1st Year team wins Chemistry competition!

Well done to the Form 1 team (and their teacher Dr Whitford) which won the Salters' Festival of Chemistry Salters' challenge on Saturday in Trinity College.
The judges were so impressed with the entry that the school has been invited to send a team to represent Ireland in the final of the Royal Society of Chemistry's "Top of the Bench" schools competition next April in the Science Museum, London, all expenses paid.

Scholarship to USA

Kellie O'Flynn has won a four-year scholarship to one of the most prestigious universities in the world - Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. The scholarship, a combined sports/academic award, worth over $170,000, will make Kellie the first Irish woman ever to play on Notre Dame’s tennis team, which is the No. 2 college team in America. She has also been offered a free choice in the degree she wishes to pursue. What a wonderful opportunity! Well done, Kellie!!

Robert Farhat - first in Ireland

Robert achieved the top marks in Ireland in the Junior Certificate Music examination - well done!

On April 20, Robert took part in three competitions in advanced senior piano playing in the Sligo Feis Ceoil and obtained first prize and gold medal in all three. He consequently went forward as one of the six finalists - from various instrumental categories - to compete for the overall prize, where he achieved the overall prize of the Most Promising Musician of the Year and the Instrumental Bursary to the value of €1000.

Robert also took part, for the first time,in the senior section of the Dublin Feis Ceoil and was runner up in the Benson Cup for playing Bach and a finalist and third prize winner for the prestigious Nordell Cup (for playing a Sonata).
Robert will round up his musical activities of this school year with a solo piano recital in Paris on May 20.

First in Ireland and maximum points!

Ian Thom is presented with his trophy (right) for achieving 1st place in the Leaving Certificate in Applied Maths. Also in the picture are Mr J. Hickey, Ian's teacher and Mr Kevin Conliffe of Friary Publications. Well done!

Ian also scored maximum points in the Leaving Certificate.  Congratulations also to the many other students who almost reached the maximum and to all those who did their best and achieved worthy results. Hopefully you got the courses you wanted!

3rd level scholarships

Congratulations to Vicki Collins, Tariq Mesallati, Michael Sexton, Ian Thom and Richard Walsh on being awarded Entrance Exhibitions to Trinity College, and also to Owen Wardell on being awarded a scholarship to UCD, all based on the excellence of their Leaving Certificate results.   

Teachnet award

Congratulations to Ms M. Hearne who completed her second Teach Net website over the summer and received an award from the Minister for Education at a ceremony at Citi Group, IFSC recently. The website, which is an Irish language teaching and learning aid, can be viewed at http://www.teachnet.ie/mhearne/2005/ 

Junior Science Olympiad medals
The Junior Science Olympiad is an international science competition. Students are selected for the Irish finals on the basis of their Junior Cert. Science results. The top100 students in the country were invited to enter the Irish Finals. The High School was qualified to enter six finalists, the highest number of finalists from any one school.  The finals were held at DCU on 5 November and consisted of three hours of tests on Science and Maths (and even included sudoko puzzles!). The top nine finalists were awarded medals and two of these went to High School pupils, a silver medal and a bronze. Our silver medallist will now go on, with five students from other schools, to represent Ireland at the International Competition to be held in Indonesia. Our bronze medallist will be on the reserve panel. Congratulations to all who took part.

Excellent examination results - well done!

The students and teachers of The High School have not only maintained their terrific academic results this year, but have produced some of the best grades ever.

In the Junior Certificate, 133 pupils presented 1080 papers where different levels are available and 133 papers at common level (CSPE). 905 papers were taken at higher level and grade C or better was obtained in 85% of these. Grade E or less was obtained on 2.5% of all papers. When the number of papers gaining a grade C or better at higher level is taken as a percentage of the total number of papers, it (71%) represents the best set of Junior Certificate results the school has ever had, equalling our previous best of last year.

In the Leaving Certificate Examination, 2005, 119 pupils presented 837 papers in 21 subjects. 566 papers were taken at higher level and grade C or better was obtained in 77% of these. Grade E or less was obtained on 4.3% of all papers.

In recent months, newspapers have continued their steady agenda of trying to force schools into contributing to league tables of results. Along with every other body in Irish education, we do not believe raw league tables are a useful addition to educational debate because they isolate only one factor concerning a school. Pastoral care, extra-curricular activities, facilities, trips, codes of conduct, attitudes and whether students are happy at school are ignored by league tables. This is why such tables are illegal. We, therefore, are not going to contribute to the agenda of the media by publishing points averages.

However, we can inform you that we looked at the figures published in the newspapers last year and the points scored by our students compare very favourably with the schools published, and are better than any of the private grind schools and institutes published.

This does not surprise us, as we would have known our standards were that high over the years. However, it does show how poor the tables of college entry figures published by the newspapers have been. When the institutes have been placed near the top of these lists it has been purely because they have large numbers in their classes! Once the tables are adjusted for the size of the classes and turned into percentages, the institutes come way down the tables and below most of the private schools in our sector - certainly well below The High School. So, again, well done students and staff!