Student Voice 1 The 2016/17 4th Year class started Transition Year on August 29th 2016. The group gathered in the oratory for the induction session, amid chatter about summer holidays and what this year might entail. As we took our seats, “We’re All in This Together” from the High School Musical soundtrack was played, much to everyone’s amusement. We were greeted by our new year heads, Ms McCarthy and Mr Guilfoyle, and also Ms Cunningham who would be hosting the induction. The year group learnt the TY motto for the year ; “Imagine with all your mind, Believe with all your heart, Achieve with all your might.” We watched a slideshow which explained to us the most important aspects of Transition Year ; making the most of every opportunity and giving everything your all. Class groups, timetables, modules, credits, work experience and portfolios were all explained, and of course, the famous journal - oh sorry, Tracker, was handed out with a fair warning - lose this, and you may aswell move school. After the excitement of seeing who was in your class, what subjects you were taking and who your teachers would be died down, it was time to really get involved. Ms Cunningham conducted an in-depth personality test with us all, which taught us what type of person we are, how we work best, and how to get on well with all other sorts of people. We then played some ‘ice-breaker’ games to get to know our new year. First, we picked a partner, sat back to back with them, linked arms, and had to find a way to stand up without falling over (it is much harder than it sounds!) We then got into two teams and played ball games - one of which included us sitting on the floor together, passing a ball from person to person using only our legs - again, harder than it sounds! Although they sound a bit strange, the games gave us a chance to get to know everyone in TY a bit quicker and a bit better. The first day of Transition Year ended on a good note, with everyone looking forward to what the year had in store, and very eager to find out! Jade Willoughby 4.1 Student Voice 2 Our first day of Transition Year was structured in a way that many of us were not expecting. I myself imagined a long dull day of sitting in the lower assembly area as Ms Mc Carthy told us about the exciting year ahead of us. My thoughts, as well as well as the thoughts of many other students were pleasantly disproven. On our arrival at the school The TY classes were directed to the oratory in the main hallway. Once inside Ms Mc Carthy began to explain a series of points that were important to our Transition Year experience. She gave out our journals and explained to us that in TY they would be referred to as Trackers. The Trackers were to be used not just for recording our homework but also our weekly progress, our long-term projects, our guest speakers, our trips throughout the year, our community involvement and our work experience. Ms then began to explain the awarding and the removal of credits. Credits are similar to merits but with more satisfying rewards involved. Ms explained that depending on how we participated in Transition Year events we would be rewarded credits. At the end of the year each student’s credits would be added up and depending on how many they had, would be given a certain reward. Ms then began to talk about TY challenges and our booklist for the year. She directed us to page 234 of our Trackers. The page showed a list of challenges divided into three categories. These categories were Sporting, Personal/Social Awareness and Educational challenges. Ms told us that each of us should attempt to perform as many of these challenges as we could before the year ends. She told us that when we completed a challenge we had to make a record of it in our Trackers. WE had to put down the date the challenge was done on and we had to get a witness to sign it as proof that we had performed the challenge. The booklist was laid out in a similar fashion. On page 230 there was a list of different books. Ms explained that we would be given a book that we would read over the course of two months. At the end of these two months we would change our book for a new one. When we finished our book we were to write a book review in our Tracker. The best of these book reviews would but submitted into our Portfolio at the end of the year. Ms Mc Carthy then allowed Ms Cunningham to take centre stage of the situation. Ms told us that she was going to give us a personality test. She explained how the test was meant to be answered. The test was esigned so that there wasonly two answers to a question. We each filled in the questions and then added up our scores. My result said that I was caring, enthusiastic, idealistic, organized, diplomatic and responsible. I found my results to be quite accurate. To conclude. The first day of TY was not just a day of hearing about how Transition Year was going to be. But also a day of self-discovery. I found this to be a very pleasant surprise. I could only hope that the rest of my peers felt the same. Luke McMahon 4.2
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