Spirit Of Pres Week

It’s that time of the year again in Presentation College. Every year, the school celebrates “The Spirit Of Pres” by hosting a number of sporting activities, group talks and much more.

A highly anticipated event is the Annual Staff Vs. Students Rugby Tag Match. It takes place on Senior Rugby Pitch and will defiantly be a treat to students and staff. Who will win this year?

An awards ceremony will also be taking place this Friday for Leaving Certificate Students 2011 for best subject achievements.

Other events include:

• Pres Colours Day for Ghana
• Celebrity Bainisteoir for Transition Year Students
• Just A Minute Quiz for 5th and 6th Year Students

The college will also be focusing on anti-bullying for 1st year students. A workshop will take place on Thursday 24th November with a number of speakers present.

Spirit Of Pres Week - Medal Winners

Click on photo to enlarge

Pictured above:
L to R: Aaron Brady Geography, Michael Douglas Accounting, Cian Flood Irish, Barry Taylor Business, Conor Ivory Chemistry, Gerry Duffy, Tiernan Fallon-Verbruggen Best Overall, Shane Byrne English, Eoin Madigan Physics, Kevin O’Neill History. Unable to attend: John Fogarty Mathematics, Karl Devin French, Craig Lewis German, Luke O’Mahony Design Communication Graphics.

Principal, Gerry Duffy reflects on the week’s events:

We are reaching the end of our annual Spirit of Pres Week which has been a huge success. We started on Monday 21st the Feast of the Presentation and have had special events running all week including the launch of posters which were produced by our students (see facebook), Mass for the entire school in the church of Our Lady Queen of Peace, workshops on mental health and anti-bullying, Pres. Colours Day fund raiser for our sister schools in Ghana, 4th Yr soccer Celebrity Bainisteoir, Staff V Students Rugby Tag Match which the staff won again, award of medals to high achievers in LC 2011 and ‘Just a Minute Quiz’ involving staff and students on the Code of Behaviour. It has been a

wonderful week highlighting and supporting the wonderful spirit of community which we have here in the College. We were very happy to welcome Br. Andrew Hickey, Province Leader of the Presentation Brothers, and Br. Eunan Page, former principal, to our Pres Day Mass. The entire week was organised by a team of Staff and members of the Student Council.
In addition, this week both Senior and Junior Rugby Teams qualified for the Leinster Cups by reaching the quarter-finals of their leagues, both play Gonzaga at QF stage. Looking to the future our Rugby Cubs will play their first matches this coming weekend, we wish all involved in this major undertaking well. Our Senior Soccer Team beat Colaiste Craobh Abhann, Kilcoole, by 4 – 0 in the Wicklow/Wexford League, our Junior Soccer Team defeated St. Brendan’s 3 – 2, our Debating Team defeated Gaelcolaiste na Mara, Arklow, in the Wicklow Environmental Debates with our other Debating Team having defeated St. Gerard’s earlier in the Concern Debates, our Basketball u-19s beat Oranmore to reach the QFs of the All- Ireland Cup, scoring over 100 points, our GAA Team beat

Kildare Town Community College 1 – 8 to 0 – 5 and our Golf Team defeated CBC Monkstown 4 up in the Inter- schools Senior Matchplay. We congratulate all who participate in extra-curricular activities and the teachers, parents and past-pupils who give so much time for the wellbeing of our students.

A good week by any standards. This is the holistic side of school life that is not measured in league tables. This week’spublication of tables however showed that with 83% of our Class of 2011 progressing to Universities we are the top boy’s school in Wicklow. With 38 of our LC 2011 class now attending UCD we are joint 9th in Ireland for numbers entering first year in UCD and the top boy’s non fee paying in the country, so well done to the class of 2011 and all the teachers who taught them in their time in Pres.