Holly Days

On the 10th of December, we went into Grafton Street to do the 'Holly Days' collection for the ISPCC. We divided into pairs and were each assigned to a shop front on Grafton Street. I was outside Bewley's cafe. We were selling Holly pins and badges to people for 2 euro to raise money for the ISPCC. We had to wear vests over our uniforms which said we were Volunteers. People were really generous to the cause and some people bought more than one badge. It was a really good day out. When we were on the way back to the bus, we got stuck in the middle of the Water Charges. It was mad, suddenly there were thousands of people on the streets chanting about the water charges. It was as if they came out of no where. The buses couldn't get to us so we had to walk toward the buses, so we were walking through the protest. I had never been part of a protest or seen one before, apart from on TV, so it was crazy to see how many people actually showed up to voice their opinions about the water charges. Eventually, we got home at around 1:30 and then we were allowed to go home. 

Maths Trip

Yesterday, 5th of December, we went on a trip to Rathbeggan Lakes, Co. Meath to learn about using maths in real life situations. It was mainly trigonometry and area/volume. We were given different problems to figure out. One of the problems was, we were given a bicycle and we had to figure out the difference in how far one turn of the pedal would carry the bike in different gears.The trip definitely showed how maths is used to solve real life problems. It was freezing beside the lakes, everyone had loads of layers on but it was still extremely cold! There were goats,ducks and geese all around the place. The people who organised the trip for us were really friendly and helped us when we needed help with the problems. After the maths, we went to Blanchardstown for lunch, my friends and I went to Eddie Rockets. We saw all the Christmas decorations around the shopping centre, it was great to be indoors after the freezing weather at the lakes. 

Fashion Show

On Tuesday 25th and Wednesday 26th of November we held our school fashion show in the Celbridge Manor Hotel.  There were loads of students involved in the making of the show and the performances. There were clothes from over 14 shops on show during the fashion show.There was also a Debs wear and a Wedding wear section.  The clothes were modelled by students from St Wolstans, students from Salesians college and teachers.There were also performances by the glee club, irish dancers, ballerinas and the choir. I was a model and modelled clothes from 'United Colours of Bennetton' and 'Born'. It was really fun to get up on the catwalk and model the clothes and was definitely an experience I will remember for a long time. The day of the fashion show, TYs got to go to the Celbridge Manor to paint the catwalk and to set up the room. We painted the stage and fixed up the mannequins that had been used in the last fashion show in 2007. The fashion show was also an opportunity for TY mini companies to sell their products. We were allowed to set up our stalls in the hotel and sell our product to the audience during the interval. The show began at 8 o'clock and everyone was extremely nervous before the show on the first night. People were running around the room touching up their makeup, fixing their hair, practicing dance moves and doing vocal warm ups, it was crazy! Backstage was just as hectic, everyone was trying to change into their outfits before they were called on stage. The second night was less mad because everyone was prepared and knew what to expect. In the end the nerves were worth it because it was a great show and everyone enjoyed it immensely. I think the teachers enjoyed it just as much as the students if not more! Most teachers modelled an outfit and they even did a group dance while wearing colourful wigs. 


'I don't believe in fashion. I believe in costume. Life is too short to be the same person every day.' -Stephanie Perkins (Lola and the boy next door) 

Art Exhibition

Last week we went to Carton House for the 'Vanishing Art' exhibition. We left the school at 1:20. We were all really excited to see the art but also because we had heard that the Irish Rugby team were going to be training there at the same time as we would be there. We started in the indoor exhibition, we got a map of the exhibition and then we were allowed to go around and look at all of the pieces ourselves.While we were looking at a sculpture named 'Horses', we noticed some of the Irish Rugby team training staff coming out of the building beside the sculpture. 6 or 7 of us went over to the doors and next thing we know, Johnny Sexton walks out of the glass double doors behind two men. Naturally we were all excited. We asked him to sign our sheets and we even got a group photo with him! He was really friendly and didnt seem to mind us asking for a photo. Then he got into a car and drove away. We stood there in shock for a few minutes but finally realised that we had to finish our worksheets about the art trip. Some of the sculptures were really interesting and really caught your eye. Some of them were incorporated into nature and were hanging in the trees. Later on while we were looking at more sculptures, we heard loads of screaming. When we looked towards the door to the spa, we saw Tommy Bowe surrounded by lots of girls from our school. Everyone was looking for photos with him and his autograph, it was crazy! There was  one sculpture that I particularly liked, it was of a rhinoceros with a gold bird on it's back. It was called 'White Rhino'. I liked this sculpture because it showed the contrast in size between the bird and the rhino. It also shows how delicate the golden bird is and how not delicate the rhinoceros is. It was a great trip and it was a really good experience to visit an art exhibition and of course to meet some of the Irish Rugby team!

Road Safety

Last Thursday our year had a talk on Road Safety from the Garda Traffic Corps. The talk was to raise awareness of road safety and the rules of the road. It was really interesting because the speaker used his own life experience and stories from his years of working in the Traffic Corps to help us understand the dangers that go along with careless driving. He began by telling us some of the statistics from the past few years. He then went on to explain to us some of the main reasons for collisions on our roads today. The main causes are, speeding, using mobile phones while driving, drink driving and fatigue. We learned that young male drivers are the most at risk on the roads, the reason for this is because young male drivers become very confident in themselves and their driving skills once they have passed their driving test and believe they can handle any situation that is thrown at them, when really this is not true because driving takes years of experience and the more experience you have, the better you will be able to handle certain situations.We then watched videos about road safety, drink driving and speeding. Some of the videos were really graphic, but they definitely made us realise that the choices we make have an affect on the other users of the road. Overall it was a really interesting talk and it was definitely worthwhile. 

rsa.ie

Picture Perfect

'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.'

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Walk In My Shoes

Friday the 10th of October was World Mental Health Day. To raise awareness for positive mental health our school had a non-uniform day.Everyone donated €2 to help St. Patrick's University Hospital. Walk in my shoes is a mental health charity that promotes positive mental health. It is promoted by U2 member Adam Clayton. 

Facts:

• Ireland has one of the highest suicide rates in the 14-24 age group in the EU. 
• 1 in 4 young people in Ireland will experience a mental health difficulty. 
• 75% of all mental health issues begin before the age of 24. 
• Suicide is the leading cause of death among 18-25 year old men in Ireland and the second most common cause of death generally in this age group.

I think promoting positive mental health is very important and there should be more awareness raised about mental health and the difficulties many people go through. Many people suffer in silence so I think the fact that our school dedicated a day to positive mental health is very important because it makes the people who have mental health issues feel like they are not alone and will hopefully encourage them to seek help. The phrase 'Walk in My Shoes' means that you should place yourself in someone else's situation before you judge what they are going through, just because someone seems to have a perfect life on the outside does not mean their life is perfect, they could have problems that you have not even noticed. So be nice to everyone because you never know what they're dealing with. If everyone in our school is aware of mental health and helps people who are dealing with mental health issues, it would make seeking help for those who are suffering much easier.

taken from mycharity.ie

Fun Walk

On the 3rd of October our school held our annual 'Fun Walk'. The Fun Walk is held every year on the last day of friendship/anti-bullying week in October. Each year dresses up in a different colour. First years were pink, second years were purple, third years were green, TYs were yellow, fifth years were blue and sixth years were black and white. Each base class does a dance in front of the judges based on friendship. My class, aurora, did a dance to the song 'Wake Me Up' by Wham! After each class danced we went on a walk through Celbridge. The whole point of the fun walk is to bring class groups closer together and to have fun. The next day the winning classes were announced, class aurora won out of the TY classes. Everyone got involved, including the teachers. It was a great day and everyone enjoyed it. 

Work Experience

       Two weeks ago we began work experience as part of our TY year. We do work experience every Wednesday and it really is an incredible experience.For my first term of work experience I am going to Scoil Naomh Bríd which is the primary school I attended. Work experience is meant to give you an experience of the world of work and what it is like. I was really excited to begin my first day and it went really well! 

      My day began at 9 o'clock when I arrived at the school, when I went inside, I went to reception and met the principal. She was very welcoming and showed me around. Then she brought me to the staff room where I met the rest of the staff who were also very friendly and made me feel very welcome. I also met the other TY students doing work experience in the school too. At 9:10 when the school bell rang, the principal assigned each of us to a teacher who we would help for the day, i helped in one  of the senior infants classes. The children were very excited to have me in their class and told me many different stories throughout the day.

     The first thing I did was help the children in the class with their maths game, they had to sort the toys into groups according to colour. After my break at 10:30, I went into the other senior infants class next door and helped them do marble painting. They had to dip the marbles in different coloured paints and place them on a page and then roll the marbles around on the page to make a colourful pattern. After that I went back into the class I had been helping that morning and helped them do marble painting too. The children enjoyed  it and it was really fun helping them. I had lunch at 12:00.

    At 1:00, I had to help another girl from TY cut out cards for one of the teachers. We also had to laminate sheets for the teacher. By the time we had finished cutting out all of the cards and laminating the sheets it was the end of the day.The time had gone by so fast, I had so much fun! At the end of the day I was covered in paint but it was worth it because I had a great time on my first day of work experience and I'm really excited for the rest of the term. The staff and students in the school were really welcoming and friendly and that definitely made the day more 

My Digital Dossier

             About 3 weeks ago I began this blog to record my TY experiences. As part of our 'Blogging Challenge' we have to write about our digital dossier or our digital footprint. To learn about our digital dossier and what it is we had to watch this video. 
            My digital dossier began before I was even born. It began when messages and emails were sent to my parents friends and family to tell them the good news of my birth. Records of my birth were also kept on computers in the hospital and pictures were taken on phones. This was the beginning of my digital dossier and it began before I was even old enough to speak. 
             Our digital dossier grows everyday, when I was 5 I made accounts for online games, which I can't even remember the names of now. As I got older I made an email account and many social media accounts. My digital dossier will be there forever and everything I do online will be tracked, including this blog and all of the posts I make on it. In the future everything I do will  be added to my digital dossier such as booking holidays, buying products online, photos of weddings I attend and maybe even my own wedding. It will grow and grow even after I'm gone. Some people take this for granted and misuse the internet, social media and other devices and services because they forget about their digital footprint. You have to use the internet carefully because when you go for a job interview the employer could search your name online and you only want positive things to be shown right? 
            Before writing this blog post I had an idea of what my digital footprint was but I had no idea that so many things were traced. I was shocked to learn that my digital dossier began before I was even born. I hope you learned about your digital dossier from reading this as I thought it was a very interesting thing to write about. 

Carlingford

On Monday and Tuesday we went on a trip to Carlingford Adventure Centre in Louth. The aim of the trip was to bring us closer together as a group and help us to get to know new people from our year that we didn't know before TY. The trip was brilliant and we are definitely closer as a group now because of it!

Day 1:

On Monday morning we were up bright and early because we were meeting at 7 o'clock to get the bus. We left Celbridge at around 7:15 and we were all really excited! The journey took about 2 hours and we arrived in Carlingford at 9 o'clock. When we got off the bus the first thing we saw was the amazing view of the sea and the mountains. We then met two of the instructors and they brought us to where we would be staying. Carlingford is a beautiful town, there were bright coloured flowers everywhere, it was really peaceful and quiet and there were wonderful views everywhere you looked. At the centre we met more of the instructors decided who would be staying in what rooms and then we set off on our first activity of the day, kayaking! We were given wetsuits,helmets and buoyancy aids. The water was freezing cold at first but once we started paddling we forgot all about the cold water. Afterwards we changed out of our wetsuits and went back to the centre to have lunch. Later that day we played laser tag in the forest, it was a really long walk from the centre to the forest but it was worth it because the laser tag was so much fun! After dinner we went on a walk in the dark to the forest again. This time we did a trust activity where we were blindfolded and had to hold on to a rope to walk through the forest. The whole point of the game was that you had to trust the person in front of you. It was a really fun activity.

Day 2: 

We were woken up early on Tuesday so we could fit as much as possible into our last day, we packed our bags and had breakfast really quickly and then did our first activity of the day, canoeing! It was really funny and a great team building exercise. We also stood under a waterfall for 'good luck' and jumped off a trampoline into the sea. After we had lunch we did team building activities, all of the activities were interesting but my favourite one was 'Communication Breakdown' where we were in a dark maze and had to find our way out as a team. We got on the bus at around 5 o'clock and made our way home, everyone was really tired on the journey home from all of the activities that we did. It was a great trip and I would love to go back again!

                                       Taken from www.carlingfordadventure.com