Dear Parents/Guardians, Can you believe it is mid-term and Halloween is upon us. A chance to take a breather, rest and get set for the next few weeks to Christmas. It has certainly been a busy start to the new academic year and by now we have already achieved so much together. So many students are working away engaged in learning activities, adapting to new curriculum, preparing for CBAs, coursework projects at Senior Cycle or as we will know them “Additional Assessment Components” – AACs. Students are continuing to develop skills of leadership, communication and accountability in a huge variety of ways, from involvement in extra-curricular activities to being mentors, prefects, class captains, learning leaders, library assistants, members of the student council, playing on school sporting teams or organising fundraising or awareness raising campaigns. In this way we live the school motto @To Teach – To Guide – To Form’ on a daily basis and make our mission statement become a reality where our students are encouraged to become active citizens with a role to play in the world.
A huge Comhghairdeas to our students who have received Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate Applied results in recent weeks. It was lovely to see the smiling faces opening the envelopes. Congratulations also to you their parents/guardians who journeyed with them and play your supporting role. Coláiste Bríde was delighted to welcome our recent visitors from Poland, 50 students and their teachers, it also gave our new first year Irish dancers an opportunity to show their skills and display our Irish culture and heritage. It is wonderful to see all the activities that are happening at lunchtime or after school, the numbers of students who get involved and go One Step Beyond in building our school community.
I wish to commend our students on their behaviour overall this term. With nearly 1,000 students, it is fantastic to observe that the majority of students show respect, kindness, behave appropriately, uphold the school rules and wear the correct uniform at all times. We set high expectations and expect our students to meet these. So well done everyone, a special shout out to all the students who have achieved Well Done Cards, Green Commendation Sheets and received no dockets. I always applaud a student who can say to me that she never got a docket in all her years in CB! It happens a lot – I am proud to say! This year we continue to place a strong emphasis on the importance of being on time for school and daily attendance. Nationally there is a campaign encouraging parents and students to be in school every day as the statistics for days of school missed is way above the numbers of days absent pre-Covid. So let us turn this around and get students to have less days absent and stop them from going home early as this is also how classes are missed.
COLÁISTE BRÍDE NEWSLETTER
As always our dedicated staff are always engaging in professional learning activities so that we can offer students every opportunity available. It is great to have our strong connections with organisations such as Localise, Trinity College Dublin, Bridge 21, Codeplus, Teen-Turn, our work experience providers, local school and sporting organisations so that our student learning can be enriched by co-curricular experiences in a range of programmes and subjects. I hope that in this newsletter you get a further insight into many of the activities that are happening and the wonderful achievements by some of our students such as being picked for regional/ Irish sporting teams, winning World Championships etc. We are always delighted to hear about student attainment and we encourage students and parents to let us know about these.
This year as you are aware we have new Bí Cinéalta guidelines, we will be looking at systems to restrict further mobile phones in school, we continue to embed our communication with parents/Guardians on TYRO and may I thank parents/guardians for the great amount who are using the TYRO APP so well. As always new members are encouraged to join our Parents’ Council and we are looking for parents who might be interested in volunteering to help on school trips, to assist at State Examinations times etc to come forward if you have some time to give back to the school community please.
For 6th Year parents, I encourage you to get your daughters to do some research into third level colleges, courses over the mid-term, to go visit for free College campuses, to travel the bus routes, find out the practicalities involved in getting to College, to start planning forwards for CAO and PLC course applications as applicable. To invest time in looking at options. Finally, as you may be aware from coverage in the media, we like so many other schools, continue to be affected by the shortage of qualified teachers nationally. Again, I ask if you are aware of a person who is a qualified teacher or a student teacher available to assist with teaching, supervision or substitution please do not hesitate to contact us.
I take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Halloween.
Congratulations to our U16 footballers who have gotten their season off to a great start with two wins from three matches. They have seen off stiff competition from Coláiste Chillian and Kishoge Community College and put up a great fight against Maryfield College but were beaten in the end. They hope to progress to the next stage of the competition
Hi, my name is Sophie Tapiz, and just last week I was competing at the ITF Taekwondo World Championships in Poreč, Croatia with team Ireland, along with my clubmate, Cara Byrne who's in TY. The competition lasted 4 days from the 7 to 11 of October. I competed in 5 events: individual patterns, individual sparring, team patterns, team sparring and team power breaking. In individual patterns I had rounds against Netherlands, Canada, Slovakia and Japan before going against England that led to 3 draws before eventually bowing out in the semi-final, earning a bronze medal. In individual sparring I won against Norway and Argentina, narrowly losing against a very strong Ukranian in my quarterfinals. Team patterns and team sparring were unfortunately first round exits. My final event was team power breaking, we each had to break board(s) on our technique to advance to playoffs, which we did. In playoffs we were against Romania, we sent the girl who knew power breaking better than the rest of us, she broke the technique, and the Romanian girl didn't. And that was the moment we became world champions. In the medal statistics, the Irish juniors came 2 overall and Team Ireland managed to place 1 overall out of 57 countries from our pre-junior, junior and senior categories. From being gutted for myself and others who lost so closely, to watching my teammates succeed, losing my voice cheering them on, swapping t-shirts and doboks with people from across the world, making new friends and the little moments between the competition, all these moments make trips like these so special. From the competition I took home a bronze and a gold medal, but more importantly I take many memories and valuable lessons to learn and grow from.
My Basketball Ireland Academy 4 Nations Experience
Mia Dunne
A squad of 12 players were selected from Basketball Ir Academy. A Trial took place in Limerick, where 12 girls wer represent the Basketball Ireland Academy, in a four na tournament in East Kilbride, Scotland. This would take place on the weekend of 13th-15th June 2025. I was lucky to make this cut We met at Joels early morning on Friday 13th June, and t to Belfast, and then boarded the ferry to Stranraer. We then t another bus journey to the stadium in East Kilbride, which w outside Glasgow.
It was a long day’s travel, but it helped our team to get to kno other better, as we were chosen from all over Ireland. W the stadium a few hours before our first game began. W playing against England. Before the first match all the teams lined up in the stadium and they played the national anthems f country. At this stage, nervous excitement was building f The game was tough; we had a strong start but unfortuna ended up with England winning. After the game we went back to our hotel in East Kilbride some food before crashing out for the night. It would be an early start as we had two games on Saturday versus Wales and then Scotland.
The first game against Wales went well and we ended up winning. After a few hours break, we then played the host nation Scotland. They started strongly against us, but we came back into the g and finished up winning. We were delighted. It meant we w Scotland again on Sunday in the semi-final. Again, we w the hotel afterwards and had a lot of fun.
On Sunday in the semi-final against Scotland, it was a similar g the first one against them and again we ended up playing well and won by the same score which meant we would play England in the final, as they beat Wales in the other semi-final. Once again England were too strong for us, and they won the game which meant that we ended up with the silver medal We were straight back onto the bus for the long trip home with a few tired bodies. The whole weekend was a great experience, and I made some great memories and new friends. It would be great to get to do it again someday.
My luck has continued, as I just got selected for U16 Girls Top 30 in Ireland. I am continuing to work hard at my training each week to ensure I give myself the best chance in the sport I love
VISIT OF POLISH STUDENTS FROM WARSAW
– BUILDING BRIDGES THROUGH EDUCATION
TEACHING & LEARNING
We have a winner from Ms. Scanlons 1st Year English group in Rang Diarmaid, Jasmine Kearney! Jasmine did her own version of the 1946 WW2 Poem 'First they Came' by Pastor Martin Niemöller and put a climate change twist on it.
SECONDARY STUDENTS SEARCH FOR “EIN STEIN” IN CLASSIC MATHEMATICS
CHALLENGE
Researchers from Trinity’s Experimental Mathematics Lab, partnering with staff in Trinity Access Programmes (TAP), welcomed TY students from Coláiste Bríde to take part in a classic “ein Stein” challenge as Maths Week takes centre stage in Ireland this week
TY PODCAST
Our Transition Year students are busy researching and recording CBFM – our new termly podcast that will be available to download in November. The students have been compiling stories and news from the CB School community including the Student Council, our many sports teams and the upcoming TY musical – ‘Sister Act’. CBFM will also showcase the considerable musical talent in the school including the School Choir as well as individual musicians.
CBFM is part of a new podcasting programme the school has implemented as part of our efforts to educate the students about new media and develop their literacy and oracy skills. Each of the students involved has researched, scripted and recorded an item for the podcast. Students will also be recording podcasts on specific aspects of School life including the Ember Team and the upcoming TY musical.
WELCOME TO OUR TY CORNER!
Researchers from Trinity’s Experimental Mathematics Lab, partnering with staff in Trinity Access Programmes (TAP), welcomed TY students from Coláiste Bríde to take part in a classic “ein Stein” challenge as Maths Week takes centre stage in Ireland this week
TY PODCAST
Our Transition Year students are busy researching and recording CBFM – our new termly podcast that will be available to download in November. The students have been compiling stories and news from the CB School community including the Student Council, our many sports teams and the upcoming TY musical – ‘Sister Act’. CBFM will also showcase the considerable musical talent in the school including the School Choir as well as individual musicians.
CBFM is part of a new podcasting programme the school has implemented as part of our efforts to educate the students about new media and develop their literacy and oracy skills. Each of the students involved has researched, scripted and recorded an item for the podcast. Students will also be recording podcasts on specific aspects of School life including the Ember Team and the upcoming TY musical.
