February 1 is the feast of St. Brigid, often called the Mary of the Gael. Brigid’s life was a remarkable one and the places in Ireland associated with her are scenes of pilgrimage throughout the year.
The religion department in the school today set out to make St Brigid’s crosses. As the shamrock became associated with St Patrick, a tiny cross made of rushes was linked with St Brigid. Supposedly woven by her to explain the passion of Christ to a dying pagan.
On Friday the 20th of January students from 3W, 3L and 3O English class attended a performance of Romeo and Juliet in conjunction with The Gaiety School of Acting and The National Theatre School of Ireland.
The setting for this performance was Smock Alley on Exchange Street Lower, the oldest Theatre Royal in Ireland.
The students of each class thoroughly enjoyed this contemporary take on William Shakespeare’s classic. The students are studying this play as part of the Junior Cert course and found it to be very beneficial as the words on the page came to life in this excellent performance.
After the performance there was an hour long ‘Q&A session’ with members of the cast, in which they discussed various themes, issues and scenes with the students.
A thoroughly enjoyable day was had by students and teachers alike.
On Friday 27th January 36 Transition Year students had the opportunity to see some of their class mates perform in a series of plays in one sitting through Tenderfoot.
Tenderfoot is an exciting theatre programme developed by the Civic Theatre in Tallaght for transition year students in the South Dublin County region. Its aim is to provide students with the opportunity to learn about theatre in a hands on way. The working ethos is one of apprenticeship. Learn by doing. Learn by working with experts in the field.
Five students had the opportunity to take part. They were Natasha Wall ( Writer and Actress), Kian Delaney (Actor), Rebecca O Reilly (Sound/Film), Aoife Hanley (Costume) and Nadine Church (Stage Management).
Natasha’s play was the last to be shown and it was a called Anyone Listenin’? The play acts out contemporary stories about young lives lived on the edge.
Overall it was a very enjoyable day and the Transition Year students got a lot out if it.
On Friday 20th January, as part of their History course, the students in the Return to Learning class visited the National Museum Collins Barracks. They took part in a workshop where they got to handle items from the collection. They had to try to identify what these were and discuss how they would display the items.
Following this they had time to wander around the collection. The Way We Wore exhibition and the Military History sections were particularly popular. Students have to select one item from the collection and do a project and presentation on that item as part of their course .
On Saturday 21st January the Enterprise Club had the opportunity to sell their products in The Square in Tallaght.
Students received high praise from customers for their products and colourful display. The Reward Charts, Cookies and Hot Chocolate were selling at a fast rate!!
Their Mentor, Ms Jones, was delighted with their success but commented that “Given the amount of work that they had put into the products they deserved their success”.
On Thursday 19th January the First Year students from Collinstown Park Community College took part in the UCD L&H schools debating competition! The motion being debated was “This house believes single sex schools are good for Education”.
Kellie Sankey and Johnathan Peppard came first in the overall competition securing themselves a fantastic trophy and €100 gift voucher. Two other students Leah Lovett and Katelyn Hillary did a fantastic job also, where they received medals and vouchers.
All First Year students had the opportunity to tour UCD and get a taste of what could be their chosen college in the future. A huge thank you to all the teachers and SNAs involved in this annual event.
For the past number of weeks Ms Tobin’s 5th year English class have been studying Shakespeare’s King Lear. Ms Tobin decided to run a little competition where students would design a revision poster as part of a group to summarise the play. Little did she know that the students would be so enthusiastic about it! The work produced was of a superb standard and the (healthy) competitiveness spread amongst the groups.
Another part of the project was that each student had to write up their own summary of various parts of the play. This was then compiled together to produce a published copy of the entire set of revision notes about King Lear written by the students themselves and a copy given to each student. The students revision book was officially launched by Ms Duffy, The Principal along with English teacher Ms Tobin on Friday 13th of January in our school library.
Well done to all the students involved and of course their teacher Ms Tobin.
Congratulations to Niamh Dunphy, 5th year, on coming 1st in the Irish Boccia National Championships. Well done Niamh, Collinstown Park is very proud of your achievements.
