Half Term Sports Update

Sport plays such an important part in the lives of Columbans, with six days of organised games each week. The traditional College winter sports, rugby and hockey, are complimented by a vibrant basketball programme, a growing archery tradition, the thrills of polocrosse (think lacrosse on horseback) and, this year, a brilliant golf academy.

The Golf Academy, eight weeks in, is already an undoubted success. Twelve young golfers, pictured above, have been given the opportunity to practice or play golf every day. A new driving and pitching range is planned (this term, the cricket pitch has been transformed) and a new indoor golf studio will begin construction soon. Of course, all our pupils have access to the College golf course, which provides a tricky challenge for any golfer. The young golfers are showing amazing progress already, under the watchful eye of our new golf professional Josh Adams PGA. For more information on the Golf Academy click here or follow their progress on Instagram.

Archery has been a sport which attracts those with a keen eye and a competitive edge. These past few weeks have been fantastic in terms of weather, making for great practice sessions. The team has welcomed new archers, and all are progressing very well. Senior archers have worked especially on their posture by shooting blindfolded, which they enjoyed very much indeed! We look forward to honing their skills further, with the help of Madame de Fréin.

Rugby is off to a good start this year with the Seniors competing for the newly established Ian McKinley Cup, in a new format which brings together 7 of our traditional rival schools to compete in a league format. We have played 4 league games and have taken maximum points with good wins over Templeogue, Newpark, De la Salle and, this week, St. Benildus. The Juniors have also got off to a very good start to their league campaign with four wins from five games, including a thrilling 31-30 victory over Sandford Park having come back from 20-5 down at halftime.
It’s been a great term so far for girls’ basketball with some excellent performances from the Senior A and Cadette A teams against Kings Hospital, High School, Sancta Maria and Beaufort. The Senior Girls now qualify for the regional playoffs while the Cadette narrowly lost out on a spot. The Senior B girls’ team played four very competitive games and have shown great improvement over the past few weeks. The Senior Boys’ squads have trained consistently and produced excellent performances recently against Woodbrook College and St. Killian’s, CS. Unfortunately, they did not qualify for the playoffs but will compete in the Plate Competitions after the half-term.
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Transition Year News Update – October 2022

It’s difficult to keep up with everything our Transition Year pupils do on a weekly and even daily basis. The fourth year at St. Columba’s is like no other year with the academic work of the pupils complemented by a wide and varied non-academic programme. The opening eight weeks of term have already been jampacked.

The traditional friendship-building trip to Causey Farm was a muddy success with our pupils getting stuck in quickly into sheep herding, bog jumping, rafting, Irish dancing and some traditional Irish baking. We’ve had visiting speakers from Barretstown, John Lonergan (formerly governor of Mount Joy Prison),  Alpana Delaney from the Hope Foundation and representatives from Team Hope’s Christmas Shoebox Appeal. The pupils have fundraised for these charities also, mainly around the local shopping centres (pictured above, TY pupils fundraising for the Hope Foundation in Dundrum Town Centre). There have been online courses on cookery (Vanessa Greenwood at the Cooks Academy) and careers in medicine and STEM.

A major focus of our Transition Year programme is our Community Involvement Programme (CIP). Over the course of this week, all of our TY pupils have ventured out of the campus to various community projects and charitable organisations across the county. Our pupils have helped out at a refugee centre in Dublin’s James Joyce Street, where they worked on multi-sensory games and art with the children, while some volunteered at the head offices of Multiple Sclerosis Ireland and the Hope Foundation. Others were dispatched to a host of other charities: St. Vincent de Paul, Oxfam, Enable Ireland, National Council for the Blind, My Lovely Horse Rescue Centre, the Irish Cancer Society, the Jack & Jill Foundation and the DSPCA. Some TY pupils volunteered to help at the local Whitechurch National School while others volunteered at St. Catherine’s Special School, litter picked in Marlay Park and helped out at the Rathfarnham Parish Hall – the parishioners were very grateful for the freshly baked pastries.

It’s been a hectic but hugely fulfilling eight weeks and the Transition Year pupils should be mightily proud of their efforts and achievements already. Tonight, they were rewarded with a scary movie and some treats, after they finish carving pumpkins! A big thank you to Ms Kilfeather who steers the TY juggernaut, ably assisted and supported by Ms Lynch and Mr Clarke.

Transition Year 2022-2023
Transition Year 2022-2023
70 photos
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Team Hope Christmas Shoebox Appeal 2022

The Team Hope Christmas Shoebox Appeal aims to collect and deliver wrapped and packed shoeboxes, full of toys and essentials, for some of the poorest children in the world. To date, over 2 million such boxes have been handed directly to children all around the world and the College are delighted to have a long standing relationship with this wonderful charity.

Last year, our Transition Year pupils (and ably assisted by Mr Paul Cron) filled over 200 boxes while also volunteering at the Team Hope warehouse, packing additional boxes and loading lorries destined for eastern Europe and beyond. We hope to top that figure this year but need your help.

Over the half term we would greatly appreciate if you could make up a box/boxes or collect some fillers for the boxes or even empty shoeboxes and bring them back to school after the break. All completed boxes or fillers can be brought to the collection point in Gwynn or left at the staff common room. You can also donate online via the Team Hope website.

Five simple steps to follow:

Get a shoebox, wrap the box and lid separately with Christmas paper (we have already wrapped 150 boxes, so if if this is too much hassle fill one of our boxes)

Decide to whom you want to give your gift (boy or girl) and what age: 2-4, 5-9, or 10-14.

Fill the box = use our 4 W’s as a guide (Wash, Write, Wear, Wow – more details below)

Close the box with an elastic band – please don’t seal with tape as the contents of each box have to be checked to comply with regulations.

Please include the €4 for transport in your leaflet envelope either on top of the gifts or taped to the inside of the lid.

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Drama News: Form I & II Plays

The Form Plays returned to the BSR on the evening of Sunday October 16th in the tried and trusted double-bill format. The Form I play, directed by Mr. McCarthy and Mr Girdham, was Red Hot Cinders, a version (in verse) of the classic Cinderella tale. A cast of ten young thespians elicited gasps and laughter galore, mixed with pathos and tension, aided and abetted by a chorus of booers and hissers. There was magic and malice (fairy godmother and wicked stepmother), no expense was spared in the costume department (ah, the beautiful ugly sisters), and the dance sequences were executed with terpsichorean excellence (prince/fair lady and herald/guest). All was presented by two tip-top leathered comperes. And they all lived happily ever after. Bravo to all!

Form II offered us The Poe Plays, a series of modern adaptations of eerie Edgar Allan Poe stories set in secondary school surroundings. Messrs. Clarke and Swift directed and there was a nice balance between the slightly chilling and the downright hilarious. Scroll down for an album of photos from both performances with thanks to resident photographer Rev. Owen.

Meanwhile, this year’s Senior Play will be performed in the week that we return after half term. Continuing a theme of the seemingly supernatural Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit will be the first full senior offering since Grease in 2019. There’s a lot to achieve in a short space of time! 

As for other future plans, there will be a Junior Play in February with auditions on return after Christmas and before then no doubt some sort of Christmas Entertainment will be cobbled together as an end of term, feelgood send off. 

Form I & II Plays, Oct 2022
Form I & II Plays, Oct 2022
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Bullying Awareness Week 2022

Our Bullying Awareness Week provides an opportunity to reflect on how we build and protect relationships across the College. Our theme this year was a simple one – friendship – the cornerstone of any good anti-bullying strategy. Last week, our pupils took part in a wide range of activities with friendship at the centre of the conversation. There was a poetry competition on friendship, won by Delia Brady in Form III while a gratitude tree stood proudly in Whispering House, inviting submissions from every passerby, friendship-themed movie nights, friendship-building games and even an ice-cream van. Fourth Form painted jam jars while Sixth Form spent an evening in Larch Hill doing some friendship and team-building exercises (photo above, more here).

It wasn’t all fun and games though, with plenty of time for the serious conversations around bullying too, in particular online bullying. We were thankful for a series of excellent targeted presentations from Internet safety expert Pat McKenna on “friends online”, reminding everyone of our need to stay safe when using the Internet. Also, we were delighted to welcome Clinton Wokocha who spoke with our younger pupils about the power of words while our Prefects spoke in chapel every morning about the College values and why they matter in the bullying conversation – we even learned a new song in chapel, written by Form V pupil Cameron McKinley.

Many thanks to everyone who took part in a great series of events, reminding us how to be good friends to each other. A particular thanks to Ms Maybury for coordinating the week’s programme.

Bullying Awareness Week 2022
Bullying Awareness Week 2022
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Pupils’ Council 2022/2023

Congratulations to the following pupils who were elected to represent their year groups in the recent Pupils’ Council elections.

Form VI – Kai Yuan Shi, Elena O’Dowd.
Form V – Cheuk Yin Wong, Ebah Assebian.
Form IV – Euan Flanagan, Constance Chambré.
Form III – Anna MacManus, Johnny Leonard
Form II – Jason Wong, Josefien Hutchinson.
Form I – Jan-Christian Dijkstra, Eloise Drouillard.

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Conradh Na Gaeilge

An Déardaoin seo caite, tháinig athláithritheach ó Chonradh na Gaeilge anseo chun labhairt linn faoi spreagadh na Gaeilge agus deiseanna fostaíochta agus bealach chun staidéir as Gaeilge ag an tríú leibhéal. Láithreachas idirghníomhach a bhí ann le Clíodhna Nic Gafraidh.

Ar dtús báire bhí díospóireacht siúl againn. Chuir Clíodhna ráitis chugainn faoinár gcuid tuairimí agus bhain gach duine taitneamh as an ngníomhaíocht iontach seo. Bhíomar ag plé tábhacht na Gaeilge sa lá atá inniu ann.

Ina dhiaidh sin, chuaigh muid trí shleamhnáin Chlíodhna faoi na deiseanna fostaíochta agus na háiseanna atá le fáil timpeall na hÉireann agus ar fud an domhain. D’fhoglaimíomar go bhfuil Gaeltacht i gCeanada! Ní hamháin sin ach thaispeáin sí dúinn fíricí suimiúla faoi theangacha i mbaol. Ag an am seo tá thart ar seacht míle teangacha ar fud an domhain, ach i gcéad bhliain ní bheidh ach seacht gcéad fágtha, de réir tuairisc na Náisiún Aontaithe.

Chomh maith leis sin, luaigh Clíodhna tábhacht ár gcearta teanga agus na háiseanna gur féidir úsáid a bhaint as trí Ghaeilge. Rinne chuile dhuine sár-iarracht chun an Ghaeilge a labhairt an t-am ar fad agus bhuaigh roinnt dínn duaiseanna!

Go raibh míle maith agat Clíodhna agus Conradh na Gaeilge!

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Last Thursday, a representative from Conradh na Gaeilge came here to talk to us about encouraging Irish, employment opportunities and ways to study Irish at third level. We did an interactive workshop with Clíodhna Nic Gafraidh.

At first, we had a walking debate. Clíodhna gave us statements and we discussed our opinions about them and everybody enjoyed this brilliant activity. We were discussing the importance of Irish in the present day.

After that, Cliodhna made a presentation about the employment opportunities and the services that are available throughout Ireland and all over the world. We even learned that there is an Irish speaking community in Canada! On top of all this, she showed us interesting facts about endangered languages. At the moment, there are around seven thousand languages around the world, but in one hundred years, there will only be seven hundred left, according to a report by the United Nations.

As well as that, Cliodhna showed us the importance of our language rights and informed us of facilities that are available through Irish. Everyone made a great effort to speak Irish throughout the workshop and some of us won prizes for it!

Thank you very much to Cliodhna and Conradh na Gaeilge!

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Feedback on researchED 2022

Following the researchED conference on Saturday 24th September, ticket-holders were sent an online survey, and here are some of the comments (all thrown together in no order). 34% of attendees had been to the event in 2019, so 66% were new to the experience.

General comments:

Thank you so much for a wonderful day of professional development … Excellent day all round. So practical and useful. Well done! … Such a brilliant day. Thank you so much for organizing it … It was a fantastic collaborative, energising experience that blew away some of the ennui generated after the impact of Covid restrictions in our schools. It was lovely to meet so many teachers from all over the country & meet up with old friends again. It was very interesting that this was an initiative led by educators not any of the agencies that impose conditions on how we carry out our practice … Superb event. Thank you …. Thanks so much for everything, including the communication in the lead up to the event … Brilliant. So welcoming. So worthwhile  … thank you for a wonderful and inspiring day … A great event for classroom practitioners … A fantastic experience from start to finish. Well done to all involved! …. An extremely beneficial and necessary experience if you wish to enhance your individual contribution to education in schools. … Superb day on all scores. I’m returning to school tomorrow uplifted and grateful for all … A fantastic day. So well organised and so informative … Well done, super organised, good range of speakers. Food amazing and the venue is special … Beautiful venue, lots of very friendly guides and great speakers. Well done … a perfect conference – well done to all those front of house and behind the scenes! … Buzzing from it. Please host it again. You are really good at it … Thank you for hosting such an exceptional event and I’m delighted to have been a part of it … The atmosphere and organisation of the event was outstanding and very welcoming. The volunteers showed enthusiasm all day – all fantastic. The Research Ed booklet was clear and very informative about each session.

A great day! … Excellent Day – very well organised; super staff. Thanks so much … Wonderful campus for such an event, great organisation and staff willing to give up their time on Saturday is very impressive and a sign of a good working relationship between management and staff … A totally amazing day – Thank you so much … Well run.  Great topics.  Hard to make a choice at some sessions … Thank you for all of your hard work in organising this incredible event. It was like going outside for a breath of fresh air!   … Overall, a really fantastic day which went by so quickly. Left with so many ideas and reflections. This is what professional development should be about. Well done to everyone involved … thank you SO much for organising. It was an amazing community to be part of and to speak to so many other teachers and listen to their experiences … Thank you for such a great day. Far more inspirational than ‘regular’ in-services… Brilliantly organised. Thoroughly enjoyed the day. Thank you for setting it up … Brilliantly organised and venue was very well laid out for all the various talks . Unfortunately couldn’t bilocate so missed some events as so many good speakers on at the same time … Well run.  Great topics.  Hard to make a choice at some sessions … PLEASE run this again! It was the most amazing day. My only complaint is it wasn’t long enough! I absolutely loved it and couldn’t believe we were getting all of these speakers for the price we paid- unbelievable value. Thank you, thank you, thank you! … The food was excellent!!! I couldn’t believe the standard, so impressive … Everything about the day was first class and the best CPD ever Thank you to the whole team … I felt invigorated after it … I am in education for over 20 years and I honestly think this is the best event I have been to by far. The energy and positivity was amazing. I would definitely go to it were it to happen again. Thanks so much to all the organisers.

What were your main takeaways from the day?

Loved Paul Kirshner and Kate Jones … Felt really empowered after listening to others. Aine Hyland’s voice needs to be amplified … My idol Miss Olivia Derwin, legend to all of us biology teachers! … Kate Jones was great – nice mix of theory and practical tips … I thoroughly enjoyed all speakers who delivered their ideas in an entertaining and clear manner. Dáire Lambert was excellent, giving us an honest and realistic insight into his classroom practice … Barbara Oakley was outstanding. So clear and concise and her way of getting her point across was soft but with clarity.  It was amazing from beginning to end … It was amazing to be able to hear such big names such as Barbara Oakley and Paul Kirschner… The whole day was superb … The two main Keynote speakers were excellent and I enjoyed Kate Jones’s presentation on retrieval practice. Generally, the more practical the talk, the more I enjoyed it! It is great to get some ideas for classroom practice … Barbara Oakley was superb: her visuals in her presentation really made a great impact on me … As a Science teacher, my eyes were on stalks: I had lab. envy & I love my own lab. but perhaps not as much as I did before my head was turned by yours!) … The entire event was superb. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Dr Barbara Oakley and Kate Jones. I loved the smaller seminars on spelling and giving boys feedback. Thank you  … There was a strong thread on “how students learn” that ran throughout the whole day.  I found this good as multiple perspectives helped to reinforce the basic science and practical applications … Retrieval Practice by Kate Jones and Junior Cycle Planning by Clare Madden were exceptional … Barb was outstanding. I’m teaching twenty years and she is the best I’ve seen! … Barbara Oakley & Kate Jones were very impressive and informative. One day at researchED would save teachers countless days of CPDs!  …

Barbara Oakley, Kate Jones and Aine Hyland were brilliant to listen to. … Delighted to spend time with other teachers in earnest and substantial discussion of pedagogy (as opposed to much “CPD” in recent years)… Prof Barbara Oakley was an excellent start to the day.  Could have listened to her all day … Really impressed with the high quality programme and mix of topics and speakers.  I particularly enjoyed Barbara Oakley, Mark Roberts and Kate Barry … Barbara Oakley was amazing, John Tomsett really impressed with curriculum discussion also. Oliver Caviglioli, Paul Kirschner and Neil Almond were real highlights … The aspects of the programme that were about research and engaging in research at schools were great – Jenny McMahon from UL and Liam Guilfoyle from Oxford gave real practical ideas for getting involved which were great … Barbara was outstanding- so warm, encouraging, knowledgeable and interesting. That said, all speakers were superb! … Kate Jones was fantastic. I thought Sonia Thompson was inspirational … Really loved Emma Regan’s ‘Why set up a Professional Learning Community’ and the SWOT analysis ..They all impressed me from Barbara to Paul to the discussion with Annie, Simon and Clinton … Really impressed with David and Jennifer Keenahan’s work and energy put into discussing physics textbooks and Paul Nugent delivered an excellent session of effective questioning for students. As for takeaways, elements of Brendan O’Sullivan’s and Barbara Oakley’s speeches stuck with me the most … Barbara Oakley was the most enthralling on importance of retrieval practice. Áine Hyland was excellent on state of curriculum development in Ireland at the moment … Barbara Oakley was very impressive as was Áine Hyland. Good to hear somebody of the stature of Áine Hyland express concerns about the direction of the Irish education system particularly around Senior Cycle Reform and presented in a humorous fashion as well … James Maxwell – inspiration leadership of an Evidence Informed School .. The architecture of the brain and how this relates to learning. The importance of understanding working memory and long-term memory. The necessity of retrieval practice in education … Kate Jones, Claire Stoneman were both great …Still digesting it now – so much information.  Need to think how it can be put into practice in school … All brilliant, but I particularly enjoyed Barbara Oakley and Kate Jones’s practical takeaways … Sonia Thompson and Paul Nugent were excellent …. All good – Barbara Oakley super … Barbara Oakley was a particular stand out. Absolutely fantastic presentation. .. Really enjoyed the keynote speakers, main take-away, not to become complacent – our research informed journey has started but this is for the long term! … Really enjoyed all speakers. I loved Barbara Oakley- learning about her own background and her achievements today. I loved her presentation and feel like her presentation really simplified the learning process for me.   Paul Kirschner was excellent as well. I had so many takeaways from all talks that I will use in my own teaching. I loved Kate Jones as there were so many real life applications and examples from the classroom. I am only new to researchED and some of the buzz words at the minute. I would be honest and say I do not keep up the latest educational research and feel like this day really kick started me back into keeping my teaching methods current. I feel like I lost my ‘mojo’ in certain ways throughout covid and online learning … Paul Kirschner was amazing and brought his book and so excited with all the knowledge that I possess …

Both keynote speakers were excellent – Barbara Oakley and Paul Kirschner … Quality of speakers and how ideas that were relevant to the classroom … Really liked how Kate Jones presented retrieval practice and Olivia Derwin on video learning. To be honest, I really enjoyed everyone I went to see, just wish I could have gone to all of them … Barbara Oakley was excellent. Really good explanations of how learning happens … Oliver Caviglioli was really interesting … Paul Kirschner’s keynote was excellent …Daire Lambert was really interesting, funny and directly applicable to the classroom … Barbara was incredible. A great keynote. Plenty to take away from it. Kate Jones is a marvel. Her session was excellent … Jerome Devitt was superb in his talk on the new politics and society LC course … Kate Jones, Clare Madden and Barbara Oakley were very insightful … I was very interested in the discussion on retrieval practice. Barbara Oakley, Kate Barry, Paul Kirschner were great. However, I enjoyed all the sessions I attended … this is what we need to be preaching in universities! Clare Madden brought everything we learned back down to the issues we constantly face… the curriculum. Amazing, realistic approach to learning … Kate Jones- have read lots of her books and she was just as brilliant as I hoped …. Dáire Lambert- really stuck with me and thought he spoke really well! … Good practice comes from evidence and a lot comes from having professional conversations … I was especially impressed by Annie Asgard’s talk about providing for refugee children effectively within our education system … Professor Áine Hyland was brilliant and summarised all the key points about Senior Cycle reform so clearly. Jerome Devitt was also fantastic and I learned a lot about trying to implement vague syllabi in the classroom … I’m from the US, and the fascinating take away for me was the matrix of similarities and differences among our school systems … Ms Oakley was brilliant – but everyone was very good … Professor Barbara Oakley and Aine Hyland were both outstanding … Barbara Oakley, fabulous example of weaving stories into content. Kate Jones – brilliant! … It was a fantastic day, very enjoyable. The workshops were brilliant. Paul Kirschner, Oliver Caviglioli and Barbara Oakley were outstanding.

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researchED Dublin 2022

Back in pre-pandemic times in 2019, the College organised and hosted the first-ever researchED conference in Ireland, a hugely-successful gathering of over 350 educators at the cutting-edge of best practice in teaching and learning. The 2020 conference was cancelled for obvious reasons, but the school was delighted to put on the second event on Saturday 24th September, organised by Mr Girdham and Mr Jones.

Again, the campus was packed (the tickets sold out in May after under 3 weeks on sale), and from 8.00am people arrived from all over Ireland (including a strong showing from Northern Ireland) and abroad. Talks were held between 9am and 4.30pm, starting with the brilliant opening keynote by one of the giants of world education, Barbara Oakley from the United States. She was followed by a mixture of third-level academics and ‘ordinary’ teachers covering all aspects of education, such as leadership, Senior and Junior Cycle, diversity, feedback for boys, the asylum experience, digital content and retrieval practice.

A lovely lunch provided by one of our sponsors, the College caterers Sodexo, was followed by three sessions in the afternoon, culminating in the closing keynote by another legendary figure, Professor Paul Kirschner from the Netherlands. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and the school is proud to have played its part in having a positive impact on Irish education.

Presentations are available here, and the programme and a photo album of the day follow.

researchED Dublin 2022
researchED Dublin 2022
113 photos
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