A reflection from a Transition Year Student – Marie O’Connell.

On Monday the 16th of January St. Mary’s Secondary School held our annual open night for incoming first years. It is an occasion that we as students try our best to make less daunting. Many of the new students often hail from petite villages scattered around Nenagh. Often such Primary Schools have numbers dwindling below the one hundred mark. It can be extremely intimidating for them to enter a school that aids the educational needs of six hundred students on a daily basis.
It is not only an eye opening experience for the potential students but current students also. It made me notice how much I have changed since I began in this school, and also how much the school has changed also. It made evident the harsh reality of how much even a short period of four years can change a person. As I stood beside the other members of our Mini Company as we showcased our product, it made me realise how intimidated I was on our open night back in twenty thirteen and how I have changed since.
Our school and Transition Year in particular has given us some superb opportunities that are difficult to shy away from, we may not have been able to experience such activities outside of the school environment. Just this week alone TY students have been given a lifelong lesson in First Aid. We learned how to resuscitate an unconscious patient using CPR. We learned how to alter the steps of such procedure in accordance with the size and age of patient. We also learned about how vital a defibrillator is in any location, no matter what service it offers. It is too often that many people are taken from this earth that may possibly have been saved if people around them had knowledge in using vital equipment or even First Aid as a basic skill. It is an extremely important skill to have in our world today, especially, taking into account the terrifyingly high figure revolving around such heart conditions like Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.

During the week Transition Year students also took part in a Forensic Science workshop here in school. We learned about the gruesome reality of solving crimes with death and murder involved. We learned about the techniques Forensic teams use to solve such crimes and identify the culprit or culprits. We learned from an interactive method and each in groups tried to solve the murder mystery with methods a Forensic Scientists would use. We spoke with Alison Leck about her intriguing career and how it seems enthralling during crime dramas yet in the real world can take a substantially longer time. It was a superb experience and gave us the opportunity to see how a crime scene operates.
On Friday 20th January Transition Year students attended the “Recipe for Success” in Annacotty Co. Limerick. As we approached our destination you could feel the excitement yet nerves that were in the air in the lead up to our brand new experience. We were welcomed with a smile and friendly word at the business park. We were briefed on what we would prepare on our half day tour. We prepared three separate dishes throughout the day and learned about how important nutrition really is for teenagers like us. Ms Shelley, once again, triumphed with a fun-filled agenda and a brilliant ending to yet another action packed week for Transition Year students in St. Mary’s.