Filming 'Cracks'

This week the College has been taken over by the film crew of the feature Cracks, from the novel by South African writer Sheila Kohler. Above, filming taking place in the Chapel. Here's the Irish Film Board notice.

On Retirement

On Friday evening, we held our farewell party for our Head of Department, John Fanagan, in the Dining Hall. Our friend, Morgan Dockrell, who taught in the Department from 1975 to 2002, wrote a valedictory poem for the occasion, which starts :-

Hail, John! (a Classic start), your dreaded Nemesis
Arrives to rhyme you off the College Premises.

Click here for Morgan's full tribute.

End of Year

Term finished today, with the end of the Leaving Certificate exams. This blog will feature occasional posts during the summer holidays, but now, again, it's off for two months of rest and reading.

New Reading?

Two articles seen recently discuss the possibly new nature of reading nowadays. In the Sunday Times, Andrew Sullivan looks at how 'Google is giving us pond-skater minds' :

The experience of reading only one good book for a while, and allowing its themes to resonate in the mind, is what we risk losing. When I was younger I would carry a single book around with me for days, letting its ideas splash around in my head, not forming an instant judgment (for or against) but allowing the book to sit for a while, as the rest of the world had its say – the countryside or pavement, the crowd or train carriage, the armchair or lunch counter. Sometimes, human beings need time to think things through, to allow themselves to entertain a thought before committing to it.

The white noise of the ever-faster information highway may, one fears, be preventing this. The still, small voice of calm that refreshes a civilisation may be in the process of being snuffed out by myriad distractions.

And on Slate, Michael Aggar looks at the way people read online - bullet points, bold fonts, short sentences and paragraphs, lists ...

• When we like a text, we read more slowly.
• When we're really engaged in a text, it's like being in an effortless trance.
• Ludic (pleasure) reading can be achieved on the Web, but the environment works against you.

Next year's book list ...

... is now online here. Parents can order from any shop. We are happy to recommend our local bookshop in Ballinteer Shopping Centre, the Wise Owl. Go to 'Dublin' and then the College's name, and then the relevant year for books in all subjects.

Actiontrack Animoto

Last night our TY ended their course with the annual Showbuild Actiontrack performance. Here's an Animoto video compilation of some pictures. The music is 'Havana Blues' by Adam Burns.

TY English evening review

This evening our Transition Year finish their year's work with the annual Actiontrack show - more on this, and pictures, in due course. Meanwhile, here is a description of the end of their English course a while back - the annual TY English Evening, written by a III former who next year will be taking the course, Dalton Tice :

The evening was a great experience and a relaxed yet interesting night. It was a fine example of the work opportunities available at St.Columba's during the Transition Year. A high standard of English was revealed among the pupils who took part and presented their pieces, written over the last two terms.

The opening piece was read by Lluisa Hebrero from Spain who has spent Transition Year here at the college. She displayed a very high and impressive level of English. Her essay, "Learning the Hard Way" described her experience of coming to a new school and the cultural shock of a new country.

Poppy Vernon's "Letter to God" was a very humorous and captivating piece and she read it with great charisma and successfully made a tired audience laugh. She was followed by "A Story from Two Perspectives" written by Rebecca Scott. She portrayed the tragic murder of a young woman from the victim's and the murderer's points of view. It was a very effective piece.

The final piece, "Shadows" by Tom Guinness, was a sad and beautifully written account of the memory of Tom's dog. His times of joy with his pet were described in a manner which brought the story to life. It brought a tear to the eye in many of the audience and certainly to Tom's.

These were only a few of the pupils who participated in the evening. Alec Cherry, Mark Kavanagh, Poppy Kirwan Browne, Fred Mann, Kate Haslett and Kaila Korschen all wrote great pieces too. They were fine examples of work in our successful English Department.

Conference and Common Room

The SCC English blog features in the new (Summer 2008) edition of 'Conference and Common Room', 'the magazine for leading independent schools', in an article called 'The importance of being bloggish'. PDF archives are put online here, though the current edition isn't yet archived. We'll link to it when it is. We've previously also featured in 'Teaching English' and 'PC Live' magazines.

Science blogging

Our Science Department colleagues have started blogging on their excellent site : go here for more.

The Boyd Report, Day 1

Fiona Boyd will be keeping us up to date with the goings-on in the BSR this week, as the Transition Year Actiontrack Showbuild project proceeds (performance on Saturday evening). In her first report, she writes :

10th June 2008 ~ Day 1:

The leaders this year: Nick, Nathan, Rachel & Richard.

We started by having a few warm-up games so the leaders could learn our names and warm our bodies up. Then we spent some more time playing some games in groups. One of these was “Zip, Zap, Bong” which is played in a circle and involves passing along this imaginary energy in different ways. Then our whole year had to move into the shapes of capital letters without being able to communicate in any way with each other. Then we all lined up from tallest to smallest and got paired off into groups where we mirrored each other’s actions.

And then after the mirroring we had to try and hypnotize each other with parts of our body, by making the other person follow the palms of our hands. It was all about controlling your body and learning how to move it carefully. Then we started to do the hypnotizing thing in threes and then fours and the fourth person would shout Stop and would then interpret our frozen frames. Nick, who’s like the main leader, wrote down the interpretations and then we were given say four ideas to bring together in a mini-improvisation play. After each group had performed we broke up for lunch.

After lunch we returned to write songs. After being given some key tips on how to start a song we split in to pairs and we were given a title, which had been a memorable line from one of the improvisations earlier. I worked with Lauren Meyler and the name of our song was “I look like him”. We wrote our songs and then performed them to the rest of our year. You could choose to sing or read the lyrics. This was a really interesting activity because everybody had to try it. At the end we handed in our lyrics to the leaders for them to work on.

Then later on in the evening we met for a music session where we wrote down the chorus to eight sings with titles ranging from “King Kong’s Playtime” to “You Don’t Hold the Rhythm my beating Heart”. During the afternoon the leaders had adapted and improved our lyrics to music. This was a really fun evening and everyone really enjoyed themselves. No one cared whether you could sing or not, and it was nearly more fun if you couldn’t. Overall our first day went really well and everyone is really excited about the rest of the week.

Actiontrack Showbuild Week

Tonight the Actiontrack team from Somerset arrive for the annual Showbuild Week with our Transition Year, culminating with the show itself at 8.15 pm on Saturday in the BSR. From tomorrow they'll be working with almost 40 IV formers morning, noon and night in creating an entire show from scratch, and ending up with an acting, singing, dancing spectacular.

As with last year, one of the participants will be letting us know what happens each day.

Tim Winton's 'Breath'

We've previously recommended the Australian writer Tim Winton's recent short story collection, The Turning. His new novel, Breath, is also set in a vividly recreated Western Australia, and, like many of the short stories, examines the nature of male adolescence, as the narrator (now a paramedic) looks back at how he grew up in the company of his crazy best friend Loonie, and how they interacted with the charismatic Sando and his mysterious wife Eva. Winton is particularly good at capturing the infatuations of the narrator, Pikelet, not the least of which is with surfing, and about which he writes :

How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful, something pointless and elegant.

The book goes on to examine the nature of how our selves cohere and harden, especially at moments when we may turn out to be either ordinary (like most) or extraordinary. The idea of 'breath' runs through the novel, from the tragic opening scene onwards. Winton's writing is always crisp and evocative, capturing the unforgettable and unforgotten physical exhilaration of young boys. The whole, relatively short, novel is itself an exhilarating and sometimes breathless ride through damage and regret.

See the author's Breath micro-site here, with MP3 readings, links to reviews and more. Below, the official trailer.

Certificate exams

Good luck to all our candidates who today start their exams with English in the Sports Hall. VI open with the Leaving Certificate language paper (the literature one is tomorrow), and III also start with English this morning and this afternoon.

As life flies on ...

In today's London 'Independent', Johann Hari has an article in his opinion slot about the value of poetry in modern life :

We all live in a state of permanent partial attention: we check Facebook, eat breakfast, watch the TV and yell for somebody to feed the dog all at the same time. Poetry doesn't allow you to do that. Its quiet, still voice demands you listen to it slowly, alone.

And he proposes Clive James as Britain's next Poet Laureate, to succeed Andrew Motion :-

Poetry needs a great salesman, because in our whizzing speeding shoving lives, its moments of careful pause are more important, not less. Appropriately, the words of a poet – Emerson – made this point best:

"For most us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts."

DES Inspection Report

Our official subject inspection report conducted by the Inspectorate of the Department of Education and Science on 'The Quality of Learning and Teaching in English' is now public, and can be accessed on the DES website here. The inspection was carried over two days at St Columba's in December 2007. Like all these reports, it is divided into four sections:-

• Subject provision and whole school support
• Planning and preparation
• Teaching and learning
• Assessment

and there is a summary at the end. We were delighted by the report, and impressed by the professionalism with which the inspection was carried out. The process was a positive and affirming experience for us.
The summary reads :

• There is good provision of English lessons in St Columba’s College and there is very good whole school support for the subject.
• There is a very impressive range of co-curricular activities pertaining to English available to the students in the college.
• The English department has developed an excellent and innovative website. The website generates an interest among students in formal writing and gives them opportunities to write for a wider public than their teachers.
• A striking feature of the college is the many opportunities that students have to display their written work.
• There is a very good library in the school and the college funds payment of a librarian. The library is well stocked and well organised.
• There was evidence that students’ literacy levels improve as they progress through the year and school.
• The English department is very ably coordinated. The department engages in real collaboration and is very reflective. It is constantly developing new ideas to cultivate a love of English among students and to develop their skills in English.
• A strong reading culture has been developed in the school.
• The English teachers are commended for working in the true spirit of the Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate English syllabuses in that the wide focus of English lessons goes beyond the examinations and prepares students for life.
• A range of opportunities are planned to give students a sense of responsibility for their own learning. The TY course is extensive and gives students an excellent grounding in key skills.
• There is a high quality of teaching and learning. This was evidenced through the high standards expected, the range of texts taught, the frequency of student assignments in a range of genre, the many opportunities for students to write and the excellent examination results.
• Common examinations are set and a common marking scheme is agreed by English teachers. Students are assessed on a regular basis. The English department has a specific homework policy. All students’ work was corrected to a very high standard.

The report also contains two recommendations for improvement, on junior cycle planning and purpose in lessons, which we are addressing.

TY English Evening

Last night our Transition Year pupils completed their course, with our annual presentation in the BSR. Our guest was the Head of English at High School, Rathgar, Mrs Mary Milne, who spoke about the 10 pieces of writing she heard with great appreciation and attention to detail. The speakers/ readers/ writers were Lluisa Hebrero Casasayas, Alec Cherry, Poppy Vernon, Mark Kavanagh, Josh Buckingham, Poppy Kirwan-Browne, Rebecca Scott, Lauren Meyler, Fred Mann, Kate Haslett, Kaila Korschen, Sarah O'Mahony and Tom Guinness.

We'll have a pupil's review of the evening here before long. Meanwhile, congratulations to Fiona Boyd, winner of this year's only Premier Grade after all the marks were totted up.

An English Lawn, July 1875

Our 30th Poem of the Week is the poem that opened Sunday's Voices of Poetry, as described by Ciara O'Driscoll in yesterday's post. It is a tribute from one member of the Department to our retiring colleague Mr John Fanagan. It focusses on the moment at the start of The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James's great 1881 novel (and John's favourite book), when Mr Touchett, his son Ralph and the English Lord Warburton are taking afternoon tea, waiting for the arrival of his young beautiful American niece, Isabel Archer. The full text of the novel is here.


An English Lawn, July 1875

Three shadows stretch across the perfect lawn.
Words drop into the softened light.
Five o’clock tea on a summer afternoon,
The ceremony slow and deliberate as the Thames.

This is their drawing room, the tea-table’s feet
Sunk into the luscious grass, the old man’s
Embroidered slippers powder-blue against its sheen,
The collie curled beside his wicker-chair.

The young men stroll and smoke, and admire the house,
Its russet bricks lit by the weakening sun, laughing
As they walk back to the chair at his admonition:
‘Now, you mustn’t fall in love with my niece!’

The dog barks and dashes, and they turn
To catch her shape picked out by the doorway,
As she moves, bright-eyed, into the story,
As she steps, bare-headed, into the future.


JMG, May 2008

Voices of Poetry review

We had another successful Voices of Poetry evening on Sunday in the BSR. This special annual event celebrates poetry in many languages, and includes poetry written by pupils, much of which has featured on this blog in recent months.

Our reviewer, Ciara O'Driscoll from V form writes :

Joint winner of the Senior Poetry Prize, Fiona Boyd, read out her poem entitled 'Time'. She read her poem perfectly, making it extremely sentimental and very moving. Her performance was certainly one of my favourites for the evening, as she depicted through her poetry how time passes and why she writes down and remembers those moments special to her. Hal Downer’s evocative poem 'A Winter’s Night' was read out well by Sandy Cole, as he captures the scene of a silent home on a stormy winter’s night. Sarah Warren also read out a poem for the author Rachel Acton Filion, 'The Path, 5.47pm', the other winner of the Senior Poetry Prize. The poem contained powerful imagery as she exquisitely captures a moment in time.

Voices of Poetry was also an evening which showed the cultural diversity of St. Columba’s. The night featured poems in ten different languages, ranging from our very own Irish, to languages such as Zulu and Korean. All the foreign language poems were spoken with excellent clarity, the speakers using their tone to communicate to the audience the meaning of the poem. Some of my favourite foreign language poems would be 'L’infinito', an Italian poem read by Hanne Grainger, due to the presence she brought to the stage, along with Ben Armstrong’s contribution of a Dutch poem, as he accompanied his performance with an orange tie and miniature clogs.

Read Ciara's full review here.