St. Angela's School, Ursuline Convent Waterford
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Transition Year

The Transition Year programme in St. Angela’s has been devised for the enrichment of students’ learning experiences, with the purpose of laying a solid foundation for the Leaving Certificate programme. Each girl has the opportunity to develop her own skills, talents and to apply them diligently in a process of independent learning. TRANSITION YEAR BOOKLET

 

 

The following are the core subjects in Transition Year:

Art Appreciation

Career Guidance

Current Affairs

English

French

Geography

History

ICT

Irish

Maths

Physical Education

Religion

Wellbeing

 

Some of the optional modules in Transition Year:

  • Accounting
  • Applied Maths
  • Art Craft
  • Art Painting
  • Beginners’ Science
  • Biology
  • Business Studies
  • Chemistry
  • Computer Applications
  • Computer Programming
  • Cookery
  • Debating
  • ECDL
  • Enterprise Studies
  • Film Studies
  • Handcraft
  • Media Studies
  • Music
  • Philosophy
  • Physics / Electronics
  • Russian
  • School Garden Project
  • Spanish
  • Theatre Studies
  • Youth Leadership

 

the following are some of the courses / activities undertaken by the students:

  • Beauty Therapy Course.
  • Build A Bank Challenge.
  • C.P.R.
  • Céilí Dancing
  • Creative Writing
  • Dance Workshop.
  • Disability Awareness Programme.
  • Dragon’s Den
  • European Youth Parliament Conference.
  • Film Workshop.
  • Garda Drug Awareness
  • Garda Road Safety
  • G.A.A. Coaching Course.
  • Gaisce.
  • Graffiti Drama and Workshop.
  • Irish Workshop
  • Junior Achievement Programme.
  • Know Racism Project.
  • Legal Studies Workshop.
  • MATRIX Thinking Workshop.
  • One World Development Project.
  • Percussion Workshop
  • Presentation Skills Workshop.
  • Reiki Workshop.
  • RNLI Presentation.
  • Sign Language Classes.
  • SLAM – Poetry Workshop.
  • Swimming / Horticulture with St. Martin’s School.
  • Television Production Workshop – “as Gaeilge.”
  • Waterford City Fire Brigade.
  • Garda Síochána Road Safety Presentation.
  • Garda Síochána Drug and Substance Awareness Programme

Laura and Jameel from Red Hat Mobile in Waterford delivered a ‘Women in Tech’ talk to a group of Transition Year Students. The talk focused on the roles Jameel and Laura have in Red Hat, their journey to becoming Software Engineers and what a career in Technology could look like.

‘We want to demystify what it means to have a career in Software Engineering, we all know what a teacher, a doctor, an accountant does… but do we know what a software engineer does? There are great career opportunities in technology, especially for women. We want to make this option more tangible for these young girls who will soon be choosing what career they want to embark on’.

Trips and Projects

A two-week work experience programme is planned after the second term. The places are organized by the school. Each student is placed with a local employer in a work area that would, where possible, be a student’s choice.

Every effort is made to link it to career experience rather than just work experience. This may help them with their subject choice in Fifth Year. Students keep a written report each day and the employer provides an assessment report. Students do not receive payment and their period in the workplace is covered by school insurance.

Some of the businesses that have accommodated students on Work Experience:

 

The guidelines recommend that the student take personal responsibility for her learning. With this in mind, each student must produce a major unit of work on any topic of her choice by mid-March. Each student has to learn to research material, meet deadlines, and develop objectivity as well as presentation skills. She also needs to know her topic in depth in order to make an oral presentation to the class on completion of the project.

The school participates in a two-week student and teacher exchange programme with a school in Bayonne, in the South of France. It is confined to twenty students who go to school  in France for the 2 weeks. The French students return and go to school in St. Angela’s for 2 weeks. In each case the student stays with her respective host family.

While in Bayonne our students attend school and participate in trips of the local area. The students usually do a walking Tour of Bayonne. They also visit a local chocolate factory, Musée de la Marne, Biarritz, and the Musée Science and San Sebastián. The girls participate in the Basque game of “pelota”, which is a cross between Gaelic Handball and Squash. The highlight of these exchanges are the friendships that are made over the two trips between the families. 

Bayonne Exchange Essay –  One students memories of Bayonne

Build-a-Bank: AIB National Competition

Since it’s launch in 2002, the AIB Build a Bank Challenge sees a team of students set up and manage a bank in their school with the help of a dedicated AIB Student Officer. The students are involved in everything from developing a Business Plan, branding and marketing and engaging with the community through creative marketing campaigns and charity programmes.

 Snow White and the Seven Bankers – 2017-18

We at St.Angela’s would like to congratulate the team for school bank “Snow White and the Seven Bankers”, who achieved an incredible Top Six in the National Finals in Dublin on the 21st March for the AIB Build-a-Bank 2018 nationwide competition!

This brilliant bank was run by a hard-working team of seven: Emma Selmia, Milena Torosyan, Arbite Jaison, Emily Brennan, Ciara Durand, Méabh Ní Ghráidigh, and Kristina Ivanoska.

Their specialism was ‘Backing your Community’ and they were involved in a wide variety of charitable work:

  • Taking part in the school’s annual ‘Christmas Bonanza’ raising €5,042 for various charities.
  • Hosting ‘The Glow Run ‘ in aid of Pieta house raising €12,165.
  • Hosting a talk with Aoife Hearne dietician from ‘Operation Transformation’ raising €100 for focus Ireland.
  • The team also lodged over €15,000 over the course of 15 weeks with 291 account holders promoting banking and debit card usage within in the school community.

The amount of effort put in this year was wonderful and we would like to thank the girls very much for their charitable contributions to the wider school community.

The Bank of Oz – 2016-17 – National Final – 2nd place

The Bank of Oz group from St.Angela’s successfully competed in the finals and achieved an impressive overall national ranking of 2nd place.

Pretty Little Bankers –  National Winners   2015/ 2016

Pretty Little Bankers, seven hard-working Transition students from St. Angela’s, were the overall winners at the National Final of the AIB Build a Bank Challenge, 2015/2016. They are also the first school bank in the South-East to win this competition.

Pretty Little Bankers National Winners 2016

Over 170 post primary schools participated in the competition. At a series of Regional Finals, the best 30 school banks were selected to participate at the National Final, in the RDS, Dublin on Thursday, 21st April. The day was jam packed: judging, interviews and fun activities. The hectic schedule included three rounds of judging, which all 30 finalists completed. In front of a large audience, the top six banks were then invited to present a four minute presentation on stage, explaining exactly how they ran their bank since last September.  This concluded with further questioning from three head judges. The Pretty Little Bankers remained composed and confident throughout all three rounds of judging.

Pretty Little Bankers National Winners 2016The team is very proud of what they have accomplished within their local community: the Colour Dash in aid of the Irish Cancer Society which raised €11,113, volunteering in the Little Sister’s of the Poor care home and raising money for the WLR fm Lion’s Club Christmas Appeal. The girls enjoyed engaging with local businesses, gaining sponsorship and interacting with seven local primary schools – teaching and sharing their knowledge about banking and saving. Pretty Little Bankers are the first school bank in the South-East to win this competition. They would like to thank everyone who participated in this incredible journey: their loyal customers in St. Angela’s, the 851 people who participated in the Colour Run last March and their generous sponsors.

Interview videos here!




The ‘Junk Kouture’ Competition

Bank of Ireland ‘Junk Kouture’ (a play on the French phrase ‘haute couture’) is an annual, national competition for artistic students in secondary level education.

Students have from October to January to create wearable works of art from ‘rubbish’ which is usually thrown away. The idea is to have an innovative design made from up-cycled, interesting materials.

In 2018, our contestants from St.Angela’s were Abby O’Shea and Star Hutu with the fabulous dress-piece titled “Gleam Queen”. Their artwork took a lot of trial and error but eventually paid off as they got through to the semi-finals. Click here to see the article.

The Great Ursuline Bake Off has become a yearly Transition Year event. A number of heats are held first and judged by the Home Economics Department to pick the finalists. The finalists then bake their celebration cakes again for special guest judges who choose the winners. In previous years we have had guest judges ranging from celebrity chefs, Eunice Power and Edward Hayden, to Beat radio station presenter Emma Nolan. A number of local businesses have been very kind in sponsoring fantastic prizes for the students.

Transition Year Students organise the Christmas Bonanza. It is a fun afternoon for all students, their families and also for the students from St. Ursula’s.

Gaisce is a personal growth programme aimed at young people aged 15-25 for 

Voluntary activities from four categories: 

  • Community Involvement 
  • Personal Skill 
  • Sporting Achievement 
  • Venture Activity 

It is entirely voluntary but all Fourth Year students are encouraged to participate in the scheme. The requirement in each section is about 13 hours spread over a 3-6 month period. It is non-competitive and students who reach the goals they set themselves will receive the Bronze Award, consisting of lapel pin, medallion and certificate. The students may then continue to take the silver award in Fifth Year and aim for gold at a later stage. 

 

Delphi is an exhilarating school trip where students experience an adventure of teamwork, activities, and fun! Students stay overnight in the Delphi resort hotel while doing fun filled activities throughout the day such as kayaking through the calm waters of the Killary Fjord in Leenane, raft building, rock climbing and the nerve wracking Zip n Trek , pier jumping, and an endurance testing Bog Run. These activities focus on hard work as a team and certainly bring everyone closer together. It’s definitely a trip not to be missed.