Dear Parent(s)/Guardian(s),

Please see details below regarding potential Camino and Ski trips for current TY students.

It is imperative that those who wish to travel complete and return this consent letter no later than 1:40pm on Wednesday 14th December.

This week the TY’s, along with the rest of the school, had a nice and hopefully relaxing day off on Monday but they were back in action on Tuesday with Ms. McAleers English class visiting the Fighting Words Headquarters in town. Here the girls explored the theme of love through the medium of playwriting and performing as well as finishing off the day with writing their own poetry. This was a great experience for all and one that every TY English class will attend over the coming weeks!

On Wednesday, our brilliant TY lab leaders were back in business teaching the next group of  6th class St Pius GNS students all the wonderful aspects of science through conducting fun practical and safe experiments as well as familiarising the students with the school. This was once again run to a very high standard and we are very proud of all involved for how helpful and welcoming they were when meeting the younger girls.

Friday saw the start of the House Lunches. This initiative is run by the 6th years in their respective houses and it is done to bring the OLS house community even closer together. This Friday the B’s started us off and students from all year groups met together and got to know each other as they enjoyed the treats bought for them by the sixth years. We hope that all the 4th year B house members enjoyed this and that the rest of the houses enjoy their house lunches next week!

In terms of decorating for Christmas the TY’s are tinseling with excitement! In Pastoral Care next week there is a competition between the base classes to see who can decorate their form room as festively as possible! On top of this the TY reps have split down the middle to go head to head to see which group can decorate the best door. Will it be Ms.Phelan’s office? Or will Ms.Bateman and Ms.Finnegan’s office take the title of best decorated? We will find out next week, may the best decorators between the base classes and TY reps win! 

We would like to say well done to all the students who completed their English literature project presentations this week. By presenting in front of their classmates, the TYs got the opportunity to improve their communication and public speaking. These presentations will go towards towards each student’s English grade. Best of luck to all TYs presenting their projects next week!

The TY’s will be busy next week as it is the last full week before the Christmas break. All TY students have now received their exam timetable in regards to their exams on the 15th -16th of December. Please note that their exams will be finished at 12:40 on both days however there is optional study until 3:30 (a normal school day). Next Wednesday, the TY Enterprise class will be holding their annual Christmas fair, giving everyone a great opportunity to get some of that last minute Christmas shopping done! Rumour has it that Christmas themed lip glosses, necklaces, sleighs of sweets and many more festive items will be on sale so don’t forget to bring in a bit of money! Once again the rest of the house lunches will continue next week so we would encourage everyone to attend as this is a great opportunity to get to know students from other years!

Just a gentle reminder that the payments for Zipit and the Intro Barista Courses are due and the links to pay can be found through easy payments. Also some consent forms are still outstanding so please ensure that they are all up to date so that students can attend the trips that they have signed up for. Next week the charity committee has organised the annual OLS Gifts to the Crib. TY’s have been asked to bring in dog treats/toys for Dogs Trust Ireland to Pastoral Care on Tuesday. We understand that Christmas can be a stressful time of year so anything that is brought in will be greatly appreciated.

Finally best of luck to all with their exams next week and we hope that everyone enjoys their last full week before Christmas as best as possible!

Saibh and Maria (TY Journalism)

Please see the attached letter from the HSE with important information for parents.

Fighting Words TYs

Ms McAleer TY Students attend a Fighting Words workshop on Tuesday. The students created colourful scripts based around the theme of love at the writing workshop. They acted out their entertaining scripts in group performances to much applause and praise from the writing mentors.

1st Year Cinema Trip 

On Wednesday all First Year students had a terrific trip out to the cinema to see the new film Matilda the Musical. 

Advent Candle

On Tuesday Emily from the Le Chéile Council lit the second candle of advent. The candle for this week symbolises "Love"

Library Decorations

Christmas has arrived at the library. Students created a Christmas tree made entirely out of books! Well done to everyone who helped. 

Badminton 

Well done to the badminton team who played against Loreto Foxrock beating them five matches to one.

House Banners

Preparations for House Celebration at the end of term are underway. The 6th year Council is getting creative!

FAI 

Congratulations to Joy Ralph who received her cap from James Scott Irelands under 17s manager. 

Please note the dates that have been set by the State Examinations commission for the oral examinations for the current 6th Years.

The menu for the coming month is now live on the Get Fresh website getfresh.touchtakeaway.net/menu

To avoid queues and delays, we would encourage students to choose the pre-order service available.

Please find attached a letter from the Principal.

The site preparation for the long awaited OLS Sports Dome begins on Monday!

TY’s came back from the working world this week with more knowledge and experience than they left with! We would like to congratulate everybody on successfully completing their first week of work experience and we have heard nothing but good things back from their employers. Well done!

Junior Cycle results came out last week and we are very proud of all our TY students and all the hard work that they put in, which is clearly reflected in their results! Ms. Gorby personally congratulated all the TY’s on Monday in the Lecture Theatre as well as telling them that a surprise awaited them the Tuesday. 

On Tuesday morning a buzz filled the air and the TY’s were nearly falling over with excitement. In the morning they watched Lindsay Lohan’s latest Christmas Movie “Falling for Christmas”, getting into the festive spirit while enjoying the treats supplied by the teachers! In the afternoon they headed outside to participate in the incredible team building activities set out for them by the company Teamworks. These activities included bean bag three-in-a-row, a hula hooping battle and crack the code. The competition was high between all the teams and everybody worked together to try and bring their group to victory. I think we all agree that this was a thoroughly enjoyable day for all TY’s!

Wednesday saw the TY’s split as some budding entrepreneurial students visited the beautiful Christmas Craft Fair in the RDS to see what they were selling on the stalls and they learnt all about prices and managing a small business! The other half visited the one and only Microsoft Dreamspace and they were given valuable insights into coding, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and mixed reality. From using their eyes to send a word to their team, to programming sphereos (sphere shaped little robots) to navigate a perfect square, it was definitely a thoroughly enjoyable day and one that everybody benefited from. We loved to see all the creative chariots that each team designed for their sphereo, from butterflies to reindeer the TY’s displayed their artistic and teamwork skills wonderfully and they were great representatives for our school. Well done to both groups and we all can’t wait to return for our second day in Microsoft Dreamspace in February!

On Thursday any TY’s interested in science attended a valuable Physics webinar, focusing on how Physics is used in the real world. They participated in interactive webinars, thought provoking lectures and experiments which allowed these Physics passionate students to experience it in a different light. They heard about the work of researchers in this field and gained a beneficial insight into what it would be like to study Physics at a university level. We hope that this workshop was helpful and that anyone attending availed of the information given to them. 

What a busy week TY’s have had! But wait, it wasn't over just yet. Friday came and the TY’s travelled to their second development day of the year. The 5 TY classes all completed a different activity ranging from self defence to visiting different museums around town. It was great to see the level of engagement from all TY’s and we hope that they enjoyed the day and learnt as much as they could, both of which are what the development days are all about!

TY as always is full of exciting and interesting things to sign up for. This week the notifications were pinging in from google classroom to notify all that was on offer! The anticipated Ski Trip google form went up along with the offer of the Camino! These two trips are coveted in Our Lady’s and always greatly enjoyed by all who attend them. In order to be in with the chance to get a space on either trip you must fill out the google form expression of interest by today, Friday the 2nd of December, stating which trip(s) you would like to go on.

Also on google classroom this week, the fourth years were given the application link once again to join the School of Education in Trinity College Dublin for a week where they will explore learning spaces of the future and how to make education better for everyone. The programme will run from February 20th – 24th 2023. Please note this does clash with the TY Subject Choice Talks and a few workshops that week. This is a great opportunity and one that we hope a few of our TY’s will apply for. Lastly, for this week the fourth years were given the opportunity to sign up for the STEPS engineering programme. STEPS is a not-for-profit strategic outreach programme that promotes engineering as a future career for young people. They are running multiple programmes in all areas of engineering in universities across the country. We would encourage any TY student who is considering pursuing a career in engineering to apply for one of the programmes as it would be very worthwhile and perhaps help you decide if a career in engineering is for you. 

Next week the school will be closed on Monday but it will be open as normal Tuesday. Ms. McAleer’s English class will go to the Fighting Words Workshop on Tuesday afternoon. Google forms regarding the second and third weeks of work experience are now available to be filled out on the TY google classroom and we would encourage everyone to do so as promptly as possible. In addition to that, anyone who needs garda vetting for their next week of work experience should go and see Ms. Phelan as soon as possible as this is something that can take many weeks to get. Finally just a gentle reminder to all TY’s that their exams on the 15th-16th of December are fast approaching so it is time to brush the dust off the books and begin revising! We hope you all have a nice long weekend and we will see everybody at the usual time Tuesday morning.

Contributed to by Saibh Gormley and Maria Hennelly (TY Journalism).

AWS GetIT

On Thursday Laura from Amazon Web Services (AWS) came to the school to meet with our First Year students to let them know about the AWS Get It programme. AWS GetIT is a program and competition designed to inspire 12-14 year old students, especially girls, to consider a future in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). The program helps schools and educators bring tech role models to their classrooms and gives them access to curriculum designed to help students build foundational skills, learn about cloud tech, and design app ideas to solve problems in their communities. Many thanks to Laura for visiting our school and hopefully some of our First Year students will sign up to be involved in the programme as an extracurricular activity. Details of how students can sign up will be emailed to them next week. 

Craft Fair

The TY Enterprise class attended the Craft Fair in the RDS on Wednesday. They are preparing for their Christmas Enterprise Fair coming soon! 

Physics Talk

Ten TY students attend a UCD Physics online workshop. It provided information on studying physics and different careers in the world of physics. 

Short Story Competition

The library is also running a Christmas Short Story Competition. Submit a Christmas related short story for a chance to win a prize. Maximum length of 5 pages and only one submission per person. Due by Thursday 15th December. Email your story to <40>library@olschool.ie Any questions please see Miss O Neill in the library.