Hazelwood College

Dromcollogher Organic Picnic September 11th

An t-Ionad Glas Organic College are inviting everyone along to the Dromcollogher Organic Picnic on Sunday 11th of September. The picnic takes place from 12 noon to 4pm and admission is free. The event is organised to co-celebrate the beginning of National Organic Week and the 20thanniversary of the Organic College.

It will be a great day out for families with lots of things on offer from nature detectives, face painting, petting animals for kids and a host of free talks on organic gardening, native trees, vintage threshing, bee keeping and herbs to name but a few. The aim of the event is to raise awareness about organic food and farming. There will be fantastic organic food on the day with a host of excellent producers being showcased. Set in the fantastic location of the Organic College in Dromcollogher, the overall theme is good for nature, good for you and the focus of the day will be on local organic food production.

Organic college director Jim McNamara said “We are thrilled to be in a position to host such a positive event, one which will show what we have been doing here at the college and indeed fantastic local organic food producers”. Dr. Sinead Neiland event coordinator said “There has been a fantastic response from everyone here at the college and past students who want to celebrate all that is positive about organic food and we are all looking forward to a fantastic day out for all”.

The event has been funded by the Department of Agriculture (Organic Unit) as well as sponsorship from IOFGA and the Organic College.

For further information on the event please contact:

Sinead Neiland Event coordinator – 063 83604
Grace Maher Development Officer IOFGA – 087 6125989

115 New Students Join 1st Year 2011

This year no less than 115 first years joined us. Please find attached some pictures of the new students.

Click on any image to see full picture

Class 1A pictured with school Principal Mr Burke, Deputy Mrs Dolan and their class teacher Ms Beamish.

Class 1B pictured with school Principal Mr Burke, Deputy Mrs Dolan and their class teacher Ms Kearney

Class 1C pictured with school Principal Mr Burke, Deputy Mrs Dolan and their class teacher Mr Grant

Class 1D pictured with school Principal Mr Burke, Deputy Mrs Dolan, Yearhead Ms Cregan and class teacher Mr Skinner.

Hazelwood Upgrades IT Systems

It has been a very busy year in the IT Department atHazelwood College, undertaking the largest upgrade since the school first opened in 2002. Some of the changes are very visible to the user, such as the installation of over 100 ‘developer’ Desktops in all of the classrooms. Studentsin the school now use the latest versions of Microsoft software – Windows 7 Professional and Office 2010. Other improvements in the school were less visible to the user, improved wireless networks and the installation of a fibre optic network to join our three previous networks together to form one high speed fibre powered network. New laser printers were purchased for student use, projectors were installed in the classrooms that didn’t previously have them, and to drive all this new improved hardware two new ultra high specification servers were installed. Still to come is the final phase of our upgrades which will include the installation of sound systems in all the classrooms to compliment the projectors and the introduction of new hardware such as visualizers to specialist rooms such as Technology.

All of this couldn’t have been possible without the help of the Transition years. Over the year they removed all of the old retired equipment and cleaned down rooms to prepare for the new desktops. They were then upgraded to administrators and installed to new desktops onto the network. They learned about how computers are controlled and managed in a network environment, installed antivirus, antispyware and firewalls on the new desktops. As part of this upgrade they removed the internal sound and video cards from the old desktops and installed them to the new desktops and rewired the languagelab.

As reward for all their hard work in April we went on a two day hike to and from the Black Valley in Co. Kerry. We set out from Muckross House in Killarney in some glorious sunshine in the direction of Ladies View. A tough climb up the side of Torc Waterfall took us to the old Kenmare Road between Torc and Mangerton Mountains which we followed to Ladies View where we stopped for lunch. Once fed we dropped down to valley floor to hike into the Black Valley. Despite some valiant efforts to stay dry crossing some streams all was lost when the some brave souls had to go for a river swim. That evening in the hostel cooked Spaghetti Bolognese for 20 under the watchful eyes of MsDaly (thanks). Next morning after a feed of 80 sausages we headed for the Gapof Dunloe and to the finishing line of Kate Kearney’s Cottage. All in all over the two days we walked 30kms.

Science Teaching Excellence Awards

The AGM of the Irish Science Teachers Association was held in Thurles on Saturday last. Michelle Herbert and Marie O Connor representing the Science Department at Hazelwood College were competing for the much coveted PharmaChemical Ireland Industry Award for Science Teaching Excellence. Four Science Departments were selected from around the country to present at a seminar, “Promoting Science Education in Ireland”. The other schools that reached the finals included; Blackrock College, Dublin, Colaiste Choilm, Cork and Wesley College, Dublin. Each school had ten minutes to portray the work done in the school to promote Science and answer a series of questions from the judges after the presentation. The standard of each presentation was exceptional. That evening after much deliberation it was announced that Hazelwood College captured the title of First Runner Up in the Science Teaching Excellence Award. This was a major achievement for the Science Department at Hazelwood College considering that the other schools involved had up to seventeen Science teachers and had two full time Laboratory technicians. Huge Congratulations to the Science Department as Hazelwood College and we wish them continued success.