This Friday 20 May is a Staff development Day so no classes will take place as per the calendar.This Monday 23 May is Graduation Day for our Sixth Years which commences at 2pm in the PE hall. To facilitate preparations all classes will finish at 11.15. The buses have been informed.
Health and Safety Authority Award.
As part of the Transition Year programme for 2015/2016, each student, as part of their timetable, started a programme of study which has been developed by the Health and Safety Authority. The programme enables the students to learn about health and safety in the workplace. Students receive online badges for every module that they complete. These badges are a permanent award that students can use in the their work place in the future. Portmarnock Community School is one of only two schools in the country to incorporate this program into the Transition Year Programme. This resulted in the HSA awarding the school an innovation award and awarding the teachers, Margaret Hughes and Aileen Bradley a certificate of excellence for being part of and teaching the programme’.
Tennis Victory!
Congratulations to our boys U16 tennis team – Shane Gaffney, Conor McKeever, Ciaran McCarthy, Josh Philips, Conor Archer, Alex Cush, Euan Burke (not in picture), Luke Bogle (vice captain) and Jed Hazaymeh (captain). They beat Terenure College on Friday in a very tight meet, 3 matches to 2. They are now through to the Leinster Boy’s U16 semi final against St Mary’s this week. A huge thank you to our manager Siobhan McKeever and Ms McDonald for organising all matches and our coach Daragh Griffen, who trains the boys every Tuesday at 7.30am. What a team!!
First Years Monkey Around in the Sun.
Our First Years had a great day in the Zoo thanks to Mr Fitzgerald and their tutors. The day included a Scavenger Hunt organised by Ms O’Brien. The sun meant a memorable day was had by students and teachers.
DAA Literary Awards.
Students from TY Lesotho project were awarded prizes by DAA for their stories based on their recent journey to Lesotho this February. The winners were Aoife White, Luke Peyton, and Orla Curtis Davis. Prizes were presented by His Excellency Paramente Phamotse, The Kingdom of Lesotho Ambassador to Ireland. Present from the DAA were Siobhan O’Donnell and Maura Cassidy.
State Exams Timetables and Support.
Good luck to all of our Leaving and Junior Certificate students.
- All information concerning state exams can be found here.
- The Junior Certificate Timetable can be found here and the Leaving Certificate Timetable here.
- Leaving Certificate FAQ here.
- A Parent’s Survival Guide to the Leaving Cert…some great tips for both students and parents alike for life post Leaving Cert is here.
- Key dates 2016 for Leaving Cert students and parents is here.
PCS Win Overall Young Social Innovators 2016!
Congratulations to our students, Mr Fitzgerald and Ms Cronin.
Check out a Two Tube video which includes a great interview with Colin McAndrew here. The YSI video can be viewed here. For Newstalk click here. A Youtube video of the questioning process is here. An interview with NearFM is here.
Colin Mc Andrew and Ravi Gollapalli were interviewed on ‘Global Village’,a Newstalk programme with Rachel Collier CEO Young Social Innovators after gold award for their project “Global Citizens Mapping The Future”. They were interviewed by Dil Wickremasinghe.
Computer Classes for Adults
The Adult Education Department hope to run a 4 week Computer course starting Monday 16th May. This will be run in conjunction with the Get Ireland Online Initiative, a Benefit 4 programme administered by the Irish Computer Society. The dates will be Monday’s 16th, 23rd 30th and Tuesday 31st from 4:15 – 6:15pm. The cost will be just €20. This course is particularly aimed at those who need to upskill their ability to use the internet.
Contact the Adult Ed office (01-8038069 or adultedpcs@gmail.com) for more details and to register.
Variety Show and Bake Sale for Irish Cancer Society.
The Variety Show as always was a wonderful celebration of the talent our students have in abundance. Thanks to Ms O’Driscoll, Ms McGlynn, Mr Maynes and all of the students and staff for their support which culminated in over €2,500 being raised for a great cause. Photos from the night are in the Flickr stream.
Well done to all of the bakers and sellers from Ms O’Driscoll’s Music Class who raised over 300 euro for the ICS and thanks to Ms O’Driscoll and Ms Maguire for their assistance.
IBM on board to support new App.
The project is the construction of an APP for smart phones that can be used for generating a call out emergency service in Lesotho. A second app is also being considered to promote tourism within Lesotho. IBM have agreed to give the students access to an online support which will help them generate codes and build the necessary layers on their app. Ravikanathn Gollapalli 4N created the skeleton of the APP which is a very cleaver piece of work.They have given them a direction to take project in the immediate future and will review their work. The IBM support comes from Fionn Lawlor and Simon McLoughlin, our students are as above and from the YSI team; Colin McAndrew, Darragh Bolger, Anbu Sundaradivelu and Ravikanathn Gollapalli.