Welcome to our blog about the Transition Year in St Wolstans Community School, Celbridge, Co Kildare. Here you will read all about what happens in Transition Year. You will get a good idea of how busy our year is!
Follow individual student blogs as well and see how they are getting on.

All contributions come from the students themselves and the TY Coordinator.
Enjoy






Saturday, October 11, 2014

Walk in My Shoes

Walk in my shoes is a mental health charity that promotes positive mental health and mental health awareness. The phrase “Walk in my shoes” means to put yourself in the same situation that they are in you never know what may have brought someone to the state that they are in so be careful how harshly you may judge someone.
Walk in my shoes is a fundraising event promoted by U2 member Adam Clayton. Today, October 10th is world mental health day. 


Our school is helping raise awareness by wearing a pair of funky shoes and bringing in €2 to help St. Patricks University Hospital. 
Ireland has one of the highest suicide rates in the 14-24 age groups in the EU and 75% of all mental health difficulties begin before 24 years of age. Between 45% and 65% suffer from treatable mental illnesses such as depression or psychosis. Early intervention in these conditions can stop deterioration, aid recovery, and prevent relapse, giving young adults real hope in returning to a normal life. 

With all of St. Wolstans working together, we could help raise approximately €1500 for St. Patricks University hospital. 
Anna, Leah and Alison. 






Monday, October 6, 2014

Friendship Week

This week we had our annual Fun Walk for Friendship Week. 
Every class did an anti-bullying performance to raise awareness for bullying. Each year had a different colour. First years were pink, second years were purple, third years were green, TYs were yellow, fifth years were blue and sixth years were black and white.
Unfortunately neither of our classes won the prize for best TY performance. Class Aurora, Mr. Kennedy’s class were the winners in TY.
After all the excellent performances, the walk began. TYs led the walk, followed by sixth years and the first to fifth years. We walked a loop walk through Raphael’s and back again to the school. By the time we got back it was time to go home and everyone was really tired after a fun filled day.
Earlier on Thursday we also had our annual beginning of school mass. The priest came in and talked about the year ahead and to love ourselves, love god and love our neighbours. The Ministers of The Eucharist were commissioned and then went on to carry out their job. The choir and the Glee club both performed wonderful musical pieces to go along with the Mass. 

Overall it was a very eventful week, filled with fun and anticipation.

Friday, September 26, 2014

Our first week in Work Experience 

On Wednesday this week, it was our first week of work experience. We had worked hard to get these placements; many of us had to write lots of letters until we got the placement. The week before, we had a work shop on work experience with Mr Corcoran and Ms Hughes. We talked about what to wear and how to address the employer. We were all very nervous but excited to go to our first placement on Wednesday.


We all had very different placements, from beauty salons to primary schools to chemistry labs. We all learned a lot on our first day and we felt very welcome at our different placements. We all really enjoyed our first week and we are looking forward to what our work experiences placements have to offer in the next couple of weeks. 



Thanks for reading,
Hannah Mahon
Chloe Ennis King 

Friday, September 19, 2014

Carlingford!!!!

Day 1:


This week has been a very exciting week for us in TY. We started off early on Monday morning at 7am as we had a long bus ride ahead of us. It was finally time for our long awaited trip to Carlingford and we were all very excited. As soon as we got there, we got straight into our wetsuits and went out onto the water. We were split into two different groups. On the first day, Group A did canoeing and the combat course while Group B did kayaking and laser tag. After all those activities, we were all so hungry and so we headed back to the centre for dinner which was at 5pm. We then had some time to ourselves until 7pm when we headed on the Nightline, a walk through the forest while blindfolded! It was a very funny and interesting activity. It was a great team building exercise as we put our trust into one another. The view from the mountains was amazing!

Day 2:


We were up bright and early again after a wake-up call from reception followed by some music to lift our spirits. We had to pack our bags and get down to breakfast as quickly as possible. Both groups were out on the water by 9am. We then switched activities and Group A took part in Kayaking and Group B had fun in the canoes. Both groups had the chance to go out on the water trampolines which was great fun. After the water sports, we were all relieved to be back in dry clothes. We had lunch and then were off on our afternoon activities. Group A did laser tag and Group B took part in the combat course.




On Wednesday we were all really tired from the Carlingford trip but luckily, we had a fun packed day of workshops. We were asked to bring in our own makeup for the etiquette workshop where we learnt the proper way to apply makeup and false tan.

We then had a work experience workshop with our guidance counsellors about how what to do and how to prepare for work experience which starts next week!

The third and final workshop of the day was the Personal Management workshop. It helped us to gain a better outlook on life and learn about ourselves as people. It was a very helpful workshop full of laughs.

On Thursday, we went to NUI Maynooth for the Student Enterprise workshop. We learnt about past mini company winners and it gave us helpful ideas about our own mini companies for the future.
Overall it was a fun-filled week for us. We are all exhausted and looking forward to the weekend!


Thanks for reading,
Chloe Kairua
Hannah Byrne
Anita Osibuamhe.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Results Week!!
On Wednesday we received our Junior Cert results. We were all really nervous at first but as soon as we opened the envelopes we were delighted.
When we arrived at the school at 11:50 we lined up in our old class groups in the hall. We were given a brief talk by our Principal, Ms. Barry, and then we were given our results. Ten minutes later everyone had left the hall and the preparation for the nights out began.
Everyone was happy with their results and enjoyed their nights out but we were all exhausted the next day in school. However, our attention is now  turned to our trip to Carlingford Adventure Centre next Monday.
Thanks for reading,
Lauren de Salvo
Anna Hepple
Paola Sabio




Saturday, March 15, 2014

Making music with Jembe drums

TY's had percussion workshops with David Day from Jabba Jabba Jembe this week. Here is one of the rhythms class Tabei made - and this was only after an hour of instruction!

Well done TY.

 

More videos to follow of class Tereshkova and class Cornaro.

If you would like to book David for a workshop, find him at http://www.jabbajabbajembe.com/