‘Life-changing’ technology programme in Colaiste Clavin

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Longwood’s Colaiste Clavin transition year students exploring the heritage of the village.

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Colaiste Clavin students who fundraised for Goal Jersey Day.

John Donohoe

Published: Sat 13 Nov 2021, 7:14 PM

Last updated: Sat 13 Nov 2021, 7:16 PM

Coláiste Clavin Post Primary School, Longwood, has been selected as an AWS GetIT participant school. This is a fully funded initiative designed by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to encourage young people, especially girls aged 12-13, to consider a career in tech – challenging long standing gender stereotypes.

Running between the autumn and spring terms of the school year, AWS GetIT invites teams from different schools to an app-building competition to solve real issues faced by their school or community. Along the way, participants learn practical digital and IT skills, experience working as a team, and gain self-confidence by presenting ideas to wider audiences – all while being exposed to IT as a potential career.

Over the past year, this programme has extended from the UK to Irish schools and is growing in popularity. This year Coláiste Clavin is one of a select number of schools to have submitted a successful application for a place on the programme.

First year students will engage in this initiative initially during their computer science classes and will be guided and mentored by teachers, Ms O’Rafferty and Ms Thomas.

The involvement of Coláiste Clavin in this project is potentially life changing for students. It will create a pride that they are chosen, an excitement that they have the opportunity to learn, and a bonding and growth in the entire year group as they learn to create apps and learn to work together in teams.

Principal Margaret Deegan states: “We are excited, ready and able to learn from our involvement in this project, and we hope that Amazon Ambassodors will learn from our community of learning what a special place Coláiste Clavin is now, and will become even more so in the future.”

Meanwhile, the transition year students of Coláiste Clavin recently took a heritage tour of the village of Longwood where they learned the history of the local place names in Irish. The transition years also took part in a forensics workshop where they learned about the importance of sources and evidence, and they held a Goal Jersey Day, raising €560 towards funding worthwhile projects in the developing world.