Pat Speight told stories for all students in the library starting with the first years as part of the Christmas celebration. After the celebration, he stayed on and the other classes took turns coming in to hear his stories. He was a big success and the students really enjoyed his stories.

The first years put on a performance for their parents in the library. The principal, Gina O’Connor and JCSP regional development officer, Jerry McCarthy welcomed the parents and congratulated the students on their hard work. The students did a reading of the poem “The night before Christmas” and sang “Snow is Falling”. They were given copies of the poem to take home as prizes for their hard work and they also received JCSP certificates for their hard work. The stud

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The second year JCSP students completed a 4 week Shakespeare workshop in the library. This is based on “The Merchant of Venice”. The students were taught through a team of actors who performed scenes from the play and had group discussions and activities with them about central themes in the plays.

The second year students read a short graphic novel about Nelson Mandela called “The black pimpernel” by Magnus Bermar and Marlene Winsberg. They completed a quiz and completed bookclub discussion topics on the book and Nelson Mandela. The students had a live skype session with a school in South Africa to discuss the book and Nelson Mandela. It was a big success and we look forward to working with the same school again soon.

  Animal Magic brought animals into the library. The JCSP student learned about t he animals and read books in the library about the animals afterwards. They also completed writing activities taken from the Animal Magic website.

Children’s writer Vincent McDonnell visited St Enda’s Community College, Limerick recently to meet with the young artists who provided the illustrations for his latest book, The Catalpa Adventure. Vincent was thrilled the students of St Enda’s agreed to illustrate some of the scenes in the book and really enjoyed the morning in the school with such a nice group of young students and staff. During the morning’s event, which took place in the JCSP (Junior Certificate Sch

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To finish of the library year in style we invited Niall DeBurca to do a storytelling session for the whole school. Normally events are for JCSP or junior cert students only, but we felt that it would beneficial for all students to have a session with a Seannachai. It has been one of the most successful events ever in the library. All of the students loved it. And it was the talk of the school right up until students finished their end of term exams the following week. Th

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  A group of our third years attended Roddy Doyle’s Fighting Words workshops at Croke Park. It was a huge success and they had a brilliant time and we have booked our students in for next year again. It gives them huge confidence and they realise that they can achieve so much if they are given the opportunity to get involved in projects such as this outside of the classroom.

A group of our first years went on the field trip initiative to Baltinglas – an outdoor adventure center. Each year as part of this initiative the first year JCSP students who work hardest and improve the most in the year go on a day trip. This is definitely one of the best initiatives in our school – the students absolutely love it – and work so hard to ensure they have a place on the trip. It is a fantastic incentive for them to work hard and push the

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Drop Everything and Write was an initiative started by our coordinator which initially was a CSPE project which later became a cross curricular project. In order to improve the writing skills of our students we had them all write a postcard. And rather than write it to just anybody we had them write it on an issue that was important to them and to send it to a local politician or person in the community asking them to address the problem. We initially did this with JCSP and junior

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