On Thursday, our year went to the library where a woman named Audrey spoke to us about drug and alcohol addiction. Audrey works with people who want to stop taking drugs, she supports them and offers advice and she also works with people who are clean from drugs and continues to support them to ensure they don't start using again.
She spoke to us about many different types of drugs and their effects. She told us stories of people as young as me who are still dealing with the damage of drugs long after they’ve taken them. Her talk was extremely interesting and I think everyone learned something new. In groups we went through what might happen if people take drugs problematically, the effects on themselves, their families and their community. Drugs is mostly only a problem when people become addicted much like alcohol. She told us that cigarettes and alcohol even though legal can still be just as dangerous as illegal drugs because of how addictive they are. Caoimhe Clarke 4.1
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For our third out of school trip, the Transition Year group took a visit to City Hall in town. Just after ten minute break, the two classes headed to the Luas stop at the Square, where we travelled into Jervis. We then walked towards Dame St, where City Hall is located.
The purpose of our visit was to take a look at the Let’s Talk About Drugs competition exhibition, in which the winning entries of the competition were put on display. The year group as a whole was really impressed by the quality and standard of the entries - they were all amazing! The artwork really portrayed a powerful message about the effects of problematic drug use for both the user and those around them. The exhibition helped us all to gain some ideas for our own entries in next years competition. After we viewed all of the artwork upstairs in City Hall, we ventured downstairs, where we had the opportunity to visit an exhibition on Dublin during and after the 1916 Rising. This was really interesting and an added bonus to our visit. When our look around City Hall came to a close, the group marched up to McDonald’s, fuelled by a hungry stomach. The restaurant was quickly invaded by 46 OBCS jumpers, sending the place into mayhem! When the chips were all gone, the cups all drained and the laughs all laughed, it was time to head back to the luas stop. The trip to City Hall was an enjoyable experience for everyone involved. Jade Willoughby 4.1 I believe that I speak for the majority of Transition Year that the Ploughing Championships was one of the most anticipated trips. Some of us had gone to this event before but for the majority of the students it would be their first time. I myself was looking forward to going due to how my family was describing the event to me. After hearing about it for so long I was afraid that the event would not live up to the hype. However, I was pleasantly proven wrong. On Wednesday morning of the 21st of September both of the TY classes met in the upper assembly area. A group of teachers went among us to make sure we had paid for the trip and that we had no illegal substances that would have the bus turned back if discovered. After each bag was checked we dispersed and began to pair up with our friends. I paired with Luke Duff. After that we made our way outside and on to the bus.
The journey there was long, and I believe that I fell asleep at some point. But when I woke up, I saw a scene of absolute pandemonium. There were cars and buses backed up bumper to bumper, and there were balloons shaped like Zeppelins in the air. It took a while but we eventually made it to the car park. We exited the bus and made our way to gate number three. We were given our tickets and were told to meet back at gate three at a certain time. Luke and I proceeded to small area of the festivities where there was a group of stalls selling various types of food. I had hoped to find a stall my Dad had told me about where apparently they served bugs like on the show ‘I’m a Celebrity get me out of here’, but unfortunately I could not locate this stall. Instead I got a chocolate crêpe and a bag of chips. Luke also got a crêpe . We then began to walk around. We noticed that many big brands such Tegral and Roadstone had stalls at the festival. Also car manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda had stalls where they were displaying their latest models. Some companies even had interesting displays at their stalls. For example, the ‘Bank of Ireland’ stall had large replicas of old coins. And ‘ESB’ had a DeLorean outside their stall. Luke and I also purchased various products while strolling through the festival. I purchased a plush Pug for my brother and Luke got a walking stick for himself. We also admired the various farming tools and prized animals on display. My favourite part was the sheep herding. I enjoyed watching the dogs following their master’s commands so precisely. After all of this Luke and myself made our way back to gate three to meet up with the others. When we got their I saw that a large portion of the group had even more fun than we had. Some were wearing Blue Cowboy hats and others were wearing illuminous vests.one boy had even decided to get his face painted with the colours of the Dublin flag. After such an exhausting day it was no surprise that I slept for most of the way of the trip back. When I woke up we were pulling into school. Right before we got off Luke asked me ‘So what did you think?’. And I told him that I wouldn’t have traded this day for anything. Luke McMahon 4.2
On Monday 19th September, two speakers from Tenderfoot; Veronica and Dave, came in to speak us, the transition years. It began with Veronica explaining how Tenderfoot works. She discussed the people and jobs that would be needed for this year's Tenderfoot programme to create and preform a stage production, she also described pervious years productions and events. She mentioned that there would be lots of different people involved including; actors, stage managers, costume designers, makeup artists, filmers and writers. I was immediately interested in the acting and filming aspects. Following that people who were interested were asked to stay and others were told to go back to class. Dave did some warm up acting activities with the students that were interested. He got us to loosen up and feel more confident. We then had to do activities individually that showed our confidence, acting ability and creativeness. While we were working with Dave, Veronica was assessing us and writing the names of certain people down. After that, the people that would be interested in script writing were asked to stay and the rest and to go back to class. The students that stayed had to do a writing activity showing off their unique and eye catching style. Later on that day after Veronica and Dave discussed students, we were told who got accepted into the Tenderfoot Programme. Laura Healy 4.2 On Thursday 15th of September, class 4.1 and 4.2 set off for our first overnight trip of 4th year. Everyone was excited for what was to come. We all met inside the school, waiting for everyone to arrive. On our bus down to Kippure where we would be staying, we played songs and sang and talked until finally we reached our destination. Groups of roughly ten were then called and each were given the key for our house for the next couple of days. We all ran to be the first in, to save the best room for ourselves! Quickly we all made our self at home, making tea and checking the other houses to see whose was the best (...turns out it was house number 2!). Couple of minutes later we all met outside, to begin our bush craft activities, which I think no one anticipated to be as fun as it actually was. We were brought into the depths of a forest and told to get into groups of 9. Three from every team's job was to find food which was hidden somewhere in the forests and fields. The remaining people's jobs was to make a waterproof hut made from branches and shrubs. We also had to somehow make a fire and cook the food that we found. At the start I thought it was impossible, how do you even go about making a fire I thought?? amazingly , after many trial and error, and relocation and disasters, injuries and falls, four hours of moving branches from one place to another, looking for ‘dry’ wood and wondering how you make something waterproof every group had a hut and something to eat even if it wasn't really edible!! We made s’mores, and invited teachers proudly to see our makeshift homes, and were judged on the best one. After getting dressed, we all went for a well deserved dinner. We were then all brought to a field where we played disc golf which was essentially a difficult way to play frisbee! We were then given a challenge and an egg. The challenge was to design using whatever materials a way to stop the egg from breaking even if it was dropped from a first floor window. We then tested our inventions dropping our eggs dramatically from the window of the teachers' house!.....they all failed miserably. After a mini party in house 2, we all retreated to our bunkbeds for a 10/10 sleep only to be woken by Mr. Guilfoyle’s voice at half 9 in the morning. After breakfast we all put on our harnesses and our helmets and climbed rock walls and abseiled down trees, the brave even did the ‘leap of faith’ basically jumping from an extremely thin tree onto a swing 50 foot up in the air and I watched from the safety of the floor! After this extremely fun morning, we were forced to leave, our two days were up and we left on the condition that we must come back. It was a brilliant two days and there was never a boring moment. The only bad thing was that we couldn’t stay longer! Our year bonded more than ever, and have funny moments that we will talk about for years to come. Kippure got done. Caoimhe Clarke 4.1 On September 9th, both classes were called to an assembly about our mental health. A lady from the organisation Jigsaw called Michelle spoke to us about Jigsaw where it is located and what it does to help people. She told us that jigsaw is a drop in centre, that anyone can visit if they wanted someone to talk to, or if they ever wanted some space from everything. She showed us pictures of the centre, and she told us that when designing the building they wanted it to look really approachable and comfortable.
She then showed us clips and videos about mental health, about how to ask people for help and how important it is to talk to our friends ,family and teachers about our problems. Jigsaw is a place that is non- judgemental, where it is okay not to be okay. She really enforced the idea of good relationships and to not underestimate the power of communication. This experience was extremely informative, Michelle then asked us to think of one person who we could go to if we ever felt down about something. These type of talks are very important, people need to know as much about mental health as much as possible and it is thanks to organisations like Jigsaw that we can talk about our mental health openly. Many of the students who signed up for Transition Year expected that they would be offered a series of activities that would be optional to take part in. Most of us were excited to participate in these activities. While some of us had already decided that they could not take part in these activities and keep up with their school work. No matter what we thought none of us expected that we would be given so many opportunities so early on in Transition Year. I my self was looking forward to seeing what opportunities would be given to me. That is why I’m writing this article now. I will be listing every non-compulsory project or activity that we have been offered so far. I will also be giving a brief outline of what we would be doing if we excepted these activities.
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