1B STEM Trip to Boston Scientific
The 1B STEM class and a few students from 1D went on a very enjoyable trip to Boston Scientific to mark Engineers Week. The students were given an opportunity to do some team work activities before being given a guided tour of the plant showing the work that many different types of engineers do in the plant. Sincerest thanks to Francis Curran and Ken McCarthy who organised the trip, as well as all the other engineers and engineering students who helped out on the day.
Junior Science Quiz
For the first time, the school entered two 3rd year teams in the ISTA Junior Science Quiz, which took place in GMIT at the end of April. The two teams performed well and hopefully found it a very good revision for their exam in June. The students in the photo below are Emily Sheeran, Meg Regan, Shauna Flaherty, Aidan Owens, Thomas McStay and James Skerritt.
1st Year Maths Competition
A selection of our first year students represented the school in a first year Maths competition recently, which was held in Dominican College in May. Congratulations to the students involved who did very well: Isabella Corcoran, Katelynn McMahon, Daniel Szuflicki, Sean Bradley and Sinéad Duggan (not in photo).
Pangaea Maths Competition
The school was also very well represented by a number of 2nd year students in the Pangaea Schools Maths competition which took place in Trinity College Dublin in April. The students involved were Billy Clarke, Mark Roe, Aoife Ryan, Katherine Gallagher and Emily Duggan. Ciaran Keane, Adam Walsh and Blythe Stewart got through as well but were unable to attend on the day.
Boys Soccer
U14: The U14s finished up their campaign with a 3–2 victory over St Enda’s, Galway in the FAI first year cup competition, with Killian Berthoz and Adam Lally getting their names on the CBC score sheet. The two earlier losses in their group meant that they were still eliminated from the competition, but judging from their performance in the last game, they should do well next year.
U15: Our U15s needed a victory against St. Mary’s in their last game to progress from their group but were very unfortunate to lose out to St Mary’s Galway on a 4–3 score line in a great game, played in Mervue. Aaron Brennan opened the scoring, before Adam Heneghan netted twice, but it wasn’t enough to see them through.
Pictured is Paul Nash presenting the kit to the U16 captain Oisín Moughan.
U16: The U16s were on the wrong end of a 2–1 scoreline when they lost to St Enda’s in their FAI Connaught Cup competition. The competition was a straight knockout so they only had the one game unfortunately. The team were wearing their new kit as well on the day, which has been generously sponsored by Paul Nash Travel.
Coláiste Bhaile Chláir’s First Green Flag
by Ciara Fox, 2nd year
It was Thursday, the 19th of May, when Ms Whyte, two of my classmates and I went into the Radisson Blue Hotel to collect our green flag. On arrival, we received a bag each, full of many items, such as a pencil made out of recycled goods. The great thing was, that was only the beginning! The talk had started at 11am, but it wasn’t all talk! Half way through we did some salsa dancing! Afterwards, they handed out the flags to every school. It was great joy to receive the first green flag for our school for litter and waste. I would like to thank Ms Whyte and all of the committee for their hard work. We would not have received this great flag without all the work put in by everyone in our school. After all, we made history, it’s the first ever green flag of Coláiste Bhaile Chláir!
Community Project
by Alex Ryan
We contacted Vincent Lyons, who is a part of the tidy towns committee and asked him if he could come into our class to talk to us about a project that we could do for Claregalway. We came up with an idea with him. A few of the students from our class visited the graveyard to see if we could make it look nicer, for example, plant flowers. We came up with an idea to make a bench and put flower pots on the two sides of it.
Our class with the bench, flower pots and poster, Teachers Mr Donnellan and Mr Kiely.
First we drew out sketches of what it was going to look like and how we were going to assemble it. We then got the right material for the bench and flower pots so it would be strong and it wouldn’t rot away in the rain. We also made a poster about different types of birds and images of the birds you can spot around the Clare river. The finished products are now completed and we hope to bring the bench down to the graveyard soon.
Coláiste Bhaile Chláir Win Their First Hurling Title in Style
1st year Hurling B County final
Coláiste Bhaile Chláir 3–13
Garbally 1–7
First half started well with points from Ronan Hanley and Cathal Fahy. The match was very close and backs worked well as a unit with Evan Farrell and Oisin Francis excelling. Half time score Claregalway 6 points to Garbally 3 points.
Second half started great as Fintan Cogley goaled with in the first minute, this gave Claregalway momentum and never looked back from this as they added two more goals throughout the half from Ronan Hanley (2). Sean O Hanlon and James Cummins worked hard in the 2nd half, Aidan Grealish came on late after been out for several weeks with a broken collar bone to get the last point.
Torin Finnerty was solid in goals as Malachy Feeney, Daniel fox, Aaron Healy and Enda Lawless worked hard in defence. Shaun Killilea Dylan Whlean and Sean Connolly all set up scores on the day.
Starting team: Torin Finnerty, Aaron Healy, Malachy Feeney, Daniel Fox, Oisin Francis, Evan Farrell, Enda Lawless, Fintan Cogley, James Cummins, Cathal Fahy, Shaun Killilea, Sean O’Hanlon, Sean Connolly, Ronan Hanley, Dylan Whelan. Subs used: Aidan Grealish, Jamie Keane, Daragh Kilcommins.
Claregalway Scores: Ronan Hanley (2–3), Fintan Cogley (1–3), Cathal Fahy (0–3), James Cummins (0–1), Sean O’Hanlon (0–1), Dylan Whelan (0–1), Aidan Grealish (0–1).
Míle buíochas do na bainisteoirí Mr Dolan and Mr Flynn.
Peil na mBan—Spring League Shield Final 2016
1st year Final
Coláiste Bhaile Chláir 8–9
St Enda’s 6–7
Junior Final
Coláiste Bhaile Chláir 8–7
Salerno 5–10
Shauna Flaherty—Captean na Foirne, Foireann Shinsir.
Megan Flaherty—Captaen na Foirne, An Chéad Bhliain.
Míle Buíochas to our trainers Mr McHugh, Ms Conneally, Ms Dabbagh and Ms NicDhonnchadha.
Cancer Care West
Mr McHugh will once again be attempting the Galway Bay swim this year. Now one of Ireland’s biggest and longest one day swims, it starts from Aughinish in Co. Clare and finishes at Blackrock Diving Tower in Salthill. Given the wind, tide and currents, the swim is a distance of approx. 13 kilometres and can take anything from 2.5 hours to 6 hours to complete. Each swimmer commits to attempting to raise at least €500 for Cancer Care west.
Please support this worthy cause any donations can be left in the school office. Donations can be made online at EverydayHero.com. Go raibh maith agaibh agus go neirí leis.
Athletics
Over 40 students competed in the South Connacht Athletics Finals in Athlone on the 5th of April competing in the long jump, shot putt, hurdles, 100m, 200m, 800m, 1500m, 3000m and u16 mile. 11 Students qualified for the Connacht finals from a very strong field of over 1200 students.
The Connacht Finals were held at Athlone IT on Thursday 19th May. It was a great day for all our athletes with Aubrey O’Brien (Junior Long Jump) and Conor Roberts (Minor long jump) qualifying for the All Ireland Final on the 4th of June in Tullamore. Diarmuid Kilcommins (100m, 200m), Andrea Trill (shot putt), Sinéad Duggan (100m) narrowly missed out on qualification finishing 4th in their respective races. Wishing Aubrey and Conor the best of luck in the All Ireland Finals. #Léimfhada
Go raibh míle maith agat
Mile buíochas to local business Woodland Motors who supported Coláiste Bhaile Chláir this month by sponsoring three sets of jerseys.
Cúnamh sa Coláiste Bhaile Chláir
In September 2015, Coláiste Bhaile Chláir opened an ASD class (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) to its first group of first years. The ASD class is referred to as Cúnamh which is Irish for helping hand. Since September, Cúnamh has been very busy engaging in the New Junior Cycle programme for Students with SEN (Special Educational Needs) called the L2LP Level Two Learning Programme. The L2LP consist of 5 PLU (Priority Learning Units) such as Communication and Literacy, Numeracy, Preparing for Work, Living in the Community and Personal Care, there are also two short course and the current first years in Cúnamh are actively engaging in one short course Caring for Animals.
Cúnamh students also experience and participate in level three subjects such as French, Woodwork, Metal Work, Music, Art and P.E. The Level Two Learning Programme is designed for students to have active participation within the wider community and create lifelong skills. The students have had an amazing first year, meeting Keith Duffy at the opening of GAP (Galway Autism Partnership), trips to the Cinema, Galway Museum, Wax Museum in Dublin City and Petersburg to mention but a few. The highlight of the year was our Autism Awareness Week. The students in Cúnamh and all the staff did an amazing job in raising awareness for students with Autism. We had a non uniform day in which the students wore blue, a concert and a bake sale, we managed to raise €2000, and €1000 was donated to GAP. A massive thank you to all the Staff, Parents and Students for your continued support from all in Cúnamh.
CBC Student Ambassadors attend Inspiring Careers
by Vitska Mulroy
On Friday 20th of May the Microsoft ambassadors from Coláiste Bhaile Chláir—Daragh Jordan, Niamh McCullagh, Sarah McHale and Vitska Mulroy—visited Microsoft in Dublin. The event was titled Inspiring Careers and was aimed at giving an insight into a career in technology. We got a chance to listen to the experiences of employee in Microsoft.
We arrived there at ten o’clock and took a look at the devices Microsoft has created. We signed in and were brought through the centre of the Microsoft building and into a convention room. The room was full of students from schools all over the country, from Dublin to Antrim to us from Galway. Firstly, Jack Liu gave us an introduction into Microsoft and spoke about his experiences with Microsoft apps before he even started working there. Jack used Skype to communicate with his family in Canada while he was in Fukushima during the earthquakes, tsunamis and the nuclear power plant disaster. He vividly explained how Microsoft apps can be used in critical times.
After Jack, Deana from America spoke to us about how you don’t need a technical background to work in Microsoft. For example, Deana went from selling donuts to working in summer camps for kids to being in charge of a truck company to now working in Microsoft in sales.
We asked question to a group of employees one from the UK, one from Romania and two from Ireland, one of whom was Daniel Hehir from Galway.
We had lunch then had a talk from Stephen Howell, a coder in Microsoft who explained the basics of coding to us. After this we were spoke to by two sales representatives about future products.
Finally, to finish up we got a tour around the Microsoft building. All in all, the day was very beneficial and we all thoroughly enjoyed the day.
CBC Students named School Digital Champions
by Sarah McHale
On Saturday May 21st, CBC’s Student Ambassadors travelled to ExcitED, a digital learning conference, in Dublin Castle to showcase our idea of a digital homework journal that can be used in schools. There was a great buzz around the place, and we everyone was having a lot of fun. We found our way to the School Digital Champion exhibition and eventually managed to get our stand standing upright! The other groups’ projects were very interesting: a few groups helped a local business with increasing their online presence, some groups set up a school website, and one boy invented a device to help people with Alzheimer’s or dementia.
The three of us took a walk around before the exhibition got going and looked at other projects outside of School Digital Champion. There was a 3D printer on display which made everything from copies of seashells to a copy of a child’s actual foot bones. Another interesting stand was Medibands, an idea by a fifth year student that enabled people to see all medical information about a person, if they became unresponsive due to a medical condition. We were blown away by the projects and we can’t wait to see them in the future!
We drifted back to our own stand then, and spent the next few hours explaining our project—OneJournal, the digital homework journal that allows students to keep track of their learning as well as their homework—and our visitors were very impressed. Then Coláiste Bhaile Chláir were interviewed by Bláthnaid Treacy, and later made a short appearance on the RTÉ2 news. Then we had lunch and we went back to the stand to explain our project to the next bunch of visitors.
In the evening we listened to Niall McCormick speak about his company Colmac Robotics. He never had any interest in technology until he took TY project to the big stage. He explained how even if you don’t have any interest or experience in technology, you will most likely see technology in your job, so it’s great to see so many young people getting involved in IT projects like this. When he was finished, we were called up to accept our certificates which were signed by Denis Naughten (Minister for Communications) and Richard Bruton (Minister for Education and Skills). Finally, we headed home after a very enjoyable day!
