TY

Mrs. L chose Aisling and I to prepare a speech to preform for the the third year parents. Me and aisling then got together over the next coming days to bring a speech together, we talked about all the trips we have been on, the projects we've completed and what TY has done for us.

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This was our speech which we read in front of over 200 parents, I've high lighted the main points in green.

Hi im Rebecca and im Aisling we are current ty’s, I chose to do ty for a number of reasons. I wanted to get more involved with the school, make more friends and expand my skills. We also wanted a break between the jc and lc, and to also get a taster of all the subjects to make sure we would make the right decisions for the leaving cert. In saying this it is not a doss year.

            

We started off the year with workshops for the first three Wednesdays to familiarise ourselves with our new class and year group, and to prepare us for the working world. We learned etiquette, positive thinking, and massages for the stressful times and confidence building. Then came the TY trip to Carlingford. It was a brilliant experience From swimming in the ocean to a blindfolded walk in the dark it was the time of our lives. We took part in many things in Carlingford like low ropes course, laser tag, body zorbing and a version of the crystal maze, all this helped with our team building.

Weve been on many trips so far such as institute of technology Tallaght for science week, Pádraig pearse museum for irish, the national history museum, national art museum and the national library for English, for maths we went to ratbaggen lakes to solve real life maths problems, for religion we went to city west for schools across borders and interacted with other TY classes, We went to punchestown expo centre for the Kildare road safety show, we fund-raised for the ISPCC in town and we just went to the BT young scientist last week. This makes TY most enjoyable, and we still have 5 months to go…

We complete many projects in TY. We began our year in geography doing a project about the counties of Ireland and then expanded our course to a trip around the world project. In Irish we did a powerpoint on ourselves, in English we focused on the late seamus Heaney and have started the lc book list.

The more strenuous projects include Sci Fest, Junk Kotoure and Mini Company. They tested our limits and showed how much we could push ourselves. Scifest is not all about work but can be fun too! My Sci Fest project is electric fruit. Mine is dizzy people. Although it can be hard to find 15 people to partake in your experiment and get everybody organised. Last week we had our junk couture fashion show it gave us  a chance to show off our out fits out of recycled materials and strut our stuff down the catwalk. Mini company is as the name suggests. You start your own business from the ground up!!

TY didn’t mean we stopped learning, we continued our learning using different techniques and skills. We’ve learned how to research, apply our learning to everyday life and to be honest I feel weve be learning and researching in a fun environment without the stress of exams.

In the first three years in st.w I feel all my energy was focused on my jc like I was training for the Olympics and the Olympics was the jc. During those three years I was a very quiet student. Ais talked a lot.  I was also self conscience and stressed at times about exams and results. I found it hard to mix with others because of exam focus. TY for me has given me an opportunity to make new friends, to learn in a relaxed manner, to enjoy a taste of LC subjects without the excess stress of exams, I have gained confidence and am capable of making wise subject choices regarding my Lc.

Through work experience and time with careers guidance I now feel focused for what I want in the future. From learning to cope with children and learning to cope with difficult customers in shops. Work experience was a great lesson. We’ve even learned a few moves from partaking in Zumba.

The fact that we are able to stand up here tonight infront of this crowd shows how much we have changed.

Ty encourages students to use their initiave, build self esteem and become mature independent learners.

All of these things come about through participation in group work, guest speakers, projects and interaction with each other. I’m very glad I did TY, for me I’m going forward in life with a positive outlook and the skills to cope with what lies ahead. I learned how to work as a group, gained confidence and learned to overcome disagreements.

But one thing to remember, TY is what you make of it, being involved in all aspects. TY is as good as you make it.

From my experience of TY I think it's brilliant and its worth the extra time. If you had asked me to do that speech in third year or after going straight into 5th year I don't think I'd be capable of doing so. I hope this helped you make your decision if you've any questions just comment :)