This week a group of sixteen Transition Year students are taking part in a Future Learning   week long module, in College House Dublin.

The Future Learning module  involves a cultural exchange through the medium of digital media with twenty-one  students from Cristóbal de Monroy Secondary School in Sevilla.

Today students were paired up in groups of three or four and combined to produce a digital presentation of various well known Irish Legends such as Tír na Nóg and Molly Malone.

The group will continue this interactive and fun module until Friday. On Friday they will produce and perform using digital media a presentation of the 1916 rising.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Collinstown’s Chess team played their first tournament of the year today (Friday) as they made the trip to Riversdale Community College in Blanchardstown.

The format of the tournament was a team of twelve from Collinstown versus a team of twelve from Riversdale. There were three rounds played on a league basis with two points for a victory, three points for a checkmate and one point for a draw.

The top four after the first three rounds  from Collinstown played the top four from Riversdale in the quarter finals. Jason Quinn, Megan Smyth and Keith Hogan all qualified for the Semi-Final. After a tense battle, the final pairing of Keith Hogan and Jason Quinn was decided which was an all Collinstown final.  The First Year student Jason emerged victorious.  He was delighted with the win, especially as he only began playing chess this year.

A big thanks to Riversdale who hosted us today and supplied lots of pizza and also medals for the players. Also a big thanks to all the senior students who acted as referees and score keeper.

 

As part of the English course in first year, the class of 1S read the book The Outsiders by S.E Hinton. After we had finished reading it, our English teacher Mr. Dowling assigned a project based on the book. As part of the project we got into groups of two and three and then had to give a presentation based on a topic connected to the book.

The options we had to choose from were:  1) S.E Hinton, 2) Greasers, 3) Tulsa Oklahoma, 4) America in the 1960s and 5) The Outsiders.

We had a week to research the topic we chose using the school’s iPads. We also went to the computer room to print pictures and type up the information that was gathered. We had the choice of giving a PowerPoint presentation or by using a poster.

After we had finished preparing all the groups presented their project to the class. The posters were then placed on the wall of the English classroom.

It was a very enjoyable project and we got to improve our research, writing and speaking skills.

 

By Katelyn Hillary and Aoife O’Connor – 1S

 

 

The Transition Year students participating in Fighting Words this year are delighted to announce the name of their upcoming novel.

 

 

 

‘What’s the Stories?’ was selected after a long and difficult selection process. The novel will consist of 19 individual short stories from our very talented Transition Year writers. The name, a play on ‘What’s the story?’ sums up what will be a varied and interesting novel. It is due to be released in May.

 

 

Fighting Words – Graphic Designer

On Tuesday in Fighting Words, the year long module 19 TY students are taking part in to make a book, we met the graphic designer Daragh O’Toole. Daragh has been with Fighting Words for 8 years and he came in to talk to us about book cover designs and what we would like on our book cover.

 

 

We told him about the title we had picked ‘What’s the Stories?’ which will help him in designing our book cover. The previous week we had made collages from magazines and newspaper cut outs (some of these collages are pictured below). We feel that these images and collages will inspire Daragh with the colours and many pictures giving him an idea of our personality and influences.

 

 

 

From the many book covers he showed us from his past Fighting Words experiences, I could tell that he is very talented. So all of us are excited to see what he comes up with from the information that we have given him.

By Rebecca O’Reilly – TY Student

 

On Thursday the 16th of February the Fighting Words students will make a big announcement. The name of their upcoming novel (a collection of short stories) will be named!

After six months of painstaking drafting and redrafting, the novel is near completion.  Over the last few weeks the name of the novel has been discussed and argued over, an initial very long shortlist has been whittled down to just one.

Stay tuned for further updates!