Unfortunately this year we were unable to hold our annual Christmas Carol Service but music is very much alive and well within the College community. Over the past few weeks, the various choirs and musical groups within the community have been practising diligently and we are delighted to present this short film of carols (sung with the appropriate ‘distance’) and lessons.

The Chaplain’s opening blessing is followed by Once in Royal David’s City, sung by the Chapel Choir with an opening solo by Isabel Warnock, Form IV. Felix Jellett, Form I, reads the first of two lessons and this is followed by Sine Nomine singing Ding Dong Merrily on High. Our newly formed quartet perform a beautiful rendition of The Snowman before a choir of staff and pupils sing the German hymn Es ist ein Ros entsprungen. Senior Prefect Éile Ní Chíanáin then reads the second lesson which is followed by a small Transition Year choir performing Infant Lowly, Infant Holy. Emily McCarthy sings a haunting solo performance of the Irish carol Don Oiche Úd i mBeithil before the Chaplain’s final blessing. The video concludes with organist Patrice Keegan playing Bach’s In Dulci Jubilo. 

Many thanks to the pupils and staff who helped coordinate the video. We hope you enjoy it and we wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

In Chapel this morning, the Chaplain gave this message:

This has been a very long term; for some of you it started way back in August when it was still summer – and now we are just thirteen days away from Christmas day.

We didn’t really know what to expect. Certainly, in the midst of this global pandemic, life has been very different and no aspect of College life has escaped unscathed, but you have all adapted very well, whether in the classroom, sportsfield, dining hall, in music, drama or indeed Chapel.

Nevertheless, we look forward to many things: Eating at a crowded table, being able to take a deep breath in class, hearing the clap and cheer of a jam-packed BSR, a crunching tackle during an important match and the roof-raising roar of our favourite hymns here in the Chapel. Things that we used to take for granted but now long for.

Our Christmas celebrations will be different too, but God-willing, we will each get to spend precious time with our families, giving and receiving, all the while mindful of how it started, in a faraway time and place – a Mother giving birth to a Son who would become the Saviour of the world. “Emmanuel”, God is with us, now, this Christmas and always. May God bless you all and we wish you and your families a truly happy and blessed Christmas.

Reverend Daniel Owen.

As we get close to the end of the term, it is appropriate to express our gratitude to everyone who has helped made this term as easy as possible. We are grateful to have had virtually no disruption, and particularly thank our medical staff, administrative staff, grounds and maintenance staff and catering staff.

Today school communities around Ireland are asked to acknowledge such work. Please watch the film below, which includes messages from President Higgins and An Taoiseach.

“NAPD and IPPN have collaborated with the National Parents Councils and the Irish Second Level Students Union and would like you to join us in saying thanks to our school leaders, teachers, SNAs, ancillary staff, school transport services, custodial services, students, student leaders and mentors, and all involved in the huge ongoing effort to ensure our children are safe and cared for as they enjoy their day at school. The value of keeping schools open for our students in terms of their educational, developmental and wellbeing needs cannot be understated.

To acknowledge and celebrate the work being done in our school communities in maintaining a safe environment in which our children can enjoy attending school, 11 December 2020 is nominated as a day in which all of us can join together to say ‘go raibh maith agaibh!’ or GRMA!”

The College has a long tradition of working with the wonder Team Hope Christmas Shoe Box Appeal. Each year our pupils, mainly from Transition Year, and staff contribute hundreds of Christmas wrapped shoeboxes full of small but significant gifts for the poorest children around the world. The current pandemic has prevented our community from contributing in the normal way and indeed Team Hope are not accepted physical gift boxes this year; instead, they’ve moved online. Our pupils have been raising funds, through their various mini-companies, to donate to this wonderful charity and to build virtual boxes but, understandably, things have proven much more difficult this year.

We are asking all Columban families (and perhaps Old Columbans too), once they’re reunited back home this weekend, to consider building their own virtual box on the Team Hope website. For every €20 received, Team Hope can send a custom filled and personalised gift box to a needy child. Each box contains items from the 4 W’s – Wash, Write, Wear and Wow – a balance between essential items and some Christmas magic.

To build a box or donate to Team Hope’s Christmas Shoe Box Appeal please click here.

This term’s edition of The Submarine magazine has now been published, and you can read it here online. Well done to editors Avi Johnston and Edna Johnston.

Pupil contributors (both writers and artists) include Maybelle Rainey, Alexander Fought, Sveva Ciofani, India Hassett, Julia Kaptein, Archie McKeever, Carlotta Laudien, Florian Zitzmann, Eliot Tschierschwitz, Georgina Stewart, Eliz Kolat, Shannon Walker Kinsella, Aeladh-Bradley-Brady, Hedley Butler, Gloria Rose, Lola Garofano and Tita Schack.

My focus has been largely occupied this term by how to keep the school open, how to keep it free of infection and how to stop everyone from going mad in the process. However, the other issue that has been constantly bubbling away in the background has been the College’s response to the issues of racism that were raised in May and June. We held a review, which was published, and we have committed to making sure that we learn from past mistakes. So, what has that entailed this term and are we making progress?

To begin with, I met with a group of prefects, staff and parents to look at some of the recommendations of the review. We discussed what the priorities were and how some things could be implemented. We discussed workshops and speakers and films and there was a determination to make sure that we did not just put the review in the top drawer, from where it could occasionally be pulled out and waved around for PR purposes. It was a good start and we will be meeting again next term to assess what we have done and see what more we can do.

It has, of course, not been easy to carry out a programme of talks and workshops at a time when we have been unable to meet in large numbers and there have been very few visitors to the College at all. Nevertheless, these days it is possible to do many things online and we have managed to do a few. The staff started the term with a two hour talk and question session with Dr. Ebun Joseph, who provoked plenty of discussion and addressed many relevant topics. We also had a talk from Dr. Livingstone Thompson, who had been involved in formulating the recommendations of the review in the summer. Some of the staff then led some discussion groups with the 6th form, which looked directly at how we had done things as a school and what we could do to improve things. It is encouraging to see how staff and pupils are growing in confidence when addressing issues concerning racism. The more we talk, the more we share ideas, the more articulate we will become in expressing what we think is important. This means that rather than shy away from difficult issues, we will be more comfortable at dealing with them. That has to be good.

Over the course of the term there have been a number of ‘fireside chats’ on current affairs, where race has been a recurrent theme. Dr. Roberta Hunte from Portland State University talked about the racial climate in the USA leading up to the elections, two speakers addressed the lead up to and the aftermath of the USA elections and the part that race played in that, and Lori Gatsi-Barnett, who was born in Zimbabwe, moved to the USA and has now settled in Belfast, spoke of her experiences of racism in those different environments and also about how she sees thing going right now in Ireland.

The fireside chat programme is only for older pupils and it is also voluntary, so it does not hit everyone, so, in this last week I asked Lori Gatsi-Barnett to do two live interviews with me, which were shown in all the classrooms in the schools, one for juniors and one for seniors. I thought this was excellent because we dealt with the kind of everyday questions that pupils here could relate to: what is systemic racism? What is unconscious bias? What is the origin of the ‘n’ word and why is it so offensive? What does the term ‘micro-aggression’ mean and what are good examples that we might come across? We also looked at ‘taking the knee’ and discussed the purpose behind that and whether it is effective. The feedback I have had from these two sessions has been very positive, from both staff and pupils.

One thing that struck me in the summer was the need for us as a school to be more explicit about the values that we think are important in the school. We might assume that everyone knows what the College believes in, but if it is not spelled out then we cannot refer pupils to it and hold them to a certain standard. As a result, the staff and the pupils have gone through the process of selecting the values that they think best represent the kind of school that we want to be. We have come up with a choice of five, which will be revealed next term. These values will be visible around the College and will hopefully become part of the fabric and conversation of the school. In fact, you might get bored of hearing about them!

So, we have made a start and for the rest of the year we will be building on that, not least with our week’s celebration of cultural diversity next term. We have about 38 nationalities in the College and every one of them is to be cherished and admired.

Our Transition Year pupils travelled to nearby Killruddery House & Estate on Wednesday for another scheduled ‘activities day’. The staff at Kilruddery provided them with an amazing programme of team building & leadership activities, physical and mental challenges, and much more, all safely managed under the current guidelines. Transition Year pupils Kamilla Murphy & Monty Walsh write these short reports on the day and below are some photos from the day.

After completing our exams, we were all delighted to have the opportunity to visit the Killruddery Estate in nearby Bray where we participated in various activities. We had the chance to take part in archery lessons, which many of us attempted for the first time, learn outdoor survival skills, including shelter building and fire lighting, as well as learn car essential skills, such as changing a tyre or using jump leads. On top of learning these useful life skills and attempting various new things, we had team-building exercises like solving riddles and codes or trying challenges as seen on the popular TV show “Ireland’s Fittest Family.” These activities challenged us in many ways but were undoubtedly a lot of fun and a great opportunity to bond with classmates. On behalf of my year, I would like to thank the wonderful staff at the estate as well as our teachers for organising such an event. I think I can safely say that everyone had a good time, became closer with their fellow classmates, and left with plenty of memories to look back on fondly. Kamilla Murphy

 

Recently, The SCC Transition Year group headed out to Killruddery Estate to visit the Alive Outside grounds in which we spent the day doing a number of activities which comprised of exciting things such as team building, bushcraft, archery, car maintenance and obstacles courses which some of which featured in the ‘Ireland’s fittest family’ TV series. Our day started by leaving the college on a chilly winter morning, not sure of what the day would hold, but excited nonetheless. After a short drive, we got into groups and began our day. My group was set straight to work on the obstacle course race. We split into two groups and did numerous challenging events. The highlight being the finale, in which we had to throw multiple water drums over two sets of hay bails, twice, and then build a tower once we had finished. This was a time trial and was a cause of great competition in our group. Secondly, we took part in a Car maintenance class which was although very educational, was still a lot of fun. We learnt how to change a car wheel in the event of a puncture or wheel failure. We also learnt how to make sure our engine oil was in good shape, and to conclude we learnt how to jumpstart a car. The final activity of the morning was archery. This brought out the competitive side in all of us and definitely was one of the highlights of the day. After lunch, we finished with team building and bushcraft, the team building was a real mental test which was a change from the physical effort of the obstacle course. The bushcraft was a really nice way to end the day as we built a shelter and learnt how to make fire from scratch. All in all, the day was a really nice break from the stress and worries you have in normal school life and I think that as a year group we would like to give massive thanks to the Columba’s and Alive outside staff that were involved, as it was an amazing experience despite the living with a global pandemic around us. Monty Walsh