Welcome Back!

Vol 28 No 20 10 Feb 2023

Welcome Back!

It was a very busy half term at The High School with Form 6 pupils completing their Leaving Certificate projects in Classics, Economics, Applied Maths, and DCG while those studying Art have been finishing their portfolios for applications to third level Art courses. They have also completed their CAO and UCAS applications and preparing for their HPAT examinations. Pupils in Form 2 have submitted their CBA projects in Modern Languages and Mathematics. There have been mock interviews, cultural excursions, sports competitions, conferences, quizzes, and fairs attended. In addition, all pupils in Forms 3 and 6 have spent the last two weeks before the break participating in mock Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate examinations. Well done, everyone!

World Cup Cricket Squad

Congratulations to Rachel Delaney (HSD, 2009-15) and Orla Prendergast (HSD, 2014-20) who have been competing with the Ireland squad in the ICC Women's T20 World Cup in South Africa. We wish our past pupils every success as they compete for further honours at international level in the 2023-24 season.
Mr A Malin

Hockey Ireland Selections

We are delighted that Ben Pasley, Alex Lynch (both Form 6), and Sam Maxwell (Form 5) have been selected to compete with the Ireland U18 boys' hockey team. They traveled to England for a series over the half term break and continue to play and train with the extended squad for upcoming series at Easter and during the summer. Robert O'Brien (Form 2) has been selected for a trial to be assessed for the Ireland U16 hockey squad that will be heading to Spain for the 8 Nations tournament in the summer. In addition, Hollaí Quinn (Form 2) has been selected for the Ireland U16 girls' hockey squad that will play a series in Germany during Easter break before heading to Spain for the 8 Nations tournament during the summer. We wish our pupils every success as they compete for further honours at international level.
Mr P Fitzpatrick

Turkey/Syrian Earthquake Appeal

We launched an appeal for funding to support the work of UNICEF Ireland and Oxfam Ireland in southern Turkey and northern Syria in Assembly recently. In addition proceeds of a non-uniform day that was held on Friday 10 February were collected by the Student Council and donated to the Turkey/Syria Earthquake Appeal. It is possible for anyone to donate directly via the websites listed below:
Unicef and Oxfam.

Argentina Visit

What a fantastic performance at the weekend from our SCT against a very strong team from Argentina. Belgrano Athletic Club is an amateur sports club from Buenos Aires. The HSD SCT scored two late tries to secure the win 27-12 in a great display of rugby from both teams. We are always delighted to host visiting teams - good luck for the rest of your tour!
Mr Malin

Form 4 Subject Information Day

Recently pupils in Form 4 spent time in the Demonstration Theatre listening to teachers present on each Leaving Certificate subject. They discussed what each subject entailed, how it is assessed, what career it could lead to, who it would be best suited for, and the topics it would cover. It was very useful as it gave pupils an insight into what each subject would involve. It was also beneficial because it helped us determine which subjects to pick for Senior Cycle. Overall, it was a very interesting day filled with lots of useful information.
Esmé Donaghy

Form 1 Basketball Win

Congratulations to the Form 1 basketball team who won their match recently against Woodbrook School making them as yet undefeated in the tournament. They have now qualified for the quarter finals of the East Region Basketball Schools' League. Well done to all the players and we wish them the best of luck as they progress through the competition.
Mrs Murdoch

HSD MUN Conference

Exciting news! For the first time since 2018 The High School is hosting a Model United Nations conference – HSDMUN! The conference is set to take place on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 March and promises to be a fantastic event for the school. Attendees will come from schools all across Dublin and beyond to The High School for the two day event. At an MUN conference, attendees act as delegates of different countries and discuss topics ranging from the crisis in Ukraine to inflation to maternal healthcare. Naturally, running this big event is not easy but we have an amazing MUN team that is up to the challenge! We will be looking for volunteers from all form groups to help out over the two days, so if you are interested please contact Mr Scanlon or Ms Maher.
Jake O’Loughlin

Form 1 SPHE

As part of our social theme of SPHE we have been busy building and decorating new bird houses. We designed, constructed, and decorated them in class and plan to complete them later this week. The bird chorus around our beautiful campus has increased significantly over the past few weeks and we hope our bird houses will become home to a number of broods for wrens, tits, and robins over the next weeks, months, and years. Thank you to Ms Delaney for her assistance in the construction and design stage and to Mr Kingston and Mr O’Sullivan for the supervised use of the equipment.
Mr Langrell

Politics and Society

A message from Form 5 Politics and Society: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are 17 global goals which were set by the United Nations in 2015 with the aim of achieving them by 2030. The SDGs are interconnected environmental, social, and economic goals focussed on sustainable development for individuals, communities, and nations.

As members of the school community we all need to play our part in creating a more sustainable living environment for ourselves and for future generations. In Goal number 15 (‘Life on Land’) and Goal number 12 (‘Responsible Consumption and Production’) we can see examples of small actions we can all take to help our world. For instance, something we can all do to help progress these goals is to locally source our food as much as possible. This includes buying Irish produce and supporting smaller local Irish businesses.

This is just one example of many things we can do to help with these goals. If we all help work towards these 17 global goals we can create a more sustainable world for us all. If you would like to learn more about the Sustainable Development Goals or what you can do to live more sustainably visit https://sdgs.un.org/goals.
Form 5 Politics and Society class

TY Culture Module - Foods From Around the World

One of the main elements of study in Form 4 is that subjects rotate every six weeks. This means a new teacher teaching a new aspect of the subject. For my Form’s third Geography rotation, we were with Ms Gray studying different cultures, specifically India. Last Monday was a highlight for me because we were to bring in various foods from around India, working either in groups or solo. Some of the foods people brought in were coconut burfi, a sweet consisting of coconut, milk powder, and spices; chocolate barfi, a dessert of dark chocolate and a spiced white chocolate filling, and tarka dahl, a type of chickpea-based curry. I brought in onion bhajis which are a type of spiced onion fritter served with a sweet tamarind chutney from east India. Tamarind is a treacle-like substance found in seed pods on trees that has a very sour, zingy flavour not unlike a lemon. In the pre-colonial era, Indians would not have had access to lemons and limes so they used tamarind instead. I will list the recipes for both the bhajis and the tamarind chutney below. Overall the day was great fun and it was so interesting to explore the various flavours of India. Click here for the recipe and instructions.
Michael Binchy