Hey everyone, it’s Wiktoria here, I’m sure you have seen me around the building helping with Homework Club and lots of other groups. Now that we are all back at Citywise after Christmas and starting a new term, let’s look at some of the highlights and wonderful things that we did during term one!
So firstly, during Culture Week, our Grenoble and Hamburg group learned about selected countries and cultural differences between them and Ireland. For example, some groups learned the diverse ways to say ‘hello’ and different gestures accompanied with greetings around the world. Did you know that Tibetan monks stick their tongue out to greet people? Well, now you do!
Another great highlight from term one was the ‘egg drop competition’ which was part of Science Week. This involved the design and creation of a protective encasing for an egg. Many creative ideas emerged, from parachutes or layers upon layers of fabric incased in a box, to attaching balloons to the outside of their egg shelters, everything was thought of but, sadly, some eggs did not survive the drop.
A few of our female leaders from the Leadership progamme had an overnight retreat in the Citywise building itself for some rigorous training, but with a cheeky little movie or two thrown in for good measure. The next day they were visited by RTE where they were interviewed about their opinions on climate change as part of COP21 in Glasgow. Safe to say the world is in good hands!
When the weather was in our favor and we had the chance to do it, all our after-school clubs went on a trip to Masseys Woods. This is always a day full of activities and fun and even if it rains (which it did) that never dampens the craic. One of the activities was to build a shelter out of the materials found in the woods, so it was almost as though it was destined to happen those days.
When it came to that time of year and Ole Saint Nick was a knocking around, one of the more exciting events that took place was several of our students involved in after school groups being invited to The Late Late Toy Show. They got to hang backstage, get some free snacks, and have a buzz. The real highlight was that they also got to perform in a choir with the one and only Ed Sheeren (they even got to hang around with him backstage and have the chats!).
The toy show also sponsors the Youth in Action Programme, which our Leadership programme is involved in and this is all about trying to better the local community.
Our Junior and Intermediate groups were also hard at work and began the Student Enterprise programme, which is giving them the ins and outs of setting up a small business and all the steps and bits necessary to excel at this. Both programmes continue for the year and will only help to boost our students both in Citywise and in school life.
Our Fast-Track groups began to have their monthly meetings with Salesforce which is a mentoring programme that helps them to focus on their goals and ambitions and give them the skills needed to do this to the best of their abilities.
Last but not least by any means, is our Robotics Club, who were preparing for their first Lego League competition which is at the end of February (Blog to come don’t worry folks). For this competition they had to build a robot that can perform the needed tasks and then identify a problem and come up with a clever solution to this. Let’s hope there’s not a robot rebellion any time soon!
So, I think that’s it all summed up for now and by looking back at our first term, we are nothing but excited about all the amazing opportunities and adventures that await us in term two!