Blog Challenge

I just made a new Voki. See it here: As part of our TY challenge we had to make a voki. This is the one I made. I made a chipmunk but there were loads of other characters to choose from. 

Punchestown

Last Thursday, we went to a Road Safety talk in Punchestown. It was quite a long bus journey to get there. When we arrived, we went inside, the room was set up with different stalls along the walls. There was also a demonstration by the fire brigade on how they take apart cars when they have been in a crash and there is someone trapped inside. They take off the roof and the doors and they break the windshield and windows. While we were walking around the stalls, there was a special guest, Andrew Morley from Home and Away. He was there because although he is an actor he is also a fire fighter in Australia. He told us some stories about what he has experienced while being a fire fighter. Some of the stories were quite detailed, but they really taught about how our actions on the road have an effect on all the other drivers on the road. There were also speeches from the mayor of Kildare, a paramedic, a garda and a firefighter. We were also shown clips of videos to promote road safety. When you hear about things people have experienced in road accidents or while working to help people in an accident, it really hits you how it can happen to absolutely anybody. Hearing stories on the news you think 'that'll never happen to me', but in reality, it can happen to any of us. I think this road safety talk was very inspirational and having the guest speakers definitely made us realise just how dangerous careless driving can be.

               Twitter- @Andrew_J_Morley

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