East Glendalough School

Transition Year provides a welcome break from exam preparation, and allows the students an opportunity to try new things, discover new talents and try out some possible Leaving Cert subjects. It is aimed at educating for maturity, by encouraging personal development, social awareness and social competence. Preparation for the Leaving Certificate continues, with the emphasis on self-directed learning. The Compulsory and Academic Modules, which occupy more than half the week, give the students a chance to approach the traditional subjects from a different angle, and I want to thank all of the TY teachers for their creativity and the extra effort required to develop their syllabi from year to year. Within the Computers Module, many students availed of the opportunity to study for and take the ECDL (European Computer Driver’s Licence), an internationally recognised certificate in computer skills.

The Optional Modules contain a wide range of subjects and activities that are only found in Transition Year. We ask our teachers to make use of their own hidden talents to expand the range of activities the students can try during TY, and we also bring in specialist teachers and instructors from outside the school. Every year we try to introduce new modules into TY, to allow the students to develop their potential outside of the traditional school curriculum. In this way, the number of the Optional Modules has expanded over the years to twenty six, including Magic, Aerobics, Archery, Croquet, Film Studies, Rock Climbing, Music, Art, Modern and Latin Dance, Self Defence and Organic Gardening to mention but a few. This wide range of different activities allows the students to try out things they might never have discovered, extending their experience and increasing their self assurance. Within the Careers Module, students learned how to prepare a CV and letter of application, and also how to present themselves well at interview. They then had a chance to show how well they had learnt the material during Interview Day in April, when they were put through their paces by professional people from outside the school.

Apart from the Compulsory, Academic and Optional Modules, we invited a number of visiting speakers to come to the school and make a presentation or lead a workshop. This year, these included Stephen Peers, who gave a presentation on the Gaisce Award scheme, Joe McGrath on HIV-AIDS, Patrice O’Reilly from PACT on relationship issues, Donal Courtney who led a half-day Drama workshop back-to-back with Dave McFarlane’s Samba Drumming workshop, and Dylan Rynhardt and his Jazz band. Michael Moylan came in with his arms, armour and medieval costumes to lead an interactive presentation on Irish history, and Larry Shannon came to give a First Aid presentation, dealing in particular with safety measures in the workplace and emergency procedures, including CPR and the use of a Defibrilator. Next year’s TY students will each be given their own CPR kit provided by the Irish Heart Foundation, and training to enable them to teach members of their own family this vital skill.

Eileen Cannon came from Wicklow Drug Awareness to speak on the dangers of drug abuse, Peter Byrne from Christian Aid spoke on foreign aid to developing countries, and the Garda Road Safety Unit gave an excellent and moving presentation on driver safety. Shay Doyle from Dublin Airport Customs Enforcement Unit came to speak about the work of the unit, and brought sniffer dog Lulu to demonstrate how dogs are used to locate drugs at the airport. Orla Dormer from the Irish Blood Transfusion Service spoke on the importance of giving blood, Brid O’Keefe from An Oige spoke on the benefits of youth-hostelling, and Thomas McElheron brought in some of his snakes, salamanders, giant toads and huge spiders to talk about his interest in these creatures, and to let the students get “hands-on experience” of the snakes. The students were very keen to handle them, and some had to really face their fear to do so! Last but not least, we had the great privilege of hearing Tommi Riechental’s very moving account of his childhood experience of the Holocaust.

We had two hill walks in the Wicklow mountains: the traditional Djouce walk the day after the Junior Cert results came out and the end of year walk to Lough Dan. On both days we started out in wet weather and then had bright sunshine for most of the day. The students did not hesitate to jump into the icy rivers on both occasions! Apart from the hill-walks, the students had two theatre trips, three day-trips to Dublin to go to Mountjoy Jail, the Four Courts and the Dail amongst other visits, Ice-skating at Christmas, a 50k charity walk along the coast from Booterstown and a day-trip to Oakwood theme park in Wales at the very end of the year.

The 5-day trip to Killary Adventure Centre in early October was a resounding success. The students were very impressive, jumping at the numerous opportunities to get cold, tired, wet and muddy, but always managing to maintain the best of humour.

The Gaisce Award, for example, runs throughout the school year, and calls upon a high level of commitment and maturity from the participants. Students were required to learn a new skill, to do voluntary service in the community, to undertake a regular commitment to sport outside of the school and to carry out a two day mountain hike, including camping out overnight. Well done to all the students who completed the Bronze Medal section of the award, and many thanks to Mr Murawski for coordinating it all, and to Mr Gargan and Ms Doyle who, along with Mr Murawski, accompanied the students on the hike.

The Transition Year Play this year was the classic Shakespeare tragedy “Romeo and Juliet”, directed by the dynamic Ms Godfrey. This project is the most all-encompassing of the year, involving most of the TY students either onstage or behind the scenes, on set-building, sound, lighting and props. The play was a fantastic success, full of fine performances and an amazing set, and a great credit to all the students. Well done Ms Godfrey, and also to all those teachers who contributed in some capacity to the show.

The Thesis brought the best out of many of the students, with ideas as varied as beautiful hand tailored evening gowns, carpentry projects, fine art, photography, architectural models and completely original music CDs with artwork included. This year the quality of the work was particularly high. Thanks again to all the teachers who agreed to mentor the students throughout the year and to mark the thesis projects in May. This element of the course is extremely important in the overall scheme of Transition Year, and I am always impressed by the commitment, creativity and talent of the students.

The YSI (Young Social Innovators) module brought together a group of student who investigated the difficulties faced by disabled people when trying to get around Wicklow town (or any other town), and concluded with the presentation of the “Yellow Footprint Campaign”, which has left a durable and , I hope, thought provoking mark on the town. Thanks once again to Ms Molloy for all her hard work on this project.

At the end of the year, the students told their story of Transition Year 2008/09 at our Open Evening. They performed music, dance and self-defence they had worked on during the year, and spoke eloquently about their experiences in TY. Thanks to all the students who participated on the night, it was really special for the parents to see what TY was all about through the students’ eyes.