Blomberg (Spanish), Harry Brooke (Chemistry) and Juniors Aidan Chisholm (English), Ludo Stewart (Spanish), Josh Mathews (Classical Studies), Molly Dunne (Irish) ...

We were delighted to welcome the Visitor of the College, Most Reverend Alan Harper, Archbishop of Armagh, to Evensong on Sunday 16th January, when he gave the sermon ... Fund-raising continues apace for the Habitat for Humanity trip to Hungary in the holidays, including a magic show by French professional magician Charlie Clarck (O.C.), a cake-sale today, and a non-uniform day earlier this week ... Chapel on Wednesdays has featured Mr Swift with a talk and song on creativity and a music recital by Sophie von Brauchitsch, Siobhan Brady, Daria Tischenko and Philippa Peters ... Mr Jones took some TY pupils to the CSI Tallaght Engineers' Week workshop - read Jay Kim 's report here.

Chapel collections have been taken for the Friends of St Columba's Hospital in India, the Bishops' Appeal, the Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and TearFund Ireland  ... Mrs Malone-Brady and Mr Clarke took V and IV form music pupils to the Coleman Music Centre in Sligo ... the House Debating Final was won by Stackallan, whose team of Patrick McGonagle (best speaker) and Patrick Tice beat Hollypark (Olivia Plunket and Miriam Poulton ) ... the annual Transition Year Careers' Convention was held in the BSR on January 29th, with many parents contributing ... a member of the NUI Galway admissions team spoke to VI formers ...John Clarke performed in the semi-final of the national Poetry Aloud competition at the National Library  ... auditions were held here with some senior pupils for the film Bad Day at Blackrock ... and last of all, the English Department is conducting a reading survey leading up to World Book Day on March 3rd- it takes just a couple of minutes to fill in here.