News

Back to School ...with a difference!

Transition Year Students took on a new role when they swopped places with their teachers ...and became the teachers themselves. They invited older members of the community to come back to school and learn some computers skills!

The 'Technograns' learnt how to use email and some basic word processing and will be learning how to surf the net!

Dissolving Boundaries

The 5thYear LCVP students are coming to the end of an innovative and exciting project which has seen them work with students from Our Lady's Grammar School Newry using technology to foster cross border links in order to develop mutual understanding through collaborative curricular work using virtual and real contact between students in the north and south of Ireland.

Ten schools nationwide were invited to participate in the Enterprise project. In our case, the classes were divided into groups and each group interviewed a woman entrepreneur in her workplace, to find out all about how she set up her business. The students wrote up a case study on the entrepreneur which they posted to the Dissolving Boundaries moodle forum.

Two video conferences were held, with each school hosting an entrepreneur in the classroom. In March, our students were able to question Ann Hughes of Spirit of the Home in Dundalk when she visited Our Lady's Newry while in April, the Newry girls joined us in interviewing Liz Waters of Malones of Dublin Polishes when she came to our school.

In May, the two classes met face to face in Dundalk where they enjoyed a game of bowling, followed by lunch together.

On 25th May, Aoife Roche and Kim Seery will represent their classmates at the Dissolving Boundaries Showcase in NUI Maynooth. They will make a brief presentation with their partners in Northern Ireland (via video-conference) on what they have learnt during the year and hear presentations from the other participating schools.

Loreto Crumlin welcomes Kenyan student

We were very happy to welcome Christina Wachuka from Loreto High School, Limuru to our school. Christina was part of a group of 15 Kenyan students and four teachers who came to Ireland as part of the Jubilee 400 Ireland – Kenya Schools Link Project: 1609 -2009 Initiative.Last summer two of our students joined two girls from every Loreto school in Ireland on a visit to Kenya where they attended 2 schools for a fortnight.

In April, it was our turn in Ireland to host two students from each Loreto school in Kenya for a similar trip.Christina spent her first week in Loreto Foxrock and then came to Crumlin for her second where she joined in many classes and activities.

YSI success: Wanna Be?

Congratulations to our five Transition Year YSI groups for their impressive projects who all received very positive feedback on their entries into the Young Social Innovators Competition. We are especially proud of the project 'Wanna be?' which was selected to make a pitch to The Den for funding to further develop their project. The 9 girls researched the influence of celebrities and the media on young people and have developed a lesson plan and 'snakes & ladders' style board game for use in First Year SPHE classes. The judges in KPMG were so impressed by the girls' idea that they awarded them funds to develop and produce the game for use in a number of schools

The students receiving their offer from the 'Dragons'

Minister for Education visits school

Minister for Education, Batt O'Keeffe visited the school on Tuesday 2nd November and officially opened the new Dining Hall before hearing a presentation from students.

Louise Kavanagh, Clodagh Dunne, Karen Hammond, Mikaela Larkin, Gersha Enright and Kelli Mannering spoke very passionately about our need for the facilities, before taking the Minister on a short tour of the prefabs, changing room and concert hall.

Minister O'Keeffe commended the Loreto Order for the "outstanding contribution" it has made to education in Ireland and referred to our school mission statement which is clearly evidenced in the students' "respect for self, respect for the community and thirst for knowledge". Regrettably, Minister O'Keeffe was unable to bring us good news about our building application but, while making no promises, he did commit to reviewing our application as a priority, if monies become available in next year's budget.

Local TDs Michael Mulcahy, Catherine Byrne and Mary Upton also attended and confirmed their ongoing support for our application.