Athboy students deck the halls with festive Christmas disco

It was 'Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly', recently as Athboy Community School rocked to festive tunes during the first year Christmas disco run by the students in transition year (TY). The big difference with this year's event was that it took place in the brand new state-of-the-art school building, which has only been in use for the past seven weeks. The 110 first year students in the school were invited by the TY students to a festive gathering in the general purpose area of the school during Christmas week as part of their enterprise/mini company module. For a small entrance fee, the first years were treated to a fantastic disco with a DJ, requests and festive food galore. For the TYs, it was the culmination of four months' work from the 'Seasonal Group' on their mini company with events having been held at Halloween and Christmas, with more planned for St Valentine's Week. The 22 TY students under the stewardship of co-ordinating teacher, Ms Fitzgerald, have been busy all year. They opened the school year with team-building trips away, mountaineering in Carlingford and running the gauntlet at Drewstown Adventure Centre. They have opened a stationery shop in the school with the proceeds going towards their mini-company, as well as a T-shirt enterprise and various food and cookery-based activities, all designed to raise funds for the school. The group is engaged in a work experience programme every Wednesday of the year with two blocks of work placement, one just finishing and another beginning in the first weeks of 2012. The placements have been far and wide from local ones in the Athboy area to as far away as Cavan and Dublin, including students working in chemists, primary schools, garages, secretarial placements, solicitors, at Dublin Airport, creches, veterinary work and in hotels. "It's been really good," said TY students Saoirse Byrne and Saoirse Gaffney. "The Christmas disco has topped off the year perfectly and we all enjoyed organising it, even though it was very hard work. We get on great as a group so that has helped and we are really doing well with our mini-company work. The whole TY experience has been very worthwhile and we are looking forward to what the rest of the school year has in store for us." The TY students have extended their thanks to all the teachers who helped out on the night of the disco, Ms Fitzgerald, Ms Byrne, Ms Mahony, Mr Leavy, Mr Maxwell and Mr Magner, and all the caretakers and cleaning staff without whom the event would not have been possible.