Transition Year

ECDL in T.Y. 

By Allen Thomas 

This is a report about what we did in ECDL. ECDL stands for European Driving licence.   We had to do certain modules over the year. Since the modules were all online, we could study them at home too. When we finished doing the modules we would take a test online. The pass rate for these tests are 75%. Most people would pass these tests even though the pass rate was so high. Luckily for the people that failed , the repeats were free. The three modules that were the most difficult for most people were the Spreadsheets, Databases and It Security. 

The Modules that we had to do in ECDL are as follows:

COURSE OVERVIEW

Computer Essentials Windows 8

Online Essentials IE10/MS Outlook 2013

Word Processing 2013

Spreadsheets 2013

Using Databases 2013

Presentation 2013

IT Security

A lot of these modules cover the basics of living in a modern computer run world. There are also some advanced stuff in there that you wouldn’t normally use. They also teach you some shortcuts that make your life a lot easier. This course helps prepare you for the modern / business world.

Most students fared well with the course and passed all their exams on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd attempt. 

Behind the scenes of 'The Field'

Transition Year Play: The Experience

This year, the Transition Year play was an adaptation of the Irish classic ‘The Field’ by John B Keane. The story of Thady ‘The Bull’ McCabe and his love for land, the lengths he will go to in order to get what he wants and his hatred of outsiders. The majority of TY students were involved with the production in some way, but not everyone was on stage. The play was performed for parents and visitors on 12th April. All of the cast were a bit nervous but we managed to pull off a great performance. I don’t think any of us will forget our lines any time soon.

Cast:

• Thomas Coll    -   Thady “The Bull” McCabe

• Anthony Duffy   -   Tadgh McCabe

• Shane Mangan   -   “The Bird” O’ Donnell

• Cain Carson   -   Mick Flanagan 

• Ryan Cromwell   -   Maimie Flanagan

• Kevin Staveley   -   Maggie Butler

• Patrick Cojocaru   -   William Dee

• James Anders   -   Leamy Flanagan

• Seán Coll   -   Dandy McCabe 

• Justin Samson   -   Mrs. McCabe

• Nathan Tobin   -   Sergeant Leahy

• Adam Tilley   -   Fr. Murphy 

• Ian Byrne   -   Bishop

Rebels:

• James O’Neill 

• Cormac Hayes

• Glynn Jones

• Patryk Marchel

Part of my performance was to sing ‘The Fields of Athenry’, at first I was very nervous because I knew I was a horrible singer. But, after a lot of practise and the support of my peers, I was able to deliver a tolerable performance. The advice I would give to next year’s Transition Year would be to go for it! In my opinion it is well worth it in the end and you get as much out of it as you put in to it.

 


 

 

 



TY Creative Skills 

www.stbrendanstydesign.com

Transition Year Web Design Course

A free web design course was offered to TY students this year. It ran after school on Wednesdays from 1:00 to 2:00. The course began on 23/9/15. The course lasted for 15 weeks and ended on 2/3/16. For the first half of the course we learned about HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language). We learned how to make simple webpages with pictures, tables, lines, headers and changing font style and colour using only text and ‘Notepad.’ ‘Notepad’ is a default, plain-text application installed on all Windows PCs. The later part was spent learning to use ‘Xara Web Designer.’ It is software that used by businesses to create professional websites and webpages. Although it required no HTML knowledge, it was still fun to use. The objective of the course was to create and upload a website made by the students. The final product of the course was a website at: http://www.stbrendanstydesign.com/ 

I thought it was a very worthwhile course to do. Although I had some interest in web design, I would say you didn’t need to have much of an interest to enjoy the course. The teacher was very informative and clear.

St. Brendan's TY students created there own website.  Please have a look. 

 https://soundcloud.com/createschool/podcast-st-brendans-09032016-1253

TY Play

 St. Brendan’s College TY student’s presents 

‘The Field’

Play by John B. Keane Directed by: Mr. O’Brien

‘The Field’ depicts the story of an Irish farmer who lays claim to a piece of land that he has worked on for many years. His claim to the land goes largely unopposed until the arrival of another bidder from outside of the village who has other plans. This second suiter for the field is an intimidating character who arrives from England. The play is set in Carighthomond which depicts a typical rural Irish village in the 1960s.  It also tells us about the hostilities that country people portrayed towards outsiders. We hope you enjoy our very own version of this well renowned play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PE Expo 2016

The PE Expo 2016 was held at Trinity Comprehensive School in Ballymun on Friday 11th March 2016. Our teams arrived at the school at around 9:45.  When we got to our stands, we set up our projects on the boards in the school’s sports hall. The Games Development teams set up their videos as well. At 10:30 the judges came around. They had a little read of our posters and asked questions based on the project. When the judging was over, everyone went outside to do some activities. There was Cricket, Fencing, Olympic Handball, Soccer, Tag Rugby and Zorbes. Everyone did two activities. Afterwards was the prize-giving ceremony. Unfortunately, St. Brendan’s left Ballymun empty handed.  But on the bright side, just being there and competing was good experience. 

Seán and Thomas Coll

 

 
 

 

 
 




Achill TY Trip Oct. 2015

Coaching

On Thursday afternoon for 10 weeks, Willie Braine delivered a coaching module to some TY students.  Students explored the role of the coach, practiced team play and technique, and developed physical fitness.   

TY Glendalough 

Transition year students visited many places as part of the Heritage and History module.  Here are some photos from a recent trip to Glendalough.  

April 27th 2015

'The Assumption' is a short film made my students from TY. It involves shady characters and a hidden plot:

April 20th 2015                                 Shout Out 

-Chris Fagan

On Thursday the 19th of March two volunteers from the LGBT youth organisation ShoutOut came to our school as part of our transition year speakers programme. Their goal was to educate students in our class about issues relating to sexuality, gender identity and homophobic bullying.

They started off by sharing their stories about being gay/lesbian, what they felt and experienced in school, and how they told their friends and peers they were gay. Telling their stories enabled them to show our year group what troubles being LGBT in secondary school might cause for someone. They told us several shocking statistics about how gay teenagers are more likely to have depression and commit suicide. Statistics like that show how necessary it is to have programmes such as shoutout in secondary schools.

After they told us stories about their teenage years, they had us partake in an activity where they said a statement and we went to different parts of the classroom depending on whether we agreed, disagreed or were not sure about the statement. An example of a statement was “Using the word gay to describe something negative is not homophobic.”,    People who agreed with it said the definition has changed and it doesn’t affect anyone, people who were unsure said it depends on what is being described, and people who disagreed said because the words definition has not changed and using the slang word has negative connotations.

After the activity we all sat down and they started to educate us on several things such as what someone being transgender means, and what asexual means, they also told us what would be some negative and positive ways to react if a friend tells you they’re gay. Sadly they had to cut it short as we didn’t have much time to begin with.

Overall I think everyone enjoyed the workshop and I found that it might of helped some people in this class with how they discuss LGBT people and enabled them to be more respectful to people regardless of anything pertaining to sexuality or gender identity.

April 20th 2015

Doctor Speaker: 

-Chris Fagan

As part of our TY speakers programme, Dr. David Coffey from Carlton Clinic in Bray came into our class to teach us about many different things including STIs/STDs and Fitness.

He didn’t go too in depth with STDs but he provided us several online resources and told us several places that we could go to free of charge if we were worried about things such as STDs.

He took 6 volunteers up and measured things such as their Blood Pressure, Heart Rate and their forced expiratory volume (how heavily the could exhale). These were all to determine who was the fittest out of the group.

Throughout this process he also took several questions from people, these questions ranged from medical questions to questions about what is involved in being a doctor. He also explained to us what each bit of equipment he brought in does.

After he determined which of the volunteers was the healthiest he answered more questions and talked about what qualifications you need to become a doctor and what subjects he’d recommend doing if you were interested in medicine. We finished the talk and a few people stayed back to help him tidy up and ask him more questions.