Transition Year English Evening 2018

The 25th annual TY English Evening was held in the BSR last night to round off the pupils’ course. As usual the formula consisted of pupils reading out interesting pieces from their Work Portfolios, and a guest commenting on these and then on ‘matters English’.

The guest speaker last night was the first ‘graduate’ of the TY programme itself, Sophie Grenham, journalist and Old Columban. She has an excellent series in The Glossmagazine called “Writers’ Block“, having interviewed writers such as Louise O’Neill, Dave Rudden, Sebastian Barry and Sarah Webb. The presenter, Mr Girdham, mentioned the many other guests who have spoken at the evening over the years, including: academics Professor Colin Graham of Maynooth (last year), Professor Terry Dolan, Professor Kevin Barry; English teachers John Fanagan, Colin Polden and Mary Milne; and journalists Trevor White and Tom Doorley.

Shannon Dent started, with a reading of her evocative piece ‘My Secret Place of Wonder’, about the lush nature of Ecuador. Sam Lawrence gave us ‘Being Underwater’, another but rather different world. Charlotte Klingmann, who the previous night had performed several pieces at the TY Music Concert, read out ‘The Greatest Pleasure of My Life’ (music, of course). Andrew Kim’s piece was vivid about the early morning urban sprawl of Seoul in South Korea. Kathryn Kelly struck a recent note, since ‘The Big Snow’ was her most memorable event of the last 12 months, as she took the chance to reconnect with old friends. Frances Wilkinson was the only person to read a poem, “You”, delicately examining the difficulty of saying those three words “I love you”. Tania Stokes’s garden piece about a day in the sunshine was fine with detail. Finally, Andrew Pollock ended things entertainingly with his quirkly essay ‘Is Donald Trump Bald?’

Sophie Grenham then gave an account of her writing life, and of how well the College had prepared her for this. She said it was particularly important for young writers to ‘find their own voice’, and she made attentive comments about each piece she had heard.

She then made the annual announcement of Premier Awards winners. Congratulations go to Shannon Dent, Charlotte Klingmann, Sam Lawrence, Songyon Oh, Eliza Somerville and Tania Stokes.

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Sports Day & Sports Dinner 2018

The College was buzzing on Saturday as sport took centre stage once again.  In the afternoon the main events of Sports Day took place, with pupils assigned to one of four teams (red, blue, green and white). The campus was awash with colour as the pupils competed in a wide range of events ranging from the traditional track and field fare (short & long distance running, long jump, high jump etc) to skills based challenges (cricket throw, rugby conversions, soccer penalties, basketball throws etc) to some less traditional events (like the three-legged and caterpillar race). The final races are traditionally the “cloister dash” – a 100 yard sprint from the Hurley Lane gate to Chapel Square. The race is only contested by Form VI pupils and the winners this year were Sasha Cole and Franz Truchsess. Well done to everyone who competed – Sports Day is, for many, the highlight of the year and this year certainly didn’t disappoint. Well done to everyone on the Blue Team for amassing the most points over all the events. Many thanks to Ms. Thompson and Mrs. Johnson, in particular, but to all the teaching and sports coaching staff for their seamless running of the day’s events.

That evening the College’s sporting successes were celebrated at our annual Sports Dinner, with ‘colours’ awarded to those pupils who have excelled in their chosen sports this year. Colours for Rugby were presented to Sean Cooper, Hector Wright, Adam Murphy, Max Hopkins, Kosi Anyim and Joe Gernon. In Basketball, colours were presented to Ryan Gumsheimer, Franz Truchsess and Tiernan Mullane. In Hockey, colours were presented to Ivan Moffit, Sean Cooper, Kitty Morris, Sasha Cole and Ella Noeldeke and in Cricket, colours were awarded to Helen Crampton. The overall Sports Pupils of the Year were awarded to Sean Cooper and Kitty Morris, for their contribution to College sport over the past six years.

Below are a series of photographs, taken by Rev. Owen, from the weekend’s sporting events.

Sports Day & Sports Dinner 2018
Sports Day & Sports Dinner 2018
51 photos
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Voices of Poetry 2018

That excellent annual event, Voices of Poetry, took place last night in the BSR. Every year it seems the sun is shining outside as the darkened space, lit by a single spotlight, gives us an hour’s treat of great poetry. As Mr Swift, the compère in black tie, pointed out, there was a ‘175’ tinge this time.

Again there was the mixture of poems in English and other languages, and of pupils and staff reading. The first off was appropriately the Senior Prefect, Kitty Morris, with a poem she had studied in Irish class, followed by two pupils with their own poems – Emma Hinde, winner of the Junior Poetry Prize, with ‘Eye of the Storm’ and Caoimhe Cleary, Commended for the Peter Dix Memorial Prize, with ‘Electric Picnic’.

Mr Swift was proud to have unearthed possibly the most obscure yet in the history of the event, as Shannon Dent read a poem from a native pre-Columbian Ecuadorian language. This was followed i by Latin (JiWoo Park), Italian (Sveva Ciofani), French (Georg Mueller-Methling), Korean (JiWoo Park again) and Vietnamese (Florian Zitzmann). Tiernan Mullane read in ‘American’ Raymond Carver’s ‘My Death‘, and then there were Swedish (Gioia Doenhoff), German (Carla Ladanyi) and Swahili (Akin Babajide).

Poetry has featured throughout the Columban year, and Jasmine Williams read a piece from the ‘Poem in Your Pocket’ initiative on Ireland Poetry Day (and in Mental Health Week), Walt Whitman’s ‘I Dreamed in a Dream’. Poetry Aloud was represented by national finalist Harry Oke-Osanyintolu, who recited Thomas McCarthy’s ‘State Funeral’. Next Mr Swift sprang a surprise: a €10 tuck-shop voucher with a poem was taped to the bottom of one chair, and Polina Grakhovskaia had it. She sportingly came into the spotlight to read our ‘The Dead‘ by Billy Collins (and retain the voucher). There was a bravura performance by Mr Swift himself of his own ‘Poetry Slam’ piece, written as lyrics for one of his songs. Next was Kate Higgins with another Irish poem.

Four teachers were next. Mr Girdham read ‘Breaking-up Night’, a poem from The Columbanmagazine of 1890 nostalgically recalling the old pre-Christmas tradition; it is reproduced in the new book Floreat Columba. The founder of Voices of Poetry, retired Head of English Mr John Fanagan, had written his own poem marking the College’s 175 years, and read it out. You can see it at the bottom of this post. The Warden followed, impressively reciting from memory Rudyard Kipling’s famous ‘If’ (written for Kipling’s only son, who died in the Great War: this is marked in Wellington College, where the Warden previously taught). Mr Finn followed, also reciting from memory, this time Yeats’s ‘September 1913’, which he had learned when studying for the Leaving Certificate (it is still often on the course).

Frank Meng’s reading of a poem Mandarin was dramatic, as was Katie Lam’s in Cantonese, and then Éile Ní Chianáin read the third Irish poem of the evening.

 Rounding off, as is traditional, was the recent winner of the Peter Dix Senior Prize for Poetry, Tania Stokes, with her ‘Death of A Moth‘ (she is pictured above with Mr Swift and Mr Fanagan), and then Manuela Sanchez from Primary with Yeats’s ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.’

And so the final whole-school BSR event of the year came to a lovely close.


SCC 175, by John Fanagan

May in 1843 saw
St Columba’s on its way.
From the plains of County Meath
To Whitechurch where we are today.

Wardens, teachers, pupils all
Have given of their very best.
We celebrate 175
Moving forward with new zest.

So much has changed, yet much remains
Of what has made us what we are:
Our friendships and our memories
Now span the world both near and far.

Next weekend it’s party time,
With sports, a barbeque and ball.
Tonight, as one who loves this place,
I say happy birthday to us all.

27 May 2018

 

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Second Form Public Speaking Competition

The annual Second Form public speaking competition was held in the Cadogan last night, and showcased a great variety of topics and eight speakers who really engaged their audience of junior pupils. Much of the material was based on the Classroom-Based Assessments recently done in English classes. Mr Brett and last year’s winner Charlotte Moffitt were the judges, and Mr Girdham compèred.

(Mr Brett’s judging comments are in italics). Peter Taylor opened with an account of his life in Bangladesh, a talk which was clear and well-paced – exactly right). Caleb Swanepoel spoke about bias of various kinds; Mr Brett liked the way he provoked the audience. Franz Schmucker spoke on the topic of fake news, and engaged with audience well with sensible content. Fourth came Donald Thomson, whose talk opened with the famous Johnny Sexton drop-goal against France in opening up the subject of the Butterfly Effect; there were many good examples. Georgina Stewart tackled sexism, with good examples and her point of view coming across in a reasonably way. Emma Hinde spoke on a complicate subject, the tesseract (a four-dimensional cube), making a difficult topic interesting, with fascinating ideas. Poppy Somerville spoke on a very current topic, social media and teenagers, with very good points and sound judgment. Finally, Wolfgang Romanowski’s piece on vampires much amused the audience, being very funny.

Mr Brett then announced that the top places went to Donald Thompson (1st), Emma Hinde (2nd), and Georgina Stewart (3rd). Well done to all eight speakers on their polished and confident performances.

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Cricket News

The cricket season started on April 18th and effectively ended on Wednesday last, five weeks later. In that time twenty six matches were played across the teams, albeit with two First I matches to come against Headfort. Their First Year B team were introduced to the rudiments of the game. The First Year A team contains some decent and potentially solid cricketers. They were certainly competitive in their matches. The Senior Team were keen and worked hard however they have not yet played enough cricket or spent enough hours training to compete with those who have done so for years. Nevertheless they managed an excellent league win against a useful Rush team, winning by two runs. They also played competitively in our enjoyable annual fixture against the Leprechauns Cricket Club.

The highlight of the season was the Second XI’s win in their League semi-final against Wesley College. This win by nine runs was marked by a four and three wicket haul by Harry Oke and Harry Kelly respectively. Also Juhyun Kim took five catches at long on or fine fine leg! They lost in the final against Clongowes Wood College First XI playing in the Senior B League. We have just completed two weeks of snappy, ‘Sports Day’ cricket which has involved everyone in the school. If we are to build on the coaching done so far in this frenetic season, as many of our cricketers who live in cricket playing countries as possible need to play for a club in the holidays. That is if they are to progress and develop for next year’s competitive school season.

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Floreat Columba

To coincide with the 175th anniversary, the Sub-Warden, Julian Girdham, has just published Floreat Columba, a book based on the first 100 years of The Columban, the school magazine. It is a rich compilation about all sorts of elements of College life from 1879 to 1979, from the most serious (the effects of the world wars, the fire that nearly destroyed the College in 1896) to the most bizarre and off-beat (a College Museum of scorpions, monkey-skins and spiders’ nests, ice-skating in Marlay estate, the death of a pet owl in a desk, a deer visiting classes for biscuits and cake, a rat being poisoned by a Library book, and much more).

You can find out more about the book here, and see many of the illustrations. It costs €10, including a DVD of the original files, and can be reserved for collection in the College by emailing jgirdham@staff.stcolumbas.ie. Postage is extra.

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Transition Year Modern Languages Evening

Last night, a very successful Transition Year Modern Languages Evening was held at Trinity College in Dublin, in which ten pupils gave talks and presentations in French and Spanish. Tania Stokes won The Alyn Stacey Cup for her presentation on Les Bandes Dessinées (you can view Tania’s presentation by clicking the link below). Joan Clivillé came second with his talk on the La Légion Etrangère. In third place, were Charlotte Klingmann & Calina Sacolax; their subject was La Música Latina.

All ten participants are to be commended for their efforts and high quality presentations. Mr Clarke’s set also made a very entertaining video on life at St Columba’s College. Tania was a clear winner because she had prepared her topic in depth, used her own words and was able to speak without excessive reference to her notes.

Special thanks go to Dr Alyn Stacey for allowing us to have use of the Swift Theatre as well as the three judges for giving up their evening to listen to our pupils.

Tania’s Presentation – Les Bandes Dessinées

 

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David O’Morchoe

Today, May 17th, we congratulate David O’Morchoe on his 90th birthday. An Old Columban (1941 to 1946), The O’Morchoe has had a profound and positive influence on the College over many decades, most significantly as a long-serving Fellow and Chairman of the board and of the Executive Committee. He is also a Vice-President of the Old Columban Society and Chair of the OCS Bursary Fund sub-committee. He has given enormously of his time and wise advice over many years to the College, and we thank him sincerely for this.

In 2007 The O’Morchoe was awarded the CBE for his services UK-Irish Relations and the cause of British Veterans in Ireland. He retired from the British Army as a Major-General after a ‘glittering military career‘, including being Commander-in-Chief of the army of the Sultan of Oman. He is also a former President of the Royal British Legion in Ireland, and in 2011 showed Queen Elizabeth the grounds of the Irish Memorial War Garden at Islandbridge during her state visit.

He is the hereditary chief of the O’Morchoe / Murphy clan.

Below is a selection of photographs taken by Patrick Hugh Lynch.

David O'Morchoe
David O'Morchoe
10 photos
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Warden’s Thoughts … on Mobile Phones in School

There is a new question that prospective parents ask me almost without fail as I am taking them on a tour of the school: ‘What is the school’s approach to mobile phones and social media?’ When I go to conferences now there are speakers on the effects of social media and internet addiction. More and more studies are being done on the effects of obsessive gaming, the decline in ‘real’ communication due to social media, the release of dopamine that happens every time our phones ping. I am now reading ‘The Cyber Effect’ by cyberpsychologist Dr. Mary Aiken and apart from being a very good read and very interesting it is also extremely scary. It should be compulsory reading for all parents.

When our children were young my wife and I had discussions about how much TV time we should allow and when they should be allowed to watch videos. We disagreed at times as I was always inclined to be more lenient than she was, but at least we knew what they were watching and it was usually a choice between Disney videos or Thomas the Tank Engine. I think I can still recite the Disney version of Robin Hood off by heart. Those were discussions and challenges that our own parents did not have to face but ultimately we felt we had the tools to make those judgements, even though we made some mistakes. We learned to parent to a large degree by taking a cue from the way that we were parented ourselves. However what is true now is that the challenges facing parents are challenges that have never been faced before and they are not in the old textbooks. It is one thing to discuss whether to put on Robin Hood or Thomas the Tank Engine, another to feel totally as sea in a world of endless social media, internet pornography, cyber bullying, sexting, Netflix and trolling. Who knows who your children are talking to, who is grooming them, what sites they are on, when everyone has an extraordinarily powerful computer in his or her pocket and 24 hour access. As someone said, ‘if you want to teach your children to be safe on the road you can’t ban the cars. You have to teach them how to cross the road.’ True, but it is a very difficult road to cross.

Earlier this week I was interviewed on Newstalk, following an article in the Irish Times about boarding, in which St. Columba’s got some good coverage. I was asked why parents choose boarding nowadays and of course there are many different possible answers. I chose however to concentrate on the most topical one, that of being able to provide a safe space from the constant demands of the online world. It would not have figured in the past as a major consideration, but suddenly parents are looking for a place where their children can be children and escape the addictive demands of an online culture which is exposing them to goodness knows what and sleep-walking them into a mental health epidemic. Boarding school suddenly looks like a bit of a safe haven and we want to keep it that way.

At St. Columba’s we are still formulating our approach to all these things and it will continue to evolve, but what is true at present is that the youngest pupils are not allowed their phones at night, nor are any of the pupils allowed phones around school during the day. The 8.15 a.m. start and the busy day, running to at least 8.00 p.m. means there is very little time for smart phone usage and none for gaming. Pupils talk to each other and are not seen staring at screens as they interact with each other.

I have always been a big fan of boarding but I now have a new reason to champion the cause. For busy parents, who work hard and are not always around to monitor their children’s screen use of all kinds, it might be a blessed relief to delegate some of that responsibility to a school that limits such access and encourages genuine communication and relationships in a world where that is increasingly rare. We may not ban all the cars but we are trying very hard to teach the children how to cope with the traffic.

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The WellRead Award

This year, St Columba’s College has been taking part in the WellRead Award, a national initiative designed and organised by the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST). It aims to create heightened awareness about the importance of creating a culture of reading in school communities for young people as part of their personal and academic development. The initiative seeks to involve all relevant stakeholders who impact on student learning including pupils, teachers, ancillary staff, parents, board of management and the wider community in a range of reading and associated activities. We hope to achieve ‘WellRead’ status by May 2019 and thus far, we have had a productive first six months.

In February, we had our first ever Book Week. Along with library-based competitions, there were activities such as Book Speed Dating and Drop Everything And Read. There was also a chapel talk in which pupils enthused about books and the doors of classrooms and the walls of the buttery passage were decorated with posters featuring pictures of staff members and their favourite books. More recently, we celebrated World Book Day with free book tokens for all pupils and on Poetry Day, every pupil was given an individual poem as part of the ‘poem in your pocket’ scheme. We have also had author visits from novelists Claire Keegan (for V and VI pupils) and Ruth Frances Long (for junior pupils).

The pupils’ book club and the staff book club have continued to meet regularly throughout the year and it is hoped that we will be able to extend and expand these activities next year. At the moment, we are compiling a list of junior pupils’ favourite books, as well as a list of books read and discussed at both book clubs. We intend to circulate this document among parents.

The WellRead Committee 2017/2018: Ms J. Kent-Sutton (Librarian), Mr E. Jameson, Shannon Dent, Rory Flanagan.

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Exodus Arrangements, May 2018

Friday 4th May
Parents’ Association hike: meet opposite the Sports Hall at 9am (bring change of shoes for coffee morning).
11.30am: Parents’ Assocation coffee morning in the Drawing Room.
All classes end at 12.50pm. No pupil may leave before this time. Exodus starts.

Monday 7th May
All boarders return to school between 6.30pm and 8.30pm. Roll-call in House at 8.30pm.

Tuesday 8th May
Late rising for Convention. See page 43 of the Green Book.
Day boys and girls report by 8.50am.

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