Day 6

Checked out of hotel at 10 .30
Headed to Oparinor shopping centre to spend our last remaining euros and experience French shopping.
Checked in at 1. 30 pm for our return flight to Dublin.
All arrived back safely but very tired at St Pauls at 7pm

On behalf of myself and the other staff, it was a pleasure to have such a great bunch of  St Paul’s students with us.   

Mrs M McMahon

See below for pictures from the trip:

Day 5

Magical experience for everyone in Disneyland.
We had 12 hours to enjoy all it has to offer!!!!

Day 4

Up early, beautiful  breakfast in hotel.
Rendezvous vous at 10 15am with Tour guide, Joe Walsh at Place de la Concorde.
Entertaining tour with lots of info on Paris, is history and architecture.
Lunch on Avenue de Wagram , next to Avenue de Mac Mahon!!!!!
We then descended the Champs Élysées en masse and met up with our bus driver, Christian who escorted us to La Tour Eiffel for our 2.30pm reservation.

Everyone enjoyed this, some venturing right to the top for the breathtaking views.
En route to Flunch for dinner, we all sang”Champs Élysées”by Jean Dessinbas we made our way back up to Montmartre.
After dinner we had some free time to visit le Sacre Coeur and Place du Tertre.
More spending, presents and even more portraits were acquired.
All back safely to hotel
Lights out and dreams of Disneyland tomorrow.

Update: Tuesday 30 October, 1500 GMT

Arrived Sunday night in Hotel Campanile in Roissy near Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Dinner in Flunch beforehand. Ryan Doran was extremely adventurous in his choice. Frites frites and more frites!

Hotel is tres chic et moderne!

All slept well and ready for a full day in Paris on Monday! More updates later.

Update: Monday 29 October, 1300 GMT

Very early start in Chamonix on Sunday morning.

We then headed to Taize, and experienced really bad weather conditions en route.

Thanks to Christian, our driver, we got through the biting wind and heavy snow.

We arrived at Taize for Mass, and had a presentation on Taize from Brother Jean Luc of the community and then visited the shop where more presents were bought

We had a simple lunch in Taize and then a long trip up the road to Paris

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Pictured above Students Saorlaith Ní Dhughaill and Ronan Davies, and Principal, Mr Oliver Mooney receive Sciath an Athar Uí Mhuirí (the Father Murray Shield) from President of Comhaltas Uladh, Mr Niall Comer.

Pictured above are St Paul’s students along with Head of Irish Miss Ciara McCoy, Irish teachers at St Paul’s, Mr Dáithí Murray, Mr Jarlath Burns &  Mr Stephen Quinn Principal Mr Oliver Mooney, and Mr Niall Comer, President Comhaltas Uladh 

Students and staff at St Paul’s High School were celebrating following the awarding of Sciath an Athar Uí Mhuirí (the Father Murray Shield) to the school’s Irish department.

The awarding of the prestigious shield recognises the quality of spoken Irish among the student population, and carries with it a number of scholarship awards for students who will attend Irish language summer colleges in the Donegal Gaeltacht this year.

Comhaltas Uladh (the northern branch of Conradh na Gaeilge – the Gaelic League) visits schools to speak to students and assess their level of Irish for various competitions.  President of Comhaltas Uladh, Mr Niall Comer, congratulated the students on their fluency in the Irish language, and their confidence in using the language every day.

Miss Ciara McCoy, Head of Irish, praised the hard work of the staff of the Irish department and the students of St. Paul’s for their fantastic achievement.  ”I am very proud that we have won this shield. The hard work and dedication of the staff in the Irish department helps develop and create an atmosphere of enthusiasm and love for Irish among our students.  The students of St Paul’s embrace the Irish language when the begin in year 8 and it is very rewarding to see many of then leave as fluent Irish speakers at the end of year 14″.

Principal of St Paul’s, Mr Oliver Mooney, welcomed Mr Comer to St Paul’s, and paid tribute to the dedication of Comhaltas Uladh to strengthening Irish in schools and in the community.  Mr Mooney thanked Mr Comer for the support offered by Comhaltas Uladh, and extended his best wishes to the students from St Paul’s who will visit the Gaeltacht this summer.

More the fifty students from St Paul’s will visit Gaeltacht colleges at Loch an Iúir, Machaire Rabhartaigh and Bun an Inbhir in County Donegal this summer.

 Year 14 student, Lauren O’Hare, pictured with her certificate of proficiency from JLPT.

Last December Year 14 student Lauren O’Hare completed her Japanese language proficiency test in Dublin – an exam that’s held worldwide in 54 countries.

Lauren began learning Japanese through her own self-study almost four years ago. She took the opportunity to sit the exam in December and has five different exams to take to complete the course. Lauren commented,  ”I have a long way to go, but I believe that with hard work, and my love for languages, I can get through it.”

This shows that if you have an interest in something, you should go for it and stick with it to the end. Lauren hopes to study French or Linguistics next year at Queen’s University or University of Ulster.  Lauren currently studies French, Biology and BTec Dance and is also interested in Italian and Korean.

(the Japanese symbol for congratulations)

St Paul’s Science students demonstrating an experiment to a P7 pupil and a parent at Open Day. 

St Paul’s High School, Bessbrook held its annual Open Day on Saturday 25 January.  Prospective pupils from Primary 7 classes in our feeder primary schools and their parents visited the school in large numbers.  They were guided around the school by our current Year 8 and Year 9 students and shown the different departments, getting a flavour for what the school is about.

Principal Mr Oliver Mooney addressed parents and pupils on the day.  A video of Mr Mooney’s address is available below.

Prospective parents and pupils of St. Paul’s can watch the video to experience a virtual tour of the school.

A selection of photographs from Open Day 2012 are visible below.

Year 12 students at St Paul’s, who completed a 10 week online Irish course, pictured with Head of Irish Miss Ciara McCoy

Twelve GCSE students have just completed an online GCSE Irish course which they started in September.  This course was designed to last ten weeks and gave the students the opportunity to boost their knowledge of Irish and to learn new vocabulary and structures as well as practice their Irish in the digital world.  The course concluded this week and the students were presented with certificates of completion.

Miss Ciara McCoy, Head of Irish, designed the online course as part of her OLTE (Online Teaching and Learning for Educators Course) course. This course is provided by the RTU (regional Training Unit) and four of St. Paul’s colleagues are now graduates of the OLTE course.

Mr Dáithí Murray, Director of ICT at St Paul’s, praised the students for their participation and commitment to the online course. He said that this course provided the students with an excellent opportunity to improve their Irish while developing their high order thinking skills such as synthesising and reasoning.

Mr Murray also said that this online course provided a great experience for the students, which will prove invaluable when they continue on to higher level education.

Year 10 students of Irish at St Paul’s High School who completed the Level 2 OLA examination in Irish were recently presented with their certificates by CCEA.

OLA stands for OnLine Assessment, and replaces the old GOML (Graded Objective in Modern Languages) Award.

Head of Irish at St Paul’s, Miss Ciara McCoy, congratulated the students on their hard work and dedication to Irish and for completing the exam online.

Comhghairdeas le scoláirí Bhliain 10 in Ardscoil Naomh Pól, An Sruthán, a tháinig sa 2ú áit i dTráth na gCeist mór Gael-Linn ar na mallaibh.

Congratulations to the Year 10 students from St Paul’s High School, who achieved 2nd place in the inter-schools Irish language quiz, organised by Gael-Linn recently.

The students are:  Caoimhe Mackin, Lucy Quinn, Aoife McAteer and Chloe Reel.  Maith sibh, a chailíní cliste.

Year 14 students at St Paul’s High School, with their Spanish visitors from Granada in Spain.
The students are pictured with Principal Mr Oliver Mooney and Spanish Teacher Miss Louise Mulholland 

St Paul’s High School warmly welcomes seven Spanish Exchange Programme students from Granada, Spain.

They arrived on Saturday 10th September and were greeted by their Year 14 exchange partners who had visited Granada in April.

As part of the programme they will be attending classes at St Paul’s during the week and visiting many attractions that are on offer around Northern Ireland.

The Spanish students will be staying with their host families and will depart on Tuesday 20th September. 

Pictured with teacher Miss Louise Mullholland are the Seven Students that participated in the exchange.

Seven St Paul’s Year 13 Spanish students have completed their ten day stay in Granada, Spain, as part of a Spanish Exchange Programme.

During their time in Spain they lived with host families and experienced all aspects of Spanish life and culture including the opportunity to experience Spanish “Semana Santa” Easter processions.

They visited the infamous Alhambra Palace, the beautiful Sierra Nevada, Almuñecar beach resort south of Granada and the very interesting and educational Science Park.

All students involved had a very enjoyable experience and have gained confidence in their use of the Spanish language as a result.

We now look forward to the Spanish students’ return visit to St Paul’s in September

The group of AS students from St Paul’s High School, Bessbrook who are participating in a Spanish Exchange trip to Granada accompanied by Miss L Mulholland (Spanish Teacher and Trip Co-ordinator)

On Tuesday 12^th April a group of Spanish A Level students from St Paul’s High School headed off to the south of Spain as part of an exchange programme. Accompanying the group from St Paul’s High School were a further 36 students from St Catherine’s College, Armagh, St Patrick’s College, Armagh, St Michael’s Grammar School, Lurgan and Loretto College in Coleraine.

The students will stay with host families in the beautiful city of Granada and during their 10 day stay, they will have an opportunity to visit the very many cultural attractions and historical landmarks which this region has to offer. They will attend classes in a Spanish secondary school and experience life as a typical Spanish teenager.

Their Spanish counterparts with whom they will be staying whilst in Granada will travel to Ireland in September on a reciprocal visit.