Hi all - Happy Christmas!
We are at the end of a very long term for all in Coláiste Bhaile Chláir and we are delighted with all we have managed to achieve considering the outlook in September was so uncertain. There are 170 students in TY with 170 different preferences and likes/dislikes - so it is always a challenge to provide a program with enough variety balanced with enough of the big ticket fun activities. As I'm sure you are aware though - we have a very special year group in this bunch and they really have been fantastic to get involved in everything this term.
All students have engaged in the following activities since September
- Wildlands Activity Centre
- Drumming workshop in School
- La GAISCE day in Coole Park
- Self Esteem Workshop
- First Aid Cert
- Cregboy Golf
- Mask Making workshop
- Chinese Newby Language class
- Dance it Out 4 week Workshops
- Paintballing and GoCarting
The program also offers a number of OPT IN events where students can nominate to get involved. These are open to all students and always have the capacity for more! The opt in events this term were excellent, some of them are listed below;
- GAA Coaching course
- Junk Kuture
- LGFA Coaching and Reffing Course
- Microsoft week long App Development Internship
- Model United Nations
- FIFA Tournament
- Sleep out for Simon Fundraiser and camp out
- Microsoft Dreamspace Coding Event
- Volunteer student committees
We have also had a number of 'firsts' this year - inspired by some other TY students around the country we took on 'Merry Month' this year and the students jam packed the month of December with some lovely events to end the year with a positive attitude. We are also had our first ever TY Christmas Swim which will took place on Monday 21st December - a cold one but so much fun!
Charity fundraising: Students have never raised so much money for such a variety of charities either. This year we had the Sleep Out for Simon which raised close to €1500 for the Simon community and two further charity fundraising drives; €800 by the Leadership class for Make a Wish Foundation, nearly €1000 raised by the Ms Reid and the TY Christmas Wreaths and many of the TY lads in particular were involved in the nearly €4000 raised in school for the local ShaveALife fundraiser for Pieta House. We are so proud of all our students and the time and effort they have put into these worthwhile projects.
Budget: The cost for TY is €500, half of which is paid with the application. We have spent that money this term and so in January we will send another Way2Pay out for the balance of €250. As you can see from the data below; buses are taking a considerable chunk of our budget this year due to the fact that we can only have one form group per bus. We may need to do some fundraising in the latter part of the year to cover bus costs for planned excursions.
Plenty more fun to be had - thank you for your support all year and looking forward to a brighter 2021.
All the info for December can be found on our Online Noticeboard as usual: https://sway.office.com/8k0bH7gAjipbk06K?ref=Link