October Mid-Term Newsletter 2016
Presentation De La Salle College Oct Mid- Term School
Newsletter
any outstanding fees and costs etc. Please
try and look after as soon as you can or
contact the Principal if there are difficulties.
Mid – Term Break! - We have come
to our Oct mid - term break and time
has really flown by - the last weeks
have been so busy. Lots of activity in
the school and plenty to look forward
to.
Parent Teacher Meetings - 3r d & 6th
students – will take place on Thurs Dec 1st
4.15 – 6.45 (6th yr. students should attend
with parents)
Student Absences - Texting Arrangement – Each morning when a student abOur new 1st yrs. have settled in very
sence is recorded an automatic text will
well and will to be a fantastic year
relay to parents informing them of the abgroup in the years ahead. Many thanks sence. Parents who are aware of the abto all our senior students for all the help sence need not take any action, but when
given looking after our new groups.
parents are not aware of the absence they
should immediately contact the school.
All of our students should be into a
good routine of homework and study at School Routines - We have noticed an
this stage – there will be house exams
increase in the number of students leaving
for 3rds and 6ths immediately after the school items at home - books, sports bags,
mid- term so a lot of work to be done.
lunches etc. This puts added pressure on
All other classes will have exams at the the office re contacting home and also addend of Nov.
ed pressure on parents who then have to
come to school with the missing items.
Practice, practice and more practice –
Please set up a nightly routine with stuthe more time spent at effective study
routines the better exam results will be dents around making sure all school items
are in place for the next day. Also students
– so use the mid-term break wisely.
st
nd
th
Interim progress reports re 1 , 2 , 4 & should know that when they are to leave
for appointments etc. they should have a
5th have been posted on VsWare
note in the journal and they seek permisSchool mid-term runs from Mon Oct
sion from the teacher in the class and re31st – Fri Nov 4th
port to the office and sign out rather than
Annual Report – The Board of Manhave the office make an announcement
agement has approved the Annual Re- across the intercom calling them to the
port for the 15/16 school year and this
office as all such announcements interfere
can be viewed on the college website.
unnecessarily with other classes.
Registration Fees and Book Scheme
School APP – We are just about ready to
Costs etc. - A reminder please to all re
go. This will be available as a free
download to all students and parents
and will enable the school to send messages and alerts re all school events. We
will send home download instructions
after the break.
New 1st yr. Enrolment Sept 2016 – the
school expects a big enrolment of new
1st yrs. for Sept 2017. All 6th class students who intend to enrol must do so
before the Dec. 2nd 2016 deadline.
Traffic Congestion
Parents please take great care when
dropping off and collecting students –
the school has a huge amount of traffic
coming in and out and we need to be
very careful re parking and not to obstruct school buses and students walking. Please also respect our neighbours
whose home driveways can sometimes
be blocked by parked cars. The Board
of Management continues to make representation both to Carlow County
Council and the Dept. of Education for
alleviation measures to be put in.
Junior Girls Football
The Junior Girls Football team played their first match of the year
in Wexford against Pres Wexford. The better team won comprehensively. De la Salle were the better team by far. Overall the
team played very well. Maeve Lawless and Chloe Beck played very
well.
The Junior Girls played their second match in the school grounds
against Gorey. It was a very tight match right up until the final
whistle. Both teams were very strong and worked well as a team.
Gorey worked very hard to try get more scores but the girls defence was very good. It was a fast game but in the end the girls
won by three points. Jenny Sawyer and Niamh Bambrick worked
very well together and Keeva Collins scoring three goals. The overall score was four goals and eight points to five goals and two
points, to De la Salle girls.
Derek Ryan Hits PDLS
On Thursday the 13th October, famous country musician, singersongwriter, and past pupil of the Presentation De La Salle College
Bagenalstown, Derek Ryan, returned to the school stage to perform a live show for the students, the parents and the community
of Bagenalstown, to raise funds for the students and for school
facilities.
The show started around 8pm. Another country singer named Ben
Troy from Carrickmacross, County Monaghan opened for Derek. He
played a few country songs for half an hour and then Derek’s show
began.
Derek performed on the school stage once again for the first time
in “14 years” as he said himself. Derek performed a very enjoyable, lively number of songs including some new songs he recently
wrote which will all be on his new album ‘This Is Me’ which is going
to be released very soon.
The show was excellent, selling more than 250 tickets. Derek’s
band is absolutely amazing, completed with a keyboard, harmonica and accordion player, a bass player, drum player, fiddle and
banjo player, and electric guitarist. All of them combined really
finish off and compliment the entire show.
To close an outstanding performance, Derek said goodbye and
goodnight to the crowd only to return to the stage 5 minutes later
wearing the school jumper, and performed two more songs for the
audience.
Overall the show was brilliant, and I think that everybody really
enjoyed Derek Ryan’s Show.
National Ploughing
On Tuesday the 20th September 2016, the annual Ploughing
Championships were held in Tullamore in County Offaly. Some of
our teachers organised for the majority of the Transition Year
students and the 5th year Agricultural Science class in our school
to take a bus up to the Ploughing Match for the day.
We gathered in the school at about 8:30 so we would not miss
the bus going from the school at 8:45. We arrived in Tullamore
around 10:15. We were told by Mr. O’Brien that we were to be
back for 3:30 sharp at the point where the bus dropped us off. In
the bus we were given a worksheet from Ms. Nolan to fill out during the day. We had to take pictures with farm machinery, different stands, and we had to get the names of different breeds of
sheep and cattle. We had to walk through a few fields to get to
the ploughing match as we were parked so far away. Upon reaching the entrance we were given a wristband.
There was lots to see and do there. There were many live television broadcasts happening all around the Ploughing Match. Every
corner you turned you ended up on T.V! There were huge shops
such as Aldi (who were giving out Aldi cowboy hats) and Super
Valu. They’re were many stands also including food, agriculture,
media and amusements.
We returned to the bus around 3:30 but a few people were late…
We got home from Tullamore around 6:00.
Overall I think we all had a really good day at the Ploughing
Match.
Avril Lakes
Senior Hurling
PDLS vs Callan CBS
This was a very tight encounter between too very good schools. It
was a home game for PDLS in the sacred home of Mc Grath Park
and there was nothing separating these teams only a puck of a
sliotar. PDLS started the better and went 4 points with frees from
Padraig Hynes and he ended the game with 0-9 points altogether.
Callan came back into the game and went into half only 2 points
down. PDLS came out of the blocks booming and scored a goal in
the first minute of the second half with a sublime goal from
Ciaran (legs) Hanlon. PDLS lost two key players Martin Bridgett
and Paul Martin threw open wounds on their forehead. Callan
took advantage and came back within a point of the salle and had
a free in the last minute but missed it badly. PDLS were lucky to
win and are threw to the south Leinster semi-final by the skin of
the teeth with half a team.
Padraig Hynes
SCHOOL APP LAUNCHED
Our school has recently launched an app. Anyone can download it if they so wish.
This will be available as a free download to all students and parents and will enable the school to send messages and alerts re all school events. It will also provide
a simple one step platform for students to access the school website and VsWare
and SchoolWise systems as well as wide range of other useful features.
Surfing
On the 10th of October, our current transition year students went
surfing, walking and completed a cryptic challenge in Tramore.
They departed from the school at 9:15am and they arrived at
their destination at 10:30am, they were then split up into three
groups of twenty one, each group with their own activity. The first
group went for a walk on the beach with Glen, an ecologist. They
saw crabs and birds and were also thought how to skim stones.
On the way back they were shown edible plants and even got to
taste them. Glen then thought them about the mini Meditation
climate in Tramore which is caused by the ocean currents. The
second group went on the cryptic challenge around Tramore.
Each team of three were given riddles and they had to search for
the answers around Tramore, the team with the most correct
answers got a free surf lesson. The last and final activity was
surfing. Each student had to put on a wet suit and were given
safety instructions before hitting the waves. Over all it was a
great day with great weather
By Thomas Lennon
Gaisce
Junk Kouture
As soon as the school re-opened from the summer holidays, students were so eager to take part in the annual Junk Kouture competition. Up to eight groups of two or three people have decided to give
the competition a go. The competition consists of several groups of
people designing and making outfits out of recycled materials.
These are usually in aid of a charity, or raise awareness for an illness or topic being discussed. The students are required to bring in
suitable materials they wish to model their clothes out of, and they
also have to select a model for the clothes out of their group. As the
school year progresses, the competition becomes more serious and
some groups may decide to drop
out. Near the end of the year, the
most popular and best worked on
outfit gets entered into the finals,
and people can vote online for their
favourite outfit. The outfit which
receives the most votes in the end,
will win the competition!
Senior Boys Basketball
The President's Award is an award in Ireland, earned by young
people between the ages of 15 and 25 for participating in several
activities for a certain period. There are three awards; bronze,
silver and gold.
This year the 4th year students in our school are participating in
Gaisce. The four key challenge areas we will be focusing on are;
Community Involvement, Personal Skill, Physical Recreation and
Adventure Journey.
Throughout Gaisce we are ooking forward to becoming more involved in my community, participating in more activities and becoming a better personal overall.
For those who complete the 26 week journey will be rewarded
with various trips towards the end of the year. Watch this space
for more Gaisce news in the near future.
Due to a couple of defeats last year in the senior boys basketball,
we decided we were going to come back stronger and better this
year. We started off our league with a good win over Tipperary
side, Clonmel CBS. The game was quite close throughout but good
coaching by Mr Power and Mr Doyle helped us edge through to a
win by just a couple of points. The game was close at the start but
the CBS were no match for the mighty PDLS. Everybody played a
vital role in this game. There is nowhere to hide on a basketball
court. The game ended up with final score 55-25. Head coach Mr
Doyle was delighted with the way the season started. Last week
we played against Ard scoil Tramore. This was also a very good
result for PDLS with the final score 48-24.
Shane Dooley
GIRLS BASKETBALL
So far the girls’ basketball teams have had two wins from two
outings. The first match was against FCJ Bunclody . Although the
opposition was tough, the PDLS girls pulled through comfortably
with the scoreline in the senior match reading 40-18 and the
junior match reading 60-11 . In the second match against Grennan College both sets of PDLS girls proved superior winning both
matches once again. The juniors won by 60-11 and the seniors
also won comfortably by 60-15. Head Coach Mr.Power was delighted with the victories and the future looks promising for both
of these teams.
Orla McDonagh
The Concern Talk is a charity that helps third world countries by
providing them, healthcare, education, shelter, food and clean
water. The reason why Concern is created so that it prevents
death by starvation, diseases, and death in the third world coun-
Concern Talk
tries. We had the talk about concern on 23/9/16 and she gave
us this talk to spread awareness of concern on what they do, how
they do it and why they do it. Concern is in many different countries like, Africa, Afghanistan, India, South Korea, etc. Their goal is
to give the poor a chance to live there life and have a better future.
Concern Debates 2016
Every year our school participates in the concern debates.
This year a great number of transition year students auditioned for the team. The four talented students chosen
were Darren Hayden, Naoise Darcy, Sadhbh Kelly and
Eoghan Carpenter. They will now proceed onto their first
debate soon which discusses the motion “Should France
have banned religious objects in public”
The Concern Debates have been running for 33 years,
involving over 50,000 post-primary students in Ireland.
Debating topics related to global development encourages
participants to explore and be challenged by some of the
world’s most important issues.
We wish the best of luck to our debate team this year!
Senior Girls Football
Ms .Nolan, Ms.Bennett and Ms.Quigley are over the
team this season. The senior girls played Presentation
Kilkenny in their first game. This was a close match
with the better team coming out on top with De La Salle
winning on a high score line in the end winning by 4
points. Anne Roche, Molly O’Dwyer, Eve Sinnott and
Niamh Forde battled hard. The final score was 5-2 to 67 .The girls were in an epic battle on Monday last on
the school pitch. Despite the wet conditions the team
produced a tight game with FCJ Bunclody. The end
score line was 9-7 to 5-5 with scores coming from Rachel Sawyer, Tish Murphy, Ellen Murphy, Caoimhe
O’Neill and Keeva Collins. Amy Dooley had an outstanding game in defence. The girls play Ramsgrange
away this Friday.
Ellen Murphy
Bowling
Junior Girls Camogie
The camogie girls had a fresh start to the beginning of
this school year after a long campaign to reach the AllIrelands last year. Last year the girls fought a hard battle
against Killaloe from Clare in the final losing it in the end.
They have now moved up to division 3 winning their first
game of the year. The girls played against a team called
from. It was a very intense match, the other team putting
up a very good battle. In the end the PDLS girls did justice for the school. There was a high scoring range - to
the girls. The training is being taken very seriously this
year in both junior and senior levels as they hope to get
far in the competition this year again
First Year Sports Day
A massively enjoyable day was had
by all the first years who took part
in the sports day arranged by the
teachers. What a fun way to keep fit
and get to know your fellow students. Students could be seen smiling from ear to ear. Great fun was
had by all. Congratulations to the
winners of all games.
The Green School’s Committee would like to wish everyone a very Halloween.
Please remember to be energy aware and to recycle this
Halloween!
The transition year students went to K-BOWL in Kilkenny
on a Wednesday afternoon. We left the school grounds
at approximately 13:10 via bus. Two teachers accompanied us at K-BOWL.
We reached K-BOWL at around 13:40, when we got
there we split into groups of four to compete in the
unique sport that is bowling everyone played two rounds
of bowling then we attempted to return to the buses but
they had not arrived yet and it was also raining so we
waited inside K-BOWL until the buses arrived then we
headed home on the bus.
We went on this trip to promote positive mental health
among students this improved our positive mental
health by spending time with our good friends outside of
school competing in the sport of bowling against one
another to ignite our competitive spirit for the pride of
being the winner instead of sitting in a dull classroom
learning about boring facts.