Latest School Update Friday 11 March 2022

Dear Parents/Guardians & Students,

1st Year Parent/Pupil/Teacher (PPT) Meeting

Our 1st Year PPT meeting will take place face to face on Monday 14 March from 4pm to 6.45pm. The procedure regarding the PPT meeting was explained to 1st Year students this morning.

Please click on the link below to view school map, teacher locations and centres for registration:

Centres for Registration

PTP meeting Seating Plan

B-Block Teacher Location map

Cork ETB Leaving Cert Awards Ceremony 2021 

The Cork ETB 2021 Leaving Cert Awards ceremony takes place tonight Friday11 March at 7pm. While this is an online event, with the lifting of restrictions, we have taken the opportunity to formally invite the award winners and their parents to the school this evening to celebrate their success. Our students will be presented with their medals and certificates. Overall we had 22 students whose achievements in the Leaving Certificate and Leaving Certificate Applied were recognised.

We wish to especially acknowledge the tremendous results of Louise Hennessy (625 points), Eva Coy and Leah Savage (613 Points) and Jack McGrath (601 points). Overall, 25% of our students achieved in excess of 500 points, with 10% of the entire year group in excess of 550 points, giving these students access to the vast majority of top-end academic courses at 3rd level. More than half of our LCA students received the highest mark of Distinction awarded to the LCA programme.

We congratulate all our students on their outstanding achievements in their exams.

Congratulations to Cormac O Donovan 6th Year Rang Colmain 

Last Summer, the Department of Business Information Systems (Cork University Business School, University College Cork) invited second level students in Cork to share their photos and thoughts on the theme “Technology Making the World a Better Place”. GCC 6th Year student Cormac O’Donovan imagined the future use of Augmented Reality in daily life and was one of 3 winners selected. The students and their families attended a prize giving event held on Wednesday 9 March on UCC’s campus, and each student received a Chromebook as a prize. Please click on the link below for further details:

www.cubsucc.com

Congratulations to Cormac from everyone in BIS and the Cork University Business School, where we are dedicated to Shaping Leaders for a Sustainable Future.

 

Welcoming Alma – Irish Guide Dogs-Community Dog Scheme

The Community dog programme is being piloted in schools to help reduce stress and anxiety amongst students post Covid. GCC applied to the scheme in June 2021 and following an extensive process of assessment we are delighted to announce that GCC will become the 7th school nationwide to be part of the Community Dog scheme. We really look forward to welcoming Alma, a Golden Labrador/Golden Retriever mix to GCC on April 25th and know she will be a very special member of our school community. Please click on the following link for more details:

Welcoming Alma

 

Friday Morning Tutorial – Safe Internet Month – Lesson 2 Online Wellbeing

This morning at Class Tutorial students completed lesson 2 of our Safe Internet programme entitled  ‘Online Wellbeing – discussing digital stress and how to manage online wellbeing’. Please click on the link below to view the content of the lesson.

Safer Internet Day Post Primary – Tutorial 2

 

Important information in relation to the Leaving Certificate Oral and Music Examinations 2022

Parents and students are asked to note the following:

• These examinations have been confirmed for the period Saturday 9 April, 2022 to Thursday 14 April, 2022 inclusive
• The examinations will be conducted by visiting examiners, recruited and appointed to schools by the SEC
• Thursday 7 and Friday 8 April 2022 have been identified as contingency days. Decisions on the use of these contingency days will be made by the SEC
• Any timetable made out by the school can only be approximate, therefore, it is really important that candidates are aware that they will not necessarily be examined at that specific time
• The SEC acknowledges that examiners and examination candidates may wish to wear a face mask or covering or not to do so. All of these scenarios will constitute a valid test

 

Retrieval Practice: A guide for Parents, Carers & Families

Please click on the link below to view a presentation to explain retrieval practice & the benefits to promote learning outside of the classroom.

Focus of the Week

Our focus of the week beginning Monday 14 March 2022 is once again piercings. We still have a considerable number of students wearing piercings that are outside of our school policy. A reminder that piercings are not permitted except for one stud in the lower lobe of each ear. Nose and other piercings are not allowed. Students will not be allowed to class if they are not cooperating with our rules regarding piercings. We are asking parents to please ensure that your child presents in school in accordance with our school rules.

 

Visit of CETB Chief Executive & Director of Schools

Parents are asked to note that Cork ETB Chief Executive Mr Denis Leamy and Director of Schools Mr Pat McKelvey visited the school on Wednesday 9 March 2022. Items discussed with the school senior management team included CETB strategy, school priorities going forward and the services and support provided through Head Office in Lavitts Quay.

 

Way2Pay FW: Notification for Authipay Update – Cork ETB

There are changes being made to your merchant account gateway (AIBMS / Authipay) that are going live today, Tuesday March 8th. These changes are mandated by regulations and are designed to improve the security of card transactions but we need to make you aware of a temporary impact that might occur for your parents and cardholders. This can be avoided/managed but will likely need communication to your parents.

When clicking through to make a payment in Way2Pay, there is a checkbox that parents can click to “give consent for Way2Pay to tokenise my credit card details “. This is intended to allow parents save their card details on the gateway such that they only need to input their CVV number when making the payments. Due to the changes being put live by AIBMS today, transaction using saved card details are now likely to be declined. Parents and other cardholders should be informed not to click the checkbox to tokenize their card details and that should enable the transaction to proceed albeit with them inputting their full card number rather than relying on saved details. Please find attached a notice flyer that your schools can send out to their parents about this.

We apologise for this inconvenience. Our team have an update in progress that will address this issue but unfortunately we were not made aware of the gateway change with sufficient notice to implement our update before today’s release by AIBMS. We will notify you again on the delivery of our update which we aim to have live during the week after St Patricks Day.

Please let us know if your parents do encounter any issues in making payments that are not fixed by leaving the checkbox unselected.

Way2Pay Update March 2022

 

Inspiring Ireland, Inspiring Students Interview with Astronaut Chris Hadfield

Canadian, Chris Hadfield spent 21 years as an astronaut. Yet, of that time he spent only 166 days in space across three missions, including heading up the International Space Station (ISS). So what was he doing for the rest of his time as an astronaut? How did he prepare for a space mission? What was it like to play his guitar in the space station, to go on a space walk – what did he learn and how does this enhance our understanding of existence? What does earth look like from outer space and what was it like to communicate via twitter with people on earth while in space? Was he ever afraid? We have so much to learn from Chris!

Please see image below for further information and if anyone would like to participate in this inspiring in interview please click here to Register:

 

Inspiresport Centenary Shield | Under 18 Boys’ International Competition

A huge congratulations to Alex Healy Byrne, R. Cillian in 5th year who has been selected  by the new Republic of Ireland Schools Head Coach John McShane naming eighteen players for his opening match against Scotland at Home Farm FC next Thursday (March 17). The St. Patrick’s Day encounter will ensure the festivities in the Capital last that little bit longer as proceedings kick off at 7pm in the Whitehall venue. Following the FAI Schools Interprovincial Tournament last December, McShane and his management staff whittled down the 64 players that starred in that event to nearly 30 players for his initial trial. Alex has impressed management with his talent earning his place on the final squad.

Please see the fixtures below and we wish Alex the best of luck from all at GCC

 

Cork Boys U16 Hurling

A huge congratulations to 4th Year student Josh McMahon (Rang Niamh) and 3rd Year student Rory McCarthy (Rang Blaithin)  who were recently selected for the Cork U16 Hurling Squad.

 

We hope you have a nice weekend