Parent Teacher Meetings

2nd and 5th Years Jan 17th

3rd Years and TY Feb 28th

St Clare's Comprehensive School

December 2018 Edition

Senior Business Trip to London

30 Senior Business studies accompanied by their teachers Mr Ward, Ms Conaty and Ms Gallagher

travelled to London on Tuesday the 11th

of December for a 3 day business trip. The trip was action

packed from beginning to end. We began with a guided tour of London with our excellent guide

Sara where we got to see Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the Financial district and London Bridge to

name a few. It was followed by us stopping at the Bank of England Museum to learn about the

Bank’s history and its work at the centre of the economy. From there we visited the Science Mu-

seum where we were blown away by the floors of discoveries and the 3D cinema where we experi-

enced landing on the moon. We finished off our day with a late night trip to Winter Wonderland in

Hyde Park where students brushed shoulders with X factor contestants and You Tubers.

Wednesday we began the day by waiting to catch a glimpse of Theresa May as she left Downing

Street on the day she was supposed to travel to Dublin but had to cancel the trip as she made a

case for her leadership with her parliamentary colleagues before the confidence vote. We then

took a brisk walk through St James Park to Buckingham Palace to witness the spectacle which is

the changing of guards. In the afternoon we visited Chelsea football stadium and looked behind

the scenes at the business of Football and lastly enjoying the West end show Wicked. We visited

Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square to examine real life marketing with the neon signage.

Thursday we visited the London Eye where we had a bird’s eye view of the city at 443 feet high,

the London Eye is currently the fourth-largest Ferris wheel in the world, the ride on the London

Eye took us 30 minutes, and it travelled at a speed of about 0.6 miles per hour. Following this we

enjoyed a cruise along the River Thames where we discovered the iconic bridge we see in photo-

graphed of London is in fact Tower Bridge and not London Bridge we finished off our trip with

some free time for shopping on Oxford Street. Students got to experience the hustle and bustle of

a large city, put into practice using bus and tube timetables and navigating the tube map and lines

to get us from A to B. They enjoyed the celeb spotting on the tube getting pictures with Samira

from Love Island. Thank you to Ms Gallagher, Mr Ward and Ms Conaty for organising the trip and

accompanying the students.

School Blog

http://allthingsstclarescomprehensiveleitrim.weebly.com/ 5th Year Work Experience

7th—10th May

Music Trip to the National Concert Hall

Music Students from St. Clare’s traveled to the National Concert Hall on

the 12th

and 13th

December to see and hear the National Symphony

Orchestra performing their Christmas Lunchtime Concert, conducted

by Christopher Bell. The orchestra were accompanied by soprano

Sarah Brady on the 13th

. The music included Christmas singalongs as

well as excerpts from Swan Lake and Harry Potter. The students par-

ticularly enjoyed joining in with the actions to The Penguin Song and

The Twelve Days of Christmas. It was a very enjoyable day and all stu-

dents agreed that it was great to see and hear an orchestra performing

live, especially in the run up to Christmas.

Build A Bank

“Bank of Champions” will open their

branch every Friday in the Main hall

from 10:05—10:45. They remind all

students to keep saving a few cents

every week and for those who haven’t

started it’s never too late to open an

account with them. Competitions will

be held for account holders and regular

savers every term. Thank you to Eimear

Kelly from AIB for facilitating the open-

ing of the bank every week and to Ms

Gallagher who facilitates the pro-

gramme. The “Bank of Champions” will

represent the school at the regional

finals in Dublin early next year.

Junk Kouture

Transition years have been busy preparing their outfits for their junk cou-

ture entries every week since September. There is 12 entries from the

school this year with Ms Conaty working closely with the students. Stu-

dents are now putting their finishing touches to their outfits before regis-

tration opens on the 7th of January.

Bank of Ireland

Thank you to Bank of

Ireland who sponsored

a new soccer kit for our

students. So far it has

brought both male and

female teams huge

success.

LC Geography Field Trip

Leaving certifi-

cate students

were accompa-

nied by Ms

McDonald on

their geography

field trip lately.

Grooveline

Congratulations to 3rd

Year Band Grooveline who com-

peted in the Oireachtas Music Competition in Killarney

last week. The members of the band are Evan Gerry

(Vocals and Guitar), Tarach O'Snodaigh (Vocals and Gui-

tar), Matthew Connolly (Guitar), Glen Feely (Bass Guitar)

and Bronwyn Kirwan (Drums). They had to compose,

perform and record a song through Irish and were se-

lected to perform at the final on Thursday 1st Novem-

ber. There is a prize fund of €4500! The band per-

formed superbly for all the music classes in the school

and came out on top on the night winning themselves

€2,000. Well done and we enjoyed heraring hear you

perform for the whole school at the annual Christmas

Fair.

Getting in the Christmas spirit...

well done to Rang mhic Dhiarmada.

Great fun making door wreaths for their

homes. With bit of imagination and

Christmas cheer it's amazing what can

be achieved...well done to you all.

Rang Mhic Dhiarmada also enjoyed a

recent shopping trip to Athlone. Thank

you to their teachers and SNA’s for or-

ganising the trip and accompanying

them.

Active Bodies Active Minds

On Wednesday 19th and Thursday the 20th of December

each year group availed of an hour’s workshop in skip-

ping. Sessions included looking at footwork, crosses, side

swings partner skills and long rope games. Great fun was

had by all and the school would like to thank Mark from

Skipinrope and look forward to his return next year.

Christmas Craft Fair

Mini company students from 1st

, 2nd

, 3rd

and 4th

year

held their Christmas Craft fair in the school gym on

Tuesday the 18th of December. It was a huge success

with Santa even making an appearance.

Thank you to the huge number of parents who at-

tended the fairs to support the mini companies. To

Brian Dolan from LEO for attending and judging the stu-

dents. We look forward to the next stage of mini com-

pany on the 21st of February where students prepare

for their Schools Final and discover who will represent

Debate Success: St Clare’s Destined for Junior De-

bating National Final!

On Saturday 24th

November, Ms Faughnan accompanied

16 of her debate students from first, second and third

year to Galway for the Junior Debate Connacht final. All

16 students competed in a semi-final in school to reach

the final and every pupil did exceptionally well on the

day. Each student had to debate in three different rounds

and pupils were judged as individual speakers. Ms Faugh-

nan said, “the passion, the power and use of language

was phenomenal from everyone.” We are delighted to

announce that Gráinne O’Connell and Roisin McCann

from second year were selected to go through to na-

tional finals in March. Each year during the Connacht fi-

nals, there is a prestigious

award for best first year and

Hannah Smith from first year

in St Clare’s was the winner of

this award. Hannah did in-

credibly well and was pre-

sented with her award by the

mayor of Galway, Niall

McNelis – Hannah, too, will

compete in the national fi-

nals.

Young Scientist Competition 2019

Congratulations to Rachel McPartlin under the supervi-

sion of Ms McPhelim who will represent the school at the

National exhibition in The RDS from the 9th—12th of

January.

Rachel is looking at fracture patients and if there is a cor-

relation with decreased Calcium levels. Rachel recently

competed in the National Finals of the Sci Fest competi-

tion in Dublin.

Foroige NFTE Young Entrepreneur of the Year

Rachel McPartlin was crowned

young Entrepreneur of the

Year 2018 where she faced off

huge competition from around

the county. Rachel repre-

sented St Clare's and Ireland at

the European final.

Sports in St Clare's The Ladies Senior Team who are through to the Connaught semi final

The Juvenile Boys team

The U14 Ladies Gaelic Team The Junior Girls Basket-

ball Team

First Year Girls Futsol team who competed in Senior Basketball team

the Connacht Finals in Sligo IT recently. Dearbhla Rooney

Spanish Tapas Trip

This is becoming an annual visit for St. Clare's Comprehensive! Sixty 2nd year Spanish

students visited The Loft restaurant in Manorhamilton to taste a selection

of tapas achurros a Spanish dessert. The dessert was a firm favourite: churros con

chocolate. Churros are similar to doughnuts, but are long and thin. They are made

from fried dough and covered in sugar. Churros are normally eaten for breakfast and

you dip them into thick hot chocolate. We would like to thank the staff at The Loft for

their time and all the gorgeous food. We hope to be back very soon! We think they

should add Churros con Chocolate to their breakfast menu!

World Cadets Chess Championships 2018

Congratulations to Susan Aji who represented Ireland

in the World Cadets Chess Championships over the

last two weeks. Susan competed in the U12 Girls

competition and played 12 rounds against other girls

from Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Finland and

China to name a few. Well done Susan on a successful

championship.

CSPE TRIP

Mr Martin accompanied 3rd year CSPE

students to Loughan House. A great day

was had by all.

Engineering Trip

Mr Cummins brought the senior en-

gineering studies students to Sligo IT

for a tour of the facilities.