Manor House School

A group of 2nd and 3rd years are on a trip in Stratford-on-Avon where they took part in an acting workshop, attended Romeo and Juliet, visited Mary Arden's garden, Anne Hathaway's cottage and Shakespeare's classroom. Mr Abrahamian couldn't resist giving a lesson there.

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There was a great turn-out in our library on Wednesday evening, 16 May, for the launch of 'Beyond Boundaries', a collection of short stories written by our TY Students. This was part of a Fighting Words project. Many thanks to Roddy Doyle, Sinead Moriarty and the Fighting Words staff and volunteers for enabling our young writers to bring their stories to print. Many thanks also our very own Ms Power and Mr Brazil. Sinead Moriarty tweeted the following: "So unbelievably proud of these 24 amazing young women from Manor House Raheny. Their short story collection launched tonight. Huge credit to their English teachers and of course the wonderful Fighting Words. It was a privilege to be involved"

The school library is open at lunchtimes  from 1pm to 1.40pm on school days.  Students and staff are all welcome to come and borrow books or simply to browse and read in a quiet space.

A group of 1st year students attended a 'Fighting Words' workshop with Ms Craig on 20 March 2017. 'Fighting Words' is a creative writing centre established by Roddy Doyle. It helps students of all ages to develop their writing skills and to explore their love of story writing.

Pictured above are some of the students and teachers who got into the spirit of our Literary Fancy Dress day (16 March 2016). The teachers are 'Snow White' (Ms Conerney), 'Mary Poppins' (Ms Costello),  'James Bond' (Mr Clinch),'The Phantom of the Opera' (Ms Doherty), 'Mise Eire' (Ms Donnelly),'Cruella de Vil' (Ms Grills) and 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' (Ms Tracy). 'Minerva McGonagle' (Ms O'Neill) and 'Where's Wally?' (Ms Dunwoody) are not pictured here. Thanks to all for being such good sports.

We were delighted to host  Sinead Moriarty at Fighting Words on 20 March. She and Roddy Doyle chatted about writing with a group of our TY students who are writing short stories to be published in this year's anthology of short stories!

Please check out the stories and poems by young authors (including some Manor House students) in the 'Tales from the Dark Pool' radio series at

https://www.facebook.com/pmpld/

Thanks to Ms Doherty for helping the students with this project.

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A group  of 2nd year students, along with their English teachers, attended 'Blood Brothers' in the Bord Gais Energy theatre on 28 March. The students are studying 'Blood Brothers' as part of their Junior Cycle English course. There was lots of laughter and even more tears as they thoroughly enjoyed a wonderful production of the Willy Russell show. Thanks to the English teachers who organised the trip and accompanied the students to the show.

Manor House English Department is one of the biggest departments in the school and to date has had great achievements, with the Junior and Leaving Certificate results being well above the national average.  As a department, we work closely with the Learning Support team, making sure that pupils who suffer from conditions such as dyslexia and dyspraxia are supported and prepared for the State examinations.  Extra-curricular activities such as the Book Club and the Debating Club are open to all, with students gaining extra practice at reading, speech writing and delivery, not to mention growing in confidence and self-esteem.

As a department, we are eager to support and promote the Literacy incentives that are the concern of the entire school.  Ideas such as the ‘Word of the Week’ help to improve pupils’ literacy and we are closely involved in the implementation of the Spelling Bee competition, which is being organised by the TY Young Social Innovators.

This year (2015-2016), we are planning an entire renovation of the school library, the aim being to create a vibrant, inviting space to which pupils will be drawn.  We are currently asking students to add to the numbers of books available by donating from home, with the hope of having as diverse a collection as possible.  A well-stocked library will also help to promote the DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) programme, which is now part of most students’ timetable.

At Manor House, we like our English students to see the texts that they study in practice, therefore theatre trips are common, particularly the Shakespearean workshops in Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, where students watch a performance of the Shakespearean play they have studied in class and then take part in an informative and fun workshop.  We also like to encourage as many visits to the theatre as possible, especially for TYs, with recent years being offered the chance to see To Kill a Mockingbird, War Horse and The Shawshank Redemption.

One of our main aims as a department is to highlight the importance of English in all walks of life, as opposed to simply the work that is covered in the classroom.  We want English to be fun, informative and engaging because literacy is something that all pupils, no matter what their college choice, will require in the outside world.