St. Kevin's Community College

St Kevin’s Community College offer a variety of course to cater to student needs both at Junior and Leaving Certificate Level including

• Junior Certificate
• Junior Certificate Schools Programme
• Transition Year
• Leaving Certificate
• Leaving Certificate Applied

Transition Year

St. Kevin’s C.C decided to re-introduce Transition Year into the school in September 2012, after a 10 year absence.

The main reasons behind this decision were:

• To enable students to make better decisions in subject choice for their Leaving Certificate
• We had found that a number of our students were leaving school at a very young age [16], and that an extra year in the education system would be of benefit.
• Statistically students who participate in Transition Year get on average a higher amount of points in their Leaving Cert than students who do not do Transition Year.

It was decided that students would be offered a wide and varied programme in Transition Year, so that they would be able to experience a range of subjects, some of which would be new to them. The subjects open to TY students are:

Irish                               English                            Maths

History                           Geography                       Engineering

Woodwork                       Art                                 Science

Music                              Religion                           Careers

Enterprise                      Drama                             Technical Graphics

Digital Media                  Hair and Beauty               Legal Studies

Communications               Safety                            Computers

Business                          Horticulture                    Spanish

Home Economics              Science                           Leisure & Recreation

On top of this, it would be expected that students would come out with a number of certificates/qualifications that could be used on their Curriculum Vitae by the end of 4^th year.

Qualifications will be gained in:

• 1^st Aid
• Hair and Beauty
• Digital Media
• Safety
• Computers

Furthermore TY students would be encouraged to participate in a selection of other initiatives that would be available to them throughout the year. Some of these initiatives include:

• Gaisce – The President’s Award
• Concern
• Older & Bolder
• FAI Coaching Certs
• Mini-companies
• Build a bank
• Christmas Fair
• Business in the Community

An important aspect of Transition Year is work experience. Every Friday has been timetabled for students to participate in work experience in order to have a taste of working in different areas/professions that they may wish to pursue when they leave school. Each student will have 3 different work placements in 4^th year, each of which will last about 10 weeks each.

Trips, and visitors to the school are a fundamental part of Transition Year and each subject is encouraged to organise something.

Some of the trips being organised for the year include:

• Overnight in Carlingford Adventure Centre
• Botanical Gardens
• Croke Park – GAA museum
• Gaiety Theatre
• Camping Trip
• Irish Film Institute
• Spanish Tapas Restaurant
• Early Drive Course
• Hillwalking

Some of the visitors include:

• John Lonergan – former governor of Mountjoy
• Liam O’Neill – President of GAA