Weekly Updates 19th November

Posted on November 23, 2021

Good afternoon all Parents/Guardians. We hope that you are all keeping well. Once again, some updates on our school community.

COVID 19 CLOSE CONTACTS Updated advice (Effective from November 16th 2021)

Students who are household close contacts and who are fully vaccinated and showing no symptoms, should now restrict their movements until they have 3 negative antigen test results within 5 days. Members of the same household of a positive case, must now restrict their movements and await contact from HSE.
Close contacts will receive a text from HSE directing them to a website to upload their contact details. They will then receive another text re the antigen tests.
Antigen tests will arrive by normal post and should be taken in this order:
• First test on the day that the positive test result has been confirmed (by the HSE) for a household member
• Second test two days after your first test
• Third test two days after your second test
This advice came into operation on 16th November 2021.
Study Skills for 1st & 2nd years 
Study skills workshops for first and second year students are currently taking place. The workshops will be delivered by the relevant year group head of year (Ms. Ni Fhlatharta-1st Year and Ms. Bourke-2nd year). The students have already been made aware of the workshops and the time and date on which their workshop takes place.

The students will work on practical techniques to aid them in their preparation for the upcoming Christmas exams and beyond.  Topics discussed will include: goal setting, revision, how to revise, good study habits, getting ready for exams, learning styles, note taking and time planning.

Science Week (8th-12th November) 

Science Week 2021 took place last week (8th – 12th November) and the Science Department had their students in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and TY take part in various activities.

  • A poster competition between some 1st & 2nd year groups (prizes award for 1st, 2nd and 3rd)
  • The Egg Drop Challenge – for 1st and 2nd year class groups
  • Various virtual talks for all year groups from the Science & Engineering Department in UL that will be live streamed.

All activities took place during Science classes and the students really enjoyed participating in such well thought out enjoyable activities that had the added bonus of teaching the boys about how Science operates around us everyday.

Geography Awareness Week (15th -19th November) 

As this week was “Geography Awareness Week” our Geography Department ran a number of events to mark the week.

Such events involved:

  • A poster competition for 1st and 2nd years entitled ‘Geography in my everyday life’ 
  • Class quizzes for both years in their own classes.
  • Finally a community clean-up (This event was coordinated by our TY students)
  • Undertake introduction classes on weather and recording of weather with different class groups.
The boys once again had a great week, enjoying Geography quizzes and learning to be meteorologists!!! They are also enjoying the Geography Club which takes place every Friday at 1pm in B8 classroom.

SMC Express 

The link to the latest edition of the SMC Express is below. Some great work being done by our Transition Year Journalism team this year, under the guidance of their teacher Mr. Thomas O’ Connell. This edition is a special one as we are delighted to showcase an article by the Head of Biological Sciences in UL (and SMC Parents Council member) who explores the issue of healthy eating – a topic of utmost importance in today’s world. And, like every other iteration of the SMC Express, we bring you a variety of articles on a range of matters, categorized below as follows: School Events, Media Reviews, Sports, Culture and Environment.

https://spark.adobe.com/page/ukgPmtrcEK3Te/

Green Schools:

CAN WE PLEASE ASK OUR PARENTS FOR HELP IN FILLING THE FOLLOWING SURVEY. We will only be considered as a participating school, if a substantial volume of parents fill out the survey. We really need your help with this.  

We are delighted that our school has been selected to participate in the Safe Routes to School programme.  Safe Routes to School is designed to enable students to safely walk, cycle and scoot to school.

As part of the initial phase of this programme, the Safe Routes to School Team would like to gather information on how our students travel to school and where they start their journey.

Your input is needed to help create a safer school environment therefore, we are asking all parents to complete a short online survey by Wednesday 24th November.  

The survey can be done on a smart phone or a computer.

 

Please click here to begin or copy this address and paste into your browser: https://arcg.is/1GGv0m

Have a lovely weekend,
Kind regards,
David Quilter   Lorraine Shiels