JCSP Past Initiatives

Make a Book
"Drive 2 Arrive" Road Safety in Inishowen was the theme chosen by Ms.Dickson's class. In researching this project the boys made contact with the local accident and emergency response units. They visited the Fire Station and the Garda Traffic Corp and invited the Ambulance Service to the school. They designed a model Hummer in the Art room and made it in the Metal and Wood departments. They carried out surveys and even wrote a short play on the topic. When completed they invited the sixth class boys from the national school to view their work. The absolute highlight for the boys was flying to Dublin from City of Derry airport for the exhibition topped off with Breakfast in Clearys.

Reading Challenge
The class was challenged to read 1000 pages each week for four weeks. After finishing a book each student had to complete a brief report and record the number of words read. The students loved the challenge and got very competitive as the weeks went by. They read a total of 5391 pages. This is what some of them had to say, "Some of us had never finished a book before. We had great craic". "I'm proud of myself for finishing a book...I've never finished a book in my life"."Reading takes a long time".

School Twinning and Outdoor Pursuits
We are fortunate to have The Creggan Country Park and Reservoir only forty minutes from the school. They specialise in catering for school groups. Last year our First Years twinned with Ardee Community College in Co.Louth and invited them to Derry for a day. While there they experienced some Orienteering, Team Building and Water Sports. Afterwards, the class agreed that this had been the highlight of their year.

Reading Corner
We were fortunate to be granted the reading Corner initiative this year. As our library forms a central part in JCSP activities in this school we are always looking for new ways to use the library. Teachers constantlybringtheir classes here toread newspapers and magazines and research projects on the computers. This can leave the main area quite crowded at times. Our plan is to cordon off part of the library with low level partitions so as not to isolate the space. JCSP reading materials will be shelved here so that our students can come in and read at their leisure.

Other Initiatives
Other initiatives that we have successfully undertaken were Word Millionnaire, Paired Reading (with TY students and 2nd Class pupils), Spelling Challenge, Maths for Fun (Parents monitoring), Science (Building a Rocket), ESS field trips, Home Economics (Patchwork and Weaving), Subject Topic Box, Goodie Boxes and Career Guidance.