St. Joseph’s Secondary School in Spanish Point leading the way with Digital Technology.
Saturday, September 28th, St. Joseph’s Secondary School in Spanish Point was invited to FÉILTE in NUI Galway, to showcase their ePortfolio project that they adopted with first year students. FÉILTE is the Teaching Council’s annual festival for Excellence in Learning and Teaching and with the highest number of applications to date this year, St. Joseph’s in Spanish Point, were shortlisted as one of the final 45 entries for this year’s exhibition.
There was considerable interest in the project at FÉILTE. On the day they met with a number of teachers across Ireland who showed great enthusiasm for the process that was adopted to roll out the initiative. Both teachers, Rachael O’Halloran and Paul Dillon, led the initiative within the school. Principal, Paul Reidy, believes that the success of the project was predicated on the “enthusiastic buy-in from our staff to engage”.
An ePortfolio is a digital folder where students can store pieces of work, upload pictures, videos and other artefacts of their experience in first year. The vision for the project is to enhance the digital skills of their students, to enable them to research and collate information easily and to be able to use it as a digital repertoire of their experience from 1st-6th year in St. Joseph’s in Spanish Point.
At the end of the school year last year students displayed their work during a showcase event which was held in the Armada hotel in Spanish Point and over 200 parents and primary school students attended. This showcase event was a major success and the students really enjoyed exhibiting and presenting their work which they had completed throughout the year.
 Deputy Principal Lorraine O’Loughlin, Rachel O’Halloran e-Portfolio Teacher, Principal Paul Reidy and Paul Dillon e-Portfolio Teacher. |
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TY Enterprise Induction Day
Our TY students have been kept busy with various events this month. One such event was the Enterprise Induction Day held in the Armada Hotel and hosted by the Local Enterprise Office. Students got to engage in useful brainstorming activities as well as hearing first hand from entrepreneurs about their experiences in the world of business. Our students left the conference room full of confidence as they endeavour to begin their own mini-enterprises.
Our TY students didn’t stop with just engaging with enterprise! Many have got involved with the Young SVP and are also busy organising the Shoe Box Appeal within our school. Well done to all involved and keep up the great work!
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Clare Schoolgirls Golf Competition
Congratulations to our First and Second Year Girls who participated in the inaugural Clare Schoolgirls Golf Competition in Woodstock outside Ennis in September. A huge thank you to their coach and mentor our own Ms Mairead Bergin. The girls had a great day and look forward to their next outing.
Breakfast Book-Club
A huge thank you to Ms O’Loughlin(Deputy Principal), Ms Flanagan(Home-Economics) and our TY Students for organising a ‘Breakfast Book-club’ for our First Year students.This was part of our ‘Well Read Programme’. Students who arrived early to school were treated to breakfast cereal, toast, juice etc while reading their chosen novel. A great way to encourage reading as well as making sure we don’t skip the most important meal of the day to give us energy. Well done to all!!
 Ms Caitriona Flanagan and Ms Lorraine O’Loughlin with our First Boys. Books and Food !!!!! |
 Some of the breakfast delights on offer! |
Meitheal
We were delighted as a school to be chosen to send students to a Meitheal workshop in January 2020. Ms Joanne O’Brien Director of Youth Ministry for the Killaloe Diocese along with our School Chaplain Fr.Donagh held interviews in early October for candidates interested in enhancing their leadership qualities.Three fifth year students and two TY students were chosen to attend. A huge thank you to both Joanne and Donagh for giving our students this wonderful opportunity.
Open Night
Finally, our school ‘Open Night’ was held on Thursday October the 10th. A huge thank-you to staff and students who helped out. There was a great attendance and many primary school students from our locality got a flavour of what life is like here at St.Joseph’s.
As October closes we are looking forward to hosting our second ‘Mission Week’ as well as hosting our second ‘Wellbeing Day’ but before that, there is a great rivalry here as both neighbouring parishes are in the County Final. To show support for both sides, students were encouraged to decorate the Atrium in their team colours. May the best team win!
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