The College’s annual Mental Health Awareness Week kicks off tomorrow (Saturday) with another rich and varied programme of events lined up to promote positive mental health and wellbeing. We have a series of visiting speakers including Jigsaw (The National Centre for Youth Mental Health), Courageous Kids, Tom Tate (on the transition from secondary school to […]
This weekend was an important one, in the St. Columba’s Debating Calendar. Two houses, Glen and Iona came together in the House Debates Final. Tensions were high as boys’ house Glen -previously on 189 points- competed against girls’ house Iona who were twice winners of the previous rounds and on 181 points. The motion before […]
Basketball In basketball, the Senior and Gadette Girls have reached the quarterfinal stages of the league while the Junior and Minor Girls have had great success in all their friendly games this term which is setting them up nicely for their leagues which will start in January. This term traditionally ends with the annual Christmas blitz; there […]
Team Hope’s Christmas Shoebox Appeal is a wonderful charity that provides shoeboxes full of toys, treats, school stationery, hygiene products and clothing for some of the poorest children in the world. The College has been involved with this amazing charity for over 15 years and this year, once again, the Transition Year pupils have been actively […]
Lioba Preysing, Form IV, reports on her recent class visit to the National Gallery of Ireland On Wednesday, November 13th, Form IV artists went to visit the National Gallery of Ireland in the centre of Dublin together with Ms. Cullen and Miss. Murphy. First, we went to the permanent collection of the gallery looking in […]
On Thursday 14th November the College officially opened our new social centre. It is named ‘Whispering House’, acknowledging the title given by early pupils of the College to the previous building on the same site. The occasion also marked the renaming of the school’s Library the William Trevor Library and the art centre the Patrick Scott […]
The recent naming of the Art Centre as the ‘Patrick Scott Art School’ has provided great inspiration for Arts Week 2020. Arts Week organiser Mrs Cathy Boobbyer has teamed up with visual artist Yvonne McGuinness to plan an exciting week of events. From March 18th to 22nd there will be a number of artists visiting […]
Science teacher (and closet musical theatre fan) Humphrey Jones reviews last weekend’s performance of Grease. I turned forty a few months back. Almost exactly one year earlier the movie Grease reached a similar milestone: it has aged far better than I have. The music still remains as catchy as ever and the dialogue is still […]
Julia Kaptein, Form V, reports on the recent art trip to the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Newgrange. On October 19th, Saturday morning we left the school on a bus filled with V and VI Form Art pupils to go to the Boyne Valley. We arrived to the Interpretive Centre (currently undergoing renovations) where we […]
I have spoken a lot about service over the last three years and about how to develop an ethos of service amongst our pupils. I am not going to repeat myself now. What I have perhaps spoken about less is leadership, which is actually the other side of the same coin. It is certainly not […]
The pastoral care team (called Cúram, the Irish for “care”) has organized a busy schedule of activities for our annual Bullying Awareness Week. Our theme is “small change, big difference”. These include: Workshops for Forms IV and VI with Stuart Wilson (from ZestLife) on the themes of “small change, big difference” and “leadership” on Monday. […]
To celebrate the opening of the College’s new social and cultural centre, Whispering House, an exhibition of Leaving Certificate artwork from 2019 has been displayed. The artwork on display in Whispering House comprises the coursework elements completed by the Leaving Certificate candidates of 2019. Pupils had to produce two works of art for the coursework element, one craft […]
I feel challenged by young people around the world marching in protest against world governments failing to take action to prevent or counter the environmental catastrophe that we are facing. I let pupils in our Transition Year go, with their parents’ permission, drawing the line there, since gathering written permission from parents at the last […]
We are delighted to announce details of this year’s Cultural Trip to London. The trip will take place over the January Exodus (Friday Jan 24th to Monday 27th Jan) and is open to pupils in Forms IV and V, but is currently limited to 40 places (but this may increase). Places will be allocated on a “first come, […]
We are living in an increasingly divided world. These divisions, which have always existed, are being exacerbated by the Twitter world that we now inhabit, to such an extent that civilised debate and respectful disagreement are now a rarity. Cowards, who would not enter a serious forum where they might have to listen to opposing […]
The College, along with our partners Kilmashogue Golf Club, hosted the inaugural ‘Lionel Munn’ Golf Trophy competition for Sixth Class Primary Schools last week and it proved a tremendous success. The day consisted of the complete spectrum of weather conditions ranging from tropical sunshine to a torrential deluge accompanied by thunder and lightning, meaning all […]
Cricket, athletics and tennis are the principal sports played this term, although the pupils have also utilised our fantastic golf course over the past month too. In cricket, the Senior Boys had a decent season, reaching the semi-final of their league but were defeated by eventual winner CUS. The star performance was Daniel Swift’s ‘88’ […]
Yesterday, Form VI pupils from Stackallan House, accompanied by Liam Canning (Housemaster) and Michael O’Shaughnessy (Assistant Housemaster), visited their chosen charity, the Laura Lynn Children’s Hospice. The pupils and staff formally presented their charity with a new 55′ television, purchased with the funds raised over the course of the year, provided for Hazel House’s newly designed […]
