Integrated Dance

The Transition Year class have been taking part in an Intergrated Dance Class for the past six weeks at the Cheshire Home in Rathfredagh. Intergrated Dance involves disabled and non-disabled people working together to create and perform dance.

Next week is the final week in which the finished production will be filmed and produced as a short DVD.

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Cappanalea 2009

The new first year group recently travelled to Cappanalea Outdoor Education Centre in Co. Kerry as part of a team building and bonding week. Over the course of the week 104 First Year students and their Transition Year mentors spent three days and two nights participating in a wide variety of games and activities.

While there they took part in Hill-Walking, Orienteering, Kayaking, Rock Climbing, Abseiling and other Team Building Games and Challenges. The purpose of the trip is to give the new first years an oppourtunity to bond with their many new class mate who have come from a wide variety of backgrounds and areas. Secondly the trip through the use of the transition year mentors gives the school a good insight into how well the students are settling into their new environment.

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Transition Year Team Building

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Transition Years will attend Ballyloughran Activity Centre on the 16th of September as part of the introduction to their new school year. While there they will take part in team building and ice breaking games

Ballyloughran Centre is owned and run by Limerick Youth Service, is situated at Lisselton, about three miles from Ballybunion in picturesque North Kerry.

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Hazelwood “Builds A Bank”

 

Hazelwood “Builds A Bank”
As a part of our transition year programme, students had the opportunity to get involved in The AIB “Build A Bank” Challenge. Interviews were held last October and out of the people interviewed six were chosen for the different positions in bank including Branch manager and Tellers. As a part of the competition we attended the regional final which was held in the Radisson SAS, Galway last Tuesday the 3rd   of March. Competing schools from Galway and Limerick also attended. Unfortunately we did not progress to the National Finals but it was a great day out and a great opportunity to get involved in.
Written by Paudie Walsh – Transition Year

Debating is alive and kicking in Hazelwood College!

Part of the Transition Year 08/09 Updates

Debating is alive and kicking in Hazelwood College!
Confidence in oneself is what most people aspire to gain throughout their lifetime, and in Hazelwood College we witness young students blossom into confident young adults through the medium of public speaking and debating. We are proud of our healthy debating culture which is both admired and respected by both the staff and the student community. Last year brought outstanding success to Hazelwood when our VEC Debating team brought the Jim Mc Carthy Perpetual Trophy home after coveting the success of winning the final of the County Limerick VEC Debating Final. Our “Concern” Debating team also coveted outstanding success when they were a hare’s breath away of securing a quarter final place in the National final!
This year’s Concern Debating team are following the trend of previous years by defeating CBS Charleville with the motion “Genetically Modified Food is essential in the fight against World Hunger”. The next challenge was when Hazelwood met The Patrician Academy, Mallow with the motion “The Bebo Generation Cares Little for the Developing World”.
Once a student catches the “debating bug” they soon learn that it is much more than just meeting a team and refuting facts. All students involved in debating are in fact preparing themselves for 25% of the Leaving Cert English exam. What better way to study essay writing!
Heather Coffey a senior student in Hazelwood shares her experiences of debating:
“Starting out in third year and the last thing you expect happens! You become second speaker in the VEC debating team! I was never one for sports and the fact I could be involved in an extra curricular activity was a great achievement in my opinion! In the beginning I attended a debating meeting as I was interested in it due to the previous years debaters saying their speechs during our classes! The competition was high as loads of students applied and i was surprised to be picked as one of the four!
Little did i know 7months after this achievement we would have won the VEC competition!
This year I was part of the Concern debating team as the captain! We first went against Charville CBS and successfully beat them 3/0 this was a great success, then we went against Patrician Academy 2/0 which was a very difficult debate on the bebo generation cares little for the developing world. In the second term we changed captains and Donal O Callaghan took over. Unfortunately we were narrowly beaten by Colaiste Mhuire Buttervant who were a more experienced team! We then managed to get into the knock out phase where we yet again were beaten by Mercy Mount Hawk who just about succeeded in defeating the motion! This was a very sad and difficult night for the team as we had thought we had the victory in the bag but unfortunately we were wrong! This did not slow us down as we are now sending in our application to the legal debating society in Griffiths College and hopefully we will be heading up to Dublin in the end of March!
Debating is a great experience, it helps you to become more confident and it truely helps you speech! I would recommend it to all Junior and Senior students!

Let The Words Flow

Part of the Transition Year 08/09 Updates

Let The Words Flow
T.ys this year have been fortunate as we began a creative writing class. Once a week every week we do a class to improve our personal writing skills. Since starting this class we all noticed how little writing we do outside the mandatory English essays. This class has really shaken us up and has gotten more about writing on topics or feelings because we want to instead of having to like homework. The class is provided to us by a poet who encourages us every week.During the classes we really get taken out of our comfort zone in a good way as we have to read aloud stories or poems we have written during the week. We write about whatever comes into our heads or we can write about pictures or items that were shown to us. All I know is once you start writing you cant stop as your creative side bubbles out. From this class we even learn that writing a poem does not have to have rhyming words at each end this is slowly surely growing us out of our primary school haunts!

Saddle Up!!

Part of the Transition Year 08/09 Updates

Saddle Up!!
Every Wednesday, for the past two weeks we have gone horse riding. The name of the horse riding school is Kilabraher riding school in Dromina, Co. Cork. The people that were helping us were Alex and Lucy they were very helpful and they took everything slow so that we could keep up. When we got there we went and got our helmets. The two horses we would be riding would be riding would be Kal and Supremo. Then they split us up into two groups, the people have ridden before and the people who hadn’t. The first thing we did was just some walking and then we did some trotting. Then we came back the next day and today the horses we were using were Misty Supremo and Kal and today the people who had ridden before were riding without anyone leading them! The people who hadn’t were perfecting their trotting. Once we had finished we thanked them for everything, it was a great experience and is something I would love to do again!

Stop and Stare

Part of the Transition Year 08/09 Updates

Stop and Stare
The stop and stare theatre group came to school to work with the transition year class on Wednesday, the 5th of November. Using up nearly most of the school day with the help of Liam Doherty, Brien and James, the transition year students had to put together a number of scenes and have it ready to present it to the first years. Behind all these scenes, there was a meaning to them. The meaning was telling us and the first years about the peer pressure and the choices that our friends put on us such as your first cigarette, Bullying and how that we don’t try our best because the people we hang around with don’t try their best.
The different scenes we performed for the first year pupils taught us that we should choose very wisely who we should and shouldn’t hang around with because they will influence us in our lives whether it’s a good influence or a bad influence that will be the choices that we will make in the future.
Before we began going through the script, we had to take all the tables and chairs out of the room and set up the lights. We also had to do vocal exercise by talking out as loud as we could while looking at a certain point on the wall. After everyone had a go at the vocal exercise, we then began going though the different scenes and then Liam chose people for the different parts. After people had received their characters, we then started to go through the scenes and started acting them out. We practiced for about 4 hours, and after all of that we then brought the first year pupils in to perform the piece we had prepared for them.
By Suzy Boyle, Lewis Hodgson and Margie O’ Conner.

Safety First

Part of the Transition Year 08/09 Updates

Safety First
From September 2008 our six-week first aid programme began. In week 1. We learned how to deal with bleeding and wounds and how to manage an accident scene.
In week 2. We were taught how to deal with an unconscious person. We were thought how to place an unconscious person in the recovery position.
In week 3. We learned the treatment of a choking casualty. When to do C.P.R and we were shown a demonstration of C.P.R and the defibrillator.
In Week 4. We learned how to do C.P.R on a Baby.
In Week 5. We Learned how to Handle Fractures and Broken Bones, Sprains and Strains
In Week 6. We learned all about how to treat burns properly and we had a test on all we did in our 6 week first aid programme.
We enjoyed every lesson thoroughly and would thoroughly like to thank Ms. Mary Martin for her great work and guidance.