1st, 2nd. and 5th year Summer exam-timetable (here).

Transition-year exams  in the G-compound on Tuesday 21st : English @10.35 AM. Maths @1.50PM. Prize-giving and Transition night practice also on Tuesday 21st.

We are pleased to bring you the photographs from the Annual Sports Awards. All photos may be downloaded from our photo-stream here. This may also be the best link to view the photographs. The awards were presented by past-pupil, Neil Doyle of Bedford Consulting, London. Neil actively supports the development of sport in the PCS. Thanks to photographer, Maurice Grehan.

Sports Awards '13

Sports Awards '13

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It’s a @gathering #Dublin2013 #rugby weekend at @dublinairport youtu.be/CIZa1oA0l14

— Dublin Airport (@DublinAirport) May 16, 2013

The Rugby Gathering, an animation from PCS Transition Year, is currently in use by the Dublin Airport Authority in their Arrivals area. Thanks to Katie Jones, Jessie Whelan, Alex Strains, Rachel Howard, Pablo Lizaran, Adrian Ujma and their teacher Ms. Tynan.

TY students also get a mention in the Malahide Gazette for their work on mental health (here p4). There is more information on this further down this posting.

Liam Harbison, the chief executive of Paralympics Ireland and Chef de Mission of the Irish team at the London 2012 Paralympics spoke to Sixth-year students recently. Liam is a past pupil and his presentation was very well received. He emphasised the importance of change and always trying! Thanks to the teachers and Fifth-year students for making this event a memorable one for the departing sixth-year students (Photo: Paralympics Ireland)

The school will close at 12.05 on Monday 20th May to facilitate the Sixth-year Graduation ceremony which takes place at 2.00PM. 1st, 2nd. and 5th year Summer exam-timetable (here). Details of the Openet competition are in the previous posting below.

Over 200 people attended our annual Sports Awards recently. Past-pupil, Neil Doyle, presented the awards and spoke fondly of his school days and delivered inspiring words encouraging students to do great things with their lives. Mr. O’ Cearra presided over the ceremonies – thanks to all the teachers, parents, students and past-pupils who make so many sporting activities possible in PCS. It is intended to upload a comprehensive set of photos from the night shortly.

Congratulations to Ultan Ó’  Móráin who was runner up in the Best Project Award at SciFest recently. Ultan was demonstrating his proprietary algorithm to estimate real time wave height from video imagery for use in the surfing industry. This idea is behind Surfwatch, the award-winning Transition-year mini-company.

Congratulations also to Katie Jones who won a Tablet Computer at her T.Y. graduation from St. Patrick’s University Hospital. She is responsible for the tagline: We all suffer with mental health, some more then others, but if we all work together we can change stigma. Katie graduated with Ashling Whelan. They both presented the slides below to their peers in Transition Year.

Christine Campbell has been running Anyone 4 Science summer-camps in PCS for a number of years. These are the 2013 details: Science camp for MicroScientists – (10 – 12 year olds), Nano Scientists – (7 -9 year olds) and Pico Scientists ( 4 – 6 year olds).

These camps are packed with fun hands-on science, engineering and maths activities with age appropriate experiments covering botany, food science, plastics and energy awareness, pulleys and levers and much more. So if you want to know how to make a mechanism to lift an adult, how to make plastic, how strong jelly sweets are and even test sweets and fizzy drinks to see if there are differences between different brands this is the camp for you.

Transition Year: As announced at Assembly we have received the offer of three summer work-placements from the Technology Company, Openet. The places will be awarded by competition. You will pitch a case-study of a ICT type project you have developed: it could be coding, it could be web-design – whatever. You can build on an existing project or start a new one – you must show evidence of how the project developed and what you learned during the process of completing it. Judging of entries will take place Thursday 30th May. You must be available for work on the two weeks beginning Monday 24th June and Monday 1st July. Please indicate your interest by emailing portmarnocktyATgmail.com with the word competition in the subject line and your name and class only in the body of the email.

Athletics: Kate Hawkshaw writes…Our trip to North Leinster Athletic Competition held in Santry was a huge success! School spirit was high on the day, with a great turnout from the students, ranging from first years to fifth years. North Leinster was split over two days this year, and we achieved medals on both days. Every athlete put in a huge effort, and we took part in multiple events, and had two very full days. Our impressive tally of medals included 4 gold, 6 silver, and 6 bronze, with very impressive individual and team performances. We would like to thank Ms.O’Neill, and Mr. Ferrick for all their hard work put in to make the days such successful outings.

Night School Autumn 2103 – classes are here.

Ms. Deeney, Acting-Principal, writes …Thanks to everyone who helped out at yesterday’s fundraiser féte in the PE Hall for Action Ireland, Lesotho  – especially to Ms O’Toole, Mr FitzGerald and Ms Maguire – and again at last night’s Variety Show. It was a wonderful celebration of our students’ musical talents with a fantastic audience of students, parents and past pupils. A huge thank you to Ms McGlynn, Mr Maynes and
to Ms O’ Driscoll, the overall coordinator of the show, with her excellent group of TY students. Thanks to Ms O’Toole, Ms Morrissey and Ms Sweeney for their help last night also. We will publish the final amount raised on the website soon. (All photos: Mr. Fitzgerald)

Pauline McGann from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution contacted the school to commend Transition Year students for their support of their annual collection. Pauline wrote of the students…”They were fantastic and we are very grateful to …them… for helping with our Mayday campaign. We have not totaled up the amount of money that they collected but as soon as I have the figures I will send it on…” The RNLI generously allow TY students to visit their station at Howth over five Wednesday mornings during the school year. (Photo Credit :R.N.L.I.)

The U.C.D School of Law recently congratulated one of our past-pupils, Joe Holt,  who “...was a winner in the final of the English version of the International Criminal Court Trial Competition…” Joe (third from right) is doing postgraduate legal studies at University in Leiden, Holland. (Photo Credit: UCD News).

Coincidentally, the UCD School of Law tweeted about another successful legal career last weekend. Caoilfhionn Gallagher, a past-pupil from the late 1990′s.

#LDéL Leanaigí Dé Luain: ár gcéimí @caoilfhionnanna (BCL 2000) dlíodóir den scoth thall i Londain le @doughtystpublic doughtystreet.co.uk/barristers/cao…

— UCD School of Law (@UCDLawSchool) May 6, 2013

Congratulations to Cillian Fogarty and Caitlin Cassidy, winner and runner-up respectively in the Second Annual Spelling Games for First-year students. Thanks to the English teachers for organising! Congratulations also to the U14 Girls, Winners of the Dublin Northside Community Schools Blitz held recently in Hartstown Community School.

Congratulations to SurfWatch, a Transition-year mini-company which recently achieved first in Ireland in the Innovation Category of the national “Get up and Go” finals.

The students will also receive a Sean Lemass Award for Enterprise from an Taoiseach, Enda Kenny T.D. in Government Buildings at a later date. The Sean Lemass award, unveiled in 2009, on the 50th anniversary of his appointment to office, aims to boost business skills and interest among young people. Mr. Lemass was instrumental in founding Aer Lingus, Bord na Móna and other state bodies.

SurfWatch is software that uses a proprietary algorithm to estimate real time wave height from video imagery. The mathematics underlying the software was developed by Ultan Ó’ Móráin. Joseph Dunne, Ryan Kelly and Stephen Mc-Inerny Foran worked with Ultan and founded SurfWatch in order to market the software.

Thanks to all the teachers who helped the students to their success (Photos: Mr. O Mahony and www.finfacts.ie).

U14 Hurling

Mr. Fitzgerald writes: Congratulations to the u14 hurling team who played the Dublin Colleges semi-final recently. The team captained by Matthew Petherbridge, played Maynooth PP school in an excellent game.

Sadly PCS were beaten by a score line of Maynooth 5 – 7 to PCS 3 – 6. Best for PCS were Mark Phelan, Matthew Petherbridge, and Gavin Nangle.

There are more photos in the photo-stream on the right (Photos: Mr. Fitzgerald).

First-years…

Our Sports Awards Ceremony will take place on Monday 13th May 2013, in the Assembly Hall at 7.30 p.m. Special guest will be Neil Doyle, past pupil and Director of Bedford Consulting, London.

Tickets for the Variety Show One Day Like This are selling fast.

We will present St. Patrick’s University Hospital with €922 after the Walk in my Shoes Day. They have a mental-health fact-sheet for teenagers that students, parents and teachers might like to read (here).

Best of Luck to the Second-year boys Basketball team who play in an All Ireland qualifier in Bantry, Co Cork, Sunday 28th April. There was great success in Santry at Athletics this week. Photos and a report to follow. Well done to all students and teachers involved.

Music students recently visited the National Concert Hall with their teachers. Thanks to all involved. There is also great work taking place in the school gardens. Thanks to Mr. Fitzgerald and all the emerging gardeners.

2N recently completed their C.S.P.E. Action Project with the Irish Wheelchair Association. It was called “Move it” – special thanks to Hugh Barnwell, Sara Coates, Sara Hilton and Morgan Keane.

The Green School’s Committee as part of it’s drive to encourage students to think green and protect our environment invited Mark Connolly from Electric Ireland to speak to students on the benefits of electric cars for our environment.
Mr. McDermott and the Green Schools Committee have been working hard over the last number of weeks to highlight the importance of creating sustainable environments and encouraging student to be responsible in their attitudes and behaviour when it comes to waste, litter, recycling and conserving energy. Well done to the Green Schools Committee and Mr. Mc Dermot for their dedicated work and for making our schools such pleasant environment.

First-year Assembly

Congratulations to T.Y. students Katie Jones, Isabelle O’Leary, Ciarán Ingle, Ryan Kelly, Ultan Ó Moráin, Ryan Davis and Daniel Burke who were recently offered places at the D.I.T. Computing Academy.
Students can visit Smart Futures (here) now and submit any career questions to their panels of experts working in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) or by using the hash tag #smartfutures on Twitter. The best career question wins a pair of Dre Beats Studio Headphones!

6th Year students

Practice for the annual Variety Showcase is in full swing. It takes place on Wednesday 8th May and tickets are limited. It is unlikely there will be any available on the night, so buy them now!

Congratulations to Mr. Dempsey who recently completed his fiftieth overnight visit to Glendalough with Transition Year students. A cake was commissioned for the occasion with his trademark comment “…we’re suckin diesel…”

Some Transition Year students recently attended the Leaders on our Level Conference in Croke Park. They heard presentations from (amongst others) social activist, Peter McVerry S.J. and motivational speaker Mark Pollock. They also met Colm (the Gooch) Cooper!

 PORTMARNOCK COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION

SPRING-CLEAN DAY

SATURDAY 20th APRIL

11AM @THE KIOSK on the PROMENADE

6th Year students, material to support your Béaltriail can be found here on our sister site, Taisce, in iTunes and on the school’s YouTube channel. This is an example of one of the pieces read by Mr. Ó’ Cearra below.

Support our Transition-year film-makers by watching their two minute entry here. Please add a comment by registering at the top Right-hand corner.

First-years:

Congratulations again to James Fagan (Class of 2011) who was recently “elected to scholarship” in the school of Theoretical Physics at Trinity College Dublin. This is our second year in a row to have a past-pupil achieve this recognition. Brian Higgins did so last year. Many people have been asking what this scholarship means. Read more here.

Well done to the First-year Gaelic Football team on their victory in  the quarter finals against Chanel College. They now play Terenure College in the Semi-finals next week (Photo credit: Mr. McNeive).

We also want to acknowledge Vincent May, the drummer in the band Kodaline who are successful in the Irish and U.K. Charts. Vincent is from Swords and a past-pupil of Portmarnock Community School. (Photo-credit: Sony Music).

Congratulations to the Transition Years who attended the Intel Ideation Camp at the Helix recently. Thank you to the Portmarnock Lions Club who facilitated the event (Photo credit: Mr. O’ Mahony)

Full Transition Year update here.

The Béaltriail podcasts (below) are currently Number One in the overall iTunes Education podcast charts. Buíochas do na múinteoirí Gaeilge.

Congratulations to James Fagan (Class of 2011) who was recently “elected to scholarship” in the school of Theoretical Physics at Trinity College Dublin. This is our second year in a row to have a past-pupil achieve this recognition. Brian Higgins did so last year – Brian is also Treasurer of the University Philosophical Society (the Phil). Photo credit: T.C.D.

Huge Thanks to Portmarnock Community School and their teacher @domaho who called to say they have raised €922 for… fb.me/2W3ieElP7

— Walk in My Shoes (@WIMS2013) April 10, 2013

Five of our Transition-year students entered the Trend Micro 2013 “Whats your Story?” video and poster competition. The link to their production is HERE. Please click on it and watch their two minute entry. Please add a comment by registering at the top Right-hand corner. Photo credit: Screen-grab from video.

Béaltriail na Gaeilge 2013: Obair dhian: Torthaí maithe san Ardteistiméireacht.

6th Year students, material to support your Béaltriail can be found here on our sister site, Taisce, in iTunes and on the school’s YouTube channel.

Please add a comment by registering at the top Right-hand corner of the video page.

Trend Micro’s rationale for the competition is interesting “We’re looking for original videos and posters that show the world “it’s not as bad as you think. In fact, there’s a lot of good stuff happening with technology. It’s just that you don’t hear about it.” Stuff like helping someone out online who needed it, getting behind a cause you really care about, having fun without hurting others or yourself, being smart about the photos you take and send on your phone“.

Thanks to the students, Isabelle O’ Leary, Laura Connolly, Matthew Shorthall, Sacha Bury and Luke Doran. Thanks to past-pupil Denise McKenna who motivated the students and helped with equipment and to Ms. Tynan who made the schools Animation Suite available for editing etc.