Presentation Secondary
School Thurles
Competitions and Awards
Competitions and Awards
SPORT
Congratulations! Aisling Hickey, TY Student is representing Ireland in the Dominican Republic in December 2009 World Racquetball Competition.
ESSAY COMPETITION
Rachel Power entered a Spanish essay writing competition sponsored by the Spanish Monarchy. The theme of the essay was ‘Chile and The Island of Robinson Crusoe’. She wrote the essay in Spanish and was called for an interview along with five other participants. Rachel travelled to the Spanish Embassy for the interview and the judges were impressed with her knowledge of Spanish and she was announced the winner. The prize is a week scholarship trip to Mexico in June 2010.
Career Portal.ie Winners
In September 2009 we received the very welcome news that two of our students were winners in a nationwide competition developed by Careersportal.ie and sponsored by McDonalds Ireland.
Maeve Curley won first place in the competition for Transition Years and received a Mac Laptop and €1,000 for our school. Bridget Keane came third in the LCA category and her prize was an ipod.
Congratulations to both girls who were presented with their prizes by the Minister of Education on September 24th.
ERRATIC ROCK
For our TY geography class we each did a project about an erratic rock. We spent about one month working on the project both at home and in school.
The competition was open to any student in Ireland, so we were very proud when two students Ciara Gleeson and Niamh Maher both won county prizes of €200 and qualified for the national finals.
BT YOUNG SCIENTISTS 2010
Nine projects have been accepted for this years BT Young Scientist Competition. The projects were submitted by second year and transition year students. They include
Natural fertilizers vs. commercial fertilizers and their effect on the growth of grass.
To determine which salt is the most effective in reducing icy roads and the salts impact on the surrounding environment.
Recession.. Is it more of an obession?
Call me and see.
The use of an 'eco-friendly' UVC ray tube to effectively reduce bacterial contamination on hands after bathroom use.
To determine the effect temperature has on the rate of fermention in farmyard silage.
To investigate which turf has the best thermal output - from a raised bog or blanket.
To investigate how effective various different sunglasses are at protecting our eyes from the harmful UV rays of sunlight.
DESIGN A CREST COMPETITION
Members of TY ‘Hoodies and Polos 4 You’ mini company provided transition year memorabilia in the form of a hoody and also provided a new polo shirt for all year groups in the school. The polo shirt proved to be one of the more innovative ideas of the TY group as a school crest competition led to its design. Kate Fortune, 1st year, pictured with the mini company team, was the winner of the competition. She received a prize of a €50 art voucher and one of the new polo shirts, bearing her name and her crest design. The polo shirt is now the official school sports shirt for 2009.
SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION
A School photography competition is held each year. The winning photos are printed in our school yearbook.
YOUNG SOCIAL INNOVATORS 2010
Five projects were submitted for exhibition in the RDS on 6th of May 2009. Four of the projects were accepted for the post it Zone. This involved the creation of posters to communicate the message of their project. One project was invited to exhibit in the stand section. A lot research and hard work has gone into these projects and the students received valuable insights into social issues of concern to them.
YOUNG SOCIAL INNOVATORS 2009
Congratulations to Transition Years Rachel Power, Nancy Carragher, Maeve Curley, Stacey Fitzgerald, Marion O’Donnell and Danielle O’Dwyer who were winners in their section of the recent Young Social Innovators Finals held in the RDS. The girls were presented with a beautiful Jerpoint trophy at the awards ceremony. The project aimed to highlight the issue of child soldiers, the worst form of child labour and a denial of the children’s basic human rights. Research was carried out through related websites such as UNICEF and Human Rights Watch, newspaper articles and the film ‘Blood Diamond’. The students set up a Bebo page to highlight the media coverage on child soldiers. They hope to continue to create awareness of the issue at their school and locally.
Well done also to the other YSI groups in Transition Year who displayed posters based on their projects in the ‘Pot-It’ category. These were : ‘Clean up your act – E-waste has impact’ (this project was based on the dumping of e-waste in the developing world), ‘Black Power’, ‘Diamond Industry – Bling Bling’ and ‘Too Much Too Soon’ which focues on girlie magazines exposing young readers to grown-up issues at too early an age.
AIB BUILD A BANK CHALLENGE 2008
In October 2007 representatives from AIB Thurles came to talk to the transition years about the bank. They gave us helpful advice on interview techniques and general information about the AIB. Six girls were selected for the school bank team.
The positions were as follows:
Branch Manager – Katie Lawless
Assistant Branch Manager – Siobhán Mahony
Sales and Marketing Executive – Bridget McGrath
Auditor – Siobhan Hanrahan
Tellers – Aisling O’Dwyer and Aoife Murphy
The girls competed in the Regional Finals in Kilkenny. Much to their delight, they came first in the region and secured a place in the All Ireland finals in the corporate boxes in Croke Park. They won portable DVD players each, a television and DVD combo and a digital camera for the school. They also swooped a crystal award. The AIB Build a Bank Challenge was an amazing and worthwhile experience. It is certainly one that none of the team will ever forget!
BANK OF IRELAND STUDENT AWARDS 2008/2009
This is the fourth of the Bank of Ireland Student Awards which promote, recognise and reward the talent and commitment of outstanding students at second level. Prizes are awarded at junior and senior level in the categories of Art, Academic, Community Spirit, Entrepreneurial Spirit and Sport. This year a sixth category has been added to reward effective team skills under the heading of ‘Group’.
Congratulations to the following students who were awarded certificates and plaques:
Senior:
Grace Dunne(Art), Carmel Kennedy (Academic), Lorna Healy (community Spirit), Cathriona Walsh (Sport) and Maeve Ryan, Niamh O’Brien, Amy Graham, Claire Darcy, Dina Rauzenberga and Valerie Mitchell (European Conference Group).
Junior:
Fionnoula Kennedy (Art), Kiera Heffernan (Academic) Aoibhin Ryan (Community Spirit), Jennifer Russell (Entrepreneurial Spirit), Emer Kennedy (Sport) and the members of our debating team, Sarah Kennedy, Claire Lawless and Fionnoula Kennedy.
NATIONAL WINNER : AOIBHIN RYAN
Third Year student, Aoibhin Ryan who was chosen as a regional winner in Stage 2. She was presented with an iFlip. Aoibhin travelled to Dublin in May and she was honoured as national winner for Junior Community Spirit.
AGRI AWARE 2009
Well done to Transition Years, Maura Dunne, Denise O’Dwyer, Laura Beason and Emma Maher whose entry in the ‘Our Food-Your Way!’ Healthy Eating Challenge was shortlisted. The purpose of the Agri Aware project was to investigate three locally grown products and how they get from farm to fork.
The girls choose organic beef as our main product and potatoes and milk as two other small parts for their project and made up a recipe of tai beef style curry.
Ten groups have been chosen from approximately 500 entries to attend a prize-giving ceremony at the Bord Bia HQ in Mount St, Dublin. They received a certificate of excellence from nutritionist Paula Mee and have their photographs taken with celebrity chef, Neven Maguire. They also watched a healthy cooking demonstration by Neven.
Comortas Aiste sa Rang – Foinse 2009
Beatha teanga í á labhairt agus á scríobh. Rinne na daltaí éacht ollmhór
chun tús áite a thabhairt don ráiteas sa rang ghaeilge. Eagraíonn “Foinse”, an
nuachtán Ghaeilge, comórtas “Aiste sa Rang”. I mí Márta 09 bhuaigh Katie
Dwan, dalta sa 5ú bhliain an 3ú h-áit in Éirinn lena h-aiste dar teideal “Foréigean
I Saol an Lae Inniú”. Bronnadh geansaí agus teastas uirthi. Ghlac daltaí ón 2ú, 5ú,1ú bhliain páirt sa chomórtas áitúil “Féile an Aonaigh”. Moltar go hard na daltaí seo :
5ú Bhliain sa chomórtas aiste. Gemma O’Gorman, Ka tie Shanahan Laura Moore, Libhín O’ Carroll.
2ú Bhliain Comórtas ealaíne “Cárta Fhéile Phádraig” Sorcha O’Riordan, Eva Ryan, Yvonne Mullins, Clodagh Quirke, Chloe Bergin, Áine Cummins
Sa chéad bhliain bhuaigh Laura Donnelly an chéad áit sa chomórtas filíochta.
Bronnadh trofaí ar Laura agus fuair na daltaí uilig teastas. Comhghairdeas díobh uilig. Moltar go h-ard na daltaí agus na múinteoirí a spreag na daltaí chun a bheith bródiúl as an nGaeilge “Ní neart le cur le chéile “.