Tag Archive for: Awards

Last night, the final Transition Year Presentation Evening took place in Whispering House. It’s always a lovely evening as this year’s Transition Year pupils get a chance to reflect on their achievements, experiences and growth since last September. Congratulations to the following pupils who were presented with subject awards, recognising their academic excellence (main photo). Two additional awards were also presented: the ‘College Values Award‘ goes to the pupil who best represents the College values in TY while the ‘Spirit of Transition Year Award‘ is awarded to the pupil who best embraced the philosophy and objectives of TY.

Art – Harry Bowles

Geography and Chemistry – Lexi Hunter

Mathematics, Physics and Computer Studies – Jason Wong

French – Johann Diemert

Spanish – Giulia Soddu

Biology, Classical Studies and College Values Award for Determination – Hugo Russell Connolly

English – Anna Hart

Business – David Cron

Economics – Violeta Mykhalova

Irish – Daniel Passmore

History – Arthur Morphew

Design – Amelie Loehr

Music – Alice McCarthy

Spirit of Transition Year – Henry Clements

Those award winners are pictures above. Ms Lynch, the Transition Year Co-ordinator, acknowledged the pupils who took Early University Entrance courses in DCU throughout the year- Hugo Russell Connolly, Daniel Passmore, Jack-Francis McKeon, William Dai, Harry Hone, Alice Castagna, Ethan Robertson, Zach Kelly, Issac Fang, Sam Germaine, Lexi Hunter. Congratulations also to to Anna Hart and Charlie Clements for their week at the Royal College of Surgeons, and to Ferdia Murray for completing the Look Into Law programme.

Throughout this academic year, the College has placed a greater emphasis on developing leadership potential amongst the pupil body, amplifying the ‘pupil voice’ and encouraging independent thinking across all forms. The College has an ambitious aim to develop a world-class leadership development programme in the years to come, beginning with the youngest pupils and moving right up through the school. Building on this early initiative, for the first time the College will present ‘Leadership Awards‘, recognising pupils who have shown leadership throughout the year.  Most of these pupils do not have formal leadership roles within the school but have “stepped-up” when required to help improve the school or shown initiative on an independent project. All of the recipients were nominated by both their fellow pupils and their teachers and over one hundred nominations were submitted.

St. Columba’s College is a small but complex school environment that relies on pupils and teachers working together, through shared values, to be the best school we can be. For the school to be successful and to fully realise its goals and values, strong leadership amongst the staff and pupils is essential.

Leadership can’t be described as a single skill. It comprises multiple sub-skills including communicating, working with others, being personally driven and managing oneself (all identified as key skills in the Junior & Senior Cycle Frameworks). Leaders are also knowledgeable and can apply their knowledge to unseen challenges. Leadership is not about seniority or one’s position within the school – all members of the College community can be and are potential leaders. Neither is it about personality – all kinds of people can be leaders and it is important to stress that leaders are not always the loudest, most charismatic and confident characters; leaders can be quiet, modest and introverted also.

The College is delighted to award the following pupils with a Leadership Award for the academic year 2019 / 2020.

Form I

Aeladh Bradley Brady

Joshua Yang

Aran Murphy

Form II

Hugo Laurenceau

Abbie Murray

Cameron McKinley

Calvin She

Form III

Marco Trolese

Elys Walker

Tyrone Shi

Form IV

Peter Taylor

Avi Johnston

Edna Johnston

Evie Pringle

Form V

Sinéad Cleary

Raphaela Ihuoma

Éile Ní Chíanáin

Tim Norwood

Form VI

Camila Garcia Herrera

Thady McKeever

Margot Aleixandre

Congratulations to all the above pupils on their awards. We are all hugely proud of their efforts to make the school a better place. One cannot mention leadership without also thanking the cohort of College Prefects, who led the pupil body fantastically this year.

Mr. Jones, the newly appointed Director of Pupil Leadership, announced the recipients of the awards and briefly outlined the rationale for their awards in the Warden’s end of term assembly earlier today. You can see a recording of that assembly on FireFly here.