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COLÁISTE BRÍDE NEWSLETTER As we move into our Halloween break, we encourage everyone to take time out and enjoy a restful break. It has been a busy first term, our 1st years and TYs, 5th & LCA 1 students have been settling in well to their new programmes, within the Junior and Senior Cycle. So much has been happening both during class time and as part of our co-curricular and extra curricular calendar of events. We continually encourage all of our girls to get involved in at least one activity outside of school, as this will ensure you gain the value of a broader school experience which also helps develop new friendships. We congratulate our LCA Students on their excellent session results and indeed our Junior Cycle students who recently received their Junior Cycle results, we were delighted to share this time of celebration with you, as so many achieved to the best of your potential Ms N. O’Brien Deputy Principal
Upon our return after midterm, we will have a number of key events taking place in our calendar year such as College Awareness Week, Parent Teacher Meetings for both exam years, our Presentation Day Celebrations and of course our Christmas House exams. We remind our students and their families at this time, to stay safe, especially in the lead up to Halloween night. We look forward to seeing everyone back in school on Monday Nov 6th. It is an honour and privilege to have been appointed as the Deputy Principal of Coláiste Bride.
Mr T. Gleeson Deputy Principal
Over the last 18 years in education, where I held various leadership and teaching roles, I have had the joy of learning with and from wonderful colleagues and students. Having started my teaching and leadership career in an all-girls secondary school in the centre of Dublin, I took the opportunity to pursue a teaching and middle-leadership role in a coeducational international school for four years. Prior to undertaking the role of Deputy, I worked for five years as a Regional Leader, Team Leader and as an English advisor with the Department of Education support services (JCT), providing support for school leaders and staff in schools in Dublin and South Leinster in the implementation of the new Junior Cycle curriculum. At the core of all these experiences is the focus on creating a learning environment that enables all members of the community to work together to empower students to have the knowledge, skills, and personal strength of character to embrace the opportunities and challenges of contemporary society. As I reflect upon my first half-term, I want to thank all the staff, parents/guardians and the wonderful students who have been so welcoming and supportive. For a large school, what is most apparent as a new member of the community, is that it has a warmth and care that is to be cherished. Over the remainder of the academic year, in this vibrant and enriching school community, I look forward to building relationships and supporting our excellence in teaching & learning.
1st Year News... In This Issue... 1st Year Bonding News 2nd Yr Halloween Event Active School Flag Updates EU Coding Week TY News Extra Curricular Activities General Reminders Dates for your Diary
What a first term we have had! The students have settled in well and are getting used to the hustle and bustle of our busy building. They are navigating their way around corridors and indeed their lockers. Lots has been happening including visits to our Learning Hub, Homework Club and 1st Yr Bonding Day which was a huge success for all with lots of prizes and activities on the day. They really got stuck in! Assemblies have been really busy too on Tuesdays with talks on Cyber Safety and responsible online behaviour. The 6th Yr Head Girl team joined an assembly, speaking to students about their roles as Head Girls, and about settling into CB. We will have a visit from An Garda Siochana after mid term to talk more about staying safe online. After Christmas students will be taking part in more workshops centred around cyber safety.
The students are enjoying receiving their Well Done cards and rewards too which is keeping me extremely busy! Afterschool Club is proving successful too and the students are engaging in a variety of extra curricular activities. You can view these on the First year Teams Page and the school website, www.colaistebride.com. Remember to check the Teams page regularly to see the messages we share with students.
Letter to Myself
Presentation Day
Over mid term 1st years must write a "Letter to My 6th yr Self" which I will then keep safely for them until Graduation Day in 6 years time. This is a lovely exercise and such an insightful reflection to look back on in 6th year. It’s wonderful for students to see how they’ve grown over their time here.
After midterm break, we will look forward to the 1st years first ever "Presentation Day" which is a very important day on our school calendar. Celebrations take place during the school day on Tuesday November 21st.
General Reminders!
On Friday Oct. 27 we are hosting a fundraiser for Childline. Students are invited to dress up for Halloween (appropriate costumes only!). They will participate in a fun Conga Line around the school in order to raise funds for this very important child service. Please remember to bring in €2 to take part.
Please continue to ensure your daughter wears full school uniform every day and is on time for school everyday. They have been doing so well so let's keep on top of this! Leaving School Early - if your child needs to leave school early please ensure they have a note in their journal to be signed by their tutor. You must also phone reception to confirm you have given permission for them to leave early. See page 26 in the journal. Appointments - please try whenever possible to keep appointments to Thursday or Friday afternoons when school finishes early. Extra Curricular Activities - there are a number of clubs and activities up and running afterschool. Please encourage your child to sign up and take part, it is a great way for them to meet new friends and get involved in new activities!
Wishing the students a very enjoyable and safe midterm break. Be vigilant, mind your pets during Firework season and I look forward to seeing everyone back in school on November the 6th. Ms U Bracken - Year Head
2nd Year News...
HALLOWEEN EVENTS The students of this school have organised a few events on the 27th October, just before Mid-term break. Firstly, we have the Teacher Dance-Off that the JCSP Class are arranging. Then we have a Fancy-Dress Day where all the students and teachers dress up in their best costumes.
By Janna & Frankie, 2nd Yr JCSP
After the fancy dress event, we also have a Conga Line for all our new First Years. We have asked every student on this day to bring in €2, as it will be used in a fundraiser for Childline. Prizes have also been arranged for students who are best dressed, as well as teachers who took part in the dance off.
Word of the Week This year, Ms. McConkey’s 2nd year JCSP class have been organising ‘Word of the Week’ - every Monday an innovative word with its definition, synonym and antonym is read aloud over the intercom to all students. It is also posted on all the digital screens around the school.
WOTW
WEEK 1 the word of the week was euphoria. The meaning of the word euphoria is “A feeling of intense happiness or excitement.” A synonym for euphoria is delight and an antonym is despair.
WEEK 2 the word of the week was innocuous. The meaning of innocuous “not harmful or offensive.” A synonym for innocuous is harmless and an antonym is harmful. WEEK 3 the word of the week is discombobulated. The meaning of the word discombobulated is “Emotionally confused or uncertain.” A synonym for discombobulated is representative and an antonym is totalitarian. On Friday, we like to include a quick, optional quiz to test both the students and teachers on the meaning of that week’s word of the week. You can hear the word being read aloud over the intercom on Monday morning, and you can also view it on the television screens that are placed around the school in the hallways and the canteen area. So, why are we doing word of the week? We are doing word of the week so that we can educate students and teachers on different ways of phrasing questions and answers. We’re doing it to help increase vocabulary and literacy skills. Our overall goal is to hear the word being thrown around in the hallways, classrooms, canteen, et cetera. We hope that week by week we can even help a single teacher or student learn a new word, and if someone learns something new, we will be delighted and our goal will have been achieved. So overall, we have been doing word of the week to increase new words being used in school conversation. We hope you enjoy learning these new words along with us, and we hope you have fun doing it too. We wish you all happy learning and thank you for reading!
By Abigail & Mya, 2nd Yr JCSP
Active School Flag Hello Coláiste Bríde! The new ASF class welcomes you all back to another year filled with great upcoming events. As you all know, all staff and students completed a whole school questionnaire back in September. The ASF class shall be receiving this information shortly and once we have the results we will respond to this information. Our first event - Table Tennis Takeover - was launched on Friday the 29th of September. The event mainly involved TYs, 3rd and 6th years but we also had 2 classrooms set up to encourage teachers and students to take an active break during the day of the event. These classrooms were open to all year groups on the day of the event. The event was a great success, and it achieved the goal of getting the whole school active! Nearly everyone in TY, 6th and 3rd year took part in our TT Takeover in the hall and there was also a rowing and skipping area set up for students who didn’t/no longer wanted to play table tennis. Students had a positive attitude towards the event and a few teachers even challenged the students to a game! Our TT classrooms were also a great success among the other year groups and teachers as it encouraged staff and students to take an active learning break. Overall, we achieved our goals of encouraging staff and students to take part in our TT Takeover. One of our main focuses of the year will be developing our Learning on the Move Campaign! Another one of our main focuses of this year will be helping to develop the school sports teams along with encouraging students to be active. We’ve had great success with some of the school teams such as the GAA Team, Basketball, Camogie etc. So far the majority of the school teams have had great success this year such as the U18 and U16’s GAA teams, they have won all their games since the start of match season! Our sports captains have also been helping with 2nd years to complete their gymnastics CBAs. We look forward to keeping both staff and students active throughout the school year. Don’t forget to follow our socials to keep up with all things ASF!!
@cb_activeflags
@activeschoolflagcb
EU CODING WEEK This month, we had a great time celebrating EU Code Week! We organized a series of events to introduce our students to the world of coding, engineering, problem-solving, and logic. We tied it all together with collaboration and lots of creativity. The highlight of the month was when our STEM club took over the Learning Hub. With the invaluable assistance of Miss Kelly's incredible learning leaders, we hosted a Halloween STEM workshop where students learned about electricity and circuits, and then put that knowledge into practice by creating their own electronic Halloween decorations. A massive shout out to the masterminds behind this magical event, our digital prefects Hailey and Tiffany!
TY Work Experience In TY, on Wednesdays instead of coming to school, TY students go to work. This is an amazing opportunity for students as it gives them an experience of what life is like in the workforce and gives students a chance to interact with employees in their workplace. Each student is responsible for choosing their own work placement as it allows them to be more independent. Students have one 10-week block from September to December and then again from January to May. Students also have an opportunity to do 1 / 2-week block weeks as many opportunities arise in TY. For my first 10-week placement, I am working with the Irish Wheelchair Association. I assist the members with their activities in the centre and on trips, mealtimes and I get an insight of what the work behind the scenes looks like for this non-profit organisation. At the end of November, I will be doing a 2-week block in a physiotherapy clinic and I’m so excited. As a result of doing this work experience, it has become easier for myself make phone calls and write emails, interact with people I don’t really know and improving my time management skills. -Maya McLean, TYC
TY’s - CodePlus with Trinity CodePlus is a coding program offered by Trinity College for TY students. It is centered around coding, cybersecurity, and many other technological fields relating to the tech industry. It runs for 4 days from 9:30 am until 3:00 pm. The program is run by Niamh, a previous Coláiste Bríde student who studied at Trinity, and the program is done in the Dunlop Oriel House, a building just around the corner from the Trinity College Campus. Every day you will have two other mentors, some more than once. One of the requirements of the program is that you have to get there yourself, so because I live in Clondalkin, I took the 13 or 69 bus into Town. The first day, Tuesday September 12th, we were separated into groups of four. We got to pick our own team name, we were the Purple Parrots. There were also five other groups, Rashers and Sausages, Mark’s Fan Club, The Cyan Cats, Team Didn’t Get That Far, and Cheerios. Our first task was to brainstorm different types of natural enemies, for example; cats and dogs, cats and mice, boys and girls etc. Afterwards we were introduced to Scratch. Scratch is a block based visual programming website mainly aimed at children, created for educational purposes, so instead of having to write code you have blocks that you put in place and it does what you want it to. Our final task was to create a game in Scratch about natural enemies. We chose Boy vs Girl and made them have a dance battle. I won’t lie it wasn't much of a game as the outcome was always the same, but you still had to press a few buttons to get it to work. (The girl always won!)
On the second day we were in our groups and we had to brainstorm three different things in our community, types of people, types of problems, and types of technology. We then had to randomly choose one of each and created a product to solve the problem. Out of the three products we created we later had to choose one and create a powerpoint to sell our product to ‘investors’. Our product was created from the three words “mentally ill”, “crime”, and “projectors”. Our product was called Kleptomania Killers, a projector you throw at people stealing, which also takes a picture of the person stealing, which the police can then later arrest, or get help for. On the third day two people came in from Bank of America and spoke to us about cybersecurity, specifically in Bank of America. Their talk was very interesting and it was very cool to see all the different types of roles in cybersecurity and to see people who don’t have tech backgrounds working in tech. The fourth and final day we got another talk from someone from Bank of America who works as a Business Analyst. She spoke about her work, how it is there, and we had freedom to ask her as many questions as we wanted. Apparently there is very good coffee there. Afterwards we learned all about AI and what it does. We then had to ask an AI (either Snapchat AI or Chat-GPT) to write a song, poem, or story about our time in CodePlus. We used Snapchat AI and our song wasabsolutely amazing, I will not lie, because our song was so amazing we were asked to ‘perform it’ (the four of us just stood up and read it aloud). One of the mentors Emma made us some really good brownies. At the end we got a sticky note and we got to add it to the “Wall of Sticky Notes” (bring a glue stick or BluTack if you do CodePlus so that it doesn't fall off). All in all I had so much fun and I cannot recommend doing this programme more. Even if you have no interest in coding it is great craic and everyone is really nice. I cannot wait for our trip to Bank of America in November.
Bank of America
Study Skills with Ms Finnegan All 3rd and 6th years (ie exam years) attended a study skills workshop during the first term. All other year groups will receive theirs in November. There was a coffee morning for all Junior Cycle parents/guardians on Oct 4th which looked at ways that parents/guardians could support their children in their learning. There will be another parent/guardian workshop taking place on Nov 14th. These workshops are designed to help parents/guardians reinforce and support what their children have learned in their study skills workshops. They are to empower you, as the parent/guardian, to support your child. More details on that to follow!
Visit to Al-Khidmah Community Centre
On October 19th, students from Rang Fiachra (2nd year) paid a visit to the local Al -Khidmah community centre in the village where they learned first hand about the beliefs and practices of another faith community.
CB Reading Club Coláiste Bríde's first Reading Club has started! It is on every Monday at 4pm in T14. We discuss books, authors and more in a relaxing and friendly atmosphere. Junior & Senior Cycle students are welcome. Bring a book!
Extra Curricular Activities
SIGN UP FOR SOMETHNG NEW!!!
Our Extra Curricular Activities are well and truly up and running!! There is so much on offer, from sporting clubs to Reading clubs, even a Harry Potter Club! It really is a great way to meet new people and maybe even discover a grá for something new. Our staff give up their time free of charge for all our after school activities so we can offer them to you without cost. Take a look at our timetable to see what you could sign up for!
Sandra McDonagh, Clarissa Stokes and Winona O'Reilly received an Education Award from Exchange House for successful completion of the Junior Cycle Programme. Winona O'Reilly was one of the lucky winners to win a mobile phone, while the others received a 50 euro gift voucher. A fantastic achievement for three girls!! We hope they enjoyed a lovely day of celebration with their families.
Night Study starts back Monday November 6th!!
Huge well done to our newly formed, very talented Senior Camogie Team that scored 12 points from play in their last game against Santa Sabina in Monastery Astro pitch! Well Done and keep up the hard work!!
Sign up via VSware. Ch eck your email & Teams for more info!!
Free Breakfast in the canteenevery morning for all students!
UNIFORM REMINDERS Students must wear their full and correct uniform; every day expect on their assigned PE day. ·Full Uniform includes the wearing of a tie correctly, skirt below the knee and as per our Code of Behaviour, footwear must be an all-BLACK/NAVY shoe only, with NO white markings on the footwear including the sole. No ankle boots. With the exception of, and as per our Code of Behaviour in the school Journal, a Deck Shoe which is also permitted. ·When wearing the PE Tracksuits, students must wear the correct white Polo Short Sleeved Top (can be purchased in Dunnes Stores). It is necessary for students to wear this underneath the Tracksuit top as this is part of our uniform code and permits a student to remove their tracksuit top if necessary when in PE class. ·PE Footwear: Plain White only runners with white soles to ensure gym floor is not marked. ·Please ensure uniform/PE gear is placed into the wash on Friday after school to ensure it has adequate time to dry before Monday. We remind all of our students that they might assist with this task at home, and not rely on others. ·Facial piercings are not permitted, incluing invisible piercings. Piercings must not be covered with a plaster. Should the removal of a piercing require expert/professional assistance, we advise parents/guardians to do so before your daughter comes to school. Many facilities operate a drop in service in the local community.
PROCEDURE REMINDERS ·We are reminding students weekly that should they need to leave class for any reason, they must contain a signed note in their journal, at all times. ·In addition, in an effort to reduce the large volumes of students accessing toilets all day long, we are asking, where possible, for our students to use the facilities at break times. Of course, we understand that emergencies arise. ·Students should not be accessing their lockers unless it is a designated break time. Should a student forget class materials, the teacher will make a note of this. It is important that we track the number of times individuals are accessing lockers so that we can support the student and ensure the parent/guardian is made aware, should significant patterns emerge. ·We wish to thank all of our parents & guardians for their continued support in upholding these standards. Ms N. O’Brien - Deputy Principal
Energy Drinks - did you know... Coláiste Bríde has always advocated a healthy eating policy, and this was embedded with the establishment of our healthy eating canteen, which aims to provide a healthier option for our students. Getting the balance right is what we believe is important in the daily nutrition of all students. The use of energy drinks such as PRIME and Monster, have become more common in school. There is a concern that these energy drinks when over-consumed, can cause adverse health effects, especially in adolescence and young people. As educators are concerned with how the daily adverse effects of over-consumption of energy drinks by individuals, may impact the teaching and learning environment for those around them. As a result, we recommend that students do not use these drinks during their school day. Students consuming these drinks whilst in school will be asked to dispose of them. The Rationale: 1.The major constituent in most energy drinks is caffeine. They usually contain 80–150 mg of caffeine per 8 ounces, which is equivalent to 5 ounces of coffee or two 12-ounce cans of caffeinated soda. 2.Multiple studies have highlighted possible detriment health problems, that may negatively impact the body as a result of the high caffeine and sugar intake. Key Risks associated with over- consumption include:
Dehydration (not enough water in yo ur body). Heart complicatio ns (such as irregu lar heartbeat and heart failure) . Anxiety (feeling ne rvous and jittery) . Insomnia (unable to sleep). Increase blood pres sure. Increase your risk for irregular heart rhythms.
Impact your sleep. Cause weight gain. Cause tooth decay. Contribute to mental health problems. Increase diabetes risk. Cause kidney damage
Several studies have shown:
An increase in heart rate and arterial pressure after energy drink consumption. A relationship between energy drink overconsumption and arterial dilatation, aneurysm formation, and rupture of large arteries Symptoms including anxiety, insomnia, gastrointestinal upset, muscle twitching, restlessness, and periods of inexhaustibility. The constituent of high caffeine intake, is associated with acute and chronic daily headaches Energy drinks usually contain large amounts of sugar ranging from 21 g to 34 g per oz. Therefore, high energy drink intake may increase the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Can we take this opportunity to thank our parents and guardians for their support on this matter.
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY... Monday Nov. 6th School Reopens
Monday Nov. 6th Night Study Starts
Tuesday Nov. 7th 6th YearPTM
Tuesday Nov. 14th Parent/Guardian Coffee Morning
Tuesday Nov. 21st Presentation Day Celebrations
Monday Nov. 27th 3rd Year PTM
Friday Dec. 15th House Exams Begin
Friday Dec. 22nd School finishes @ 12pm
Wednesday Nov. 29th CAO Info Evening
Oíche Shamhna Shona Daoibh agus Fanaigí Slán!