The interviews for this year's Leaving Cert class will take place in the school on Friday the 30th of August from 10.30am until 12.30pm

LeavingCertificate

***ANNOUNCEMENT*** If you know anyone who is doing the Leaving Cert. exam this year, my series of LC Prediction videos has just gone online, and can be found on this YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/user/LeavingCertificate?sub_confirmation=1] Please share the link around, as these can be very useful in helping students focus and prioritise during their last gasp cramming sessions.

We are very grateful to the Pact project who are running this fundraiser to raise money for us. If anyone would like to come to this, there will be tickets available at the XLc office until next Thursday, at which point we need to have final numbers.

Please come and support our Christmas fundraiser!! The venue is Edmund Rice youth Multiplex centre, on manor street

***Launch of the XLc HEBRATHON*** (it's like a marathon, except with a lot more ancient biblical script involved ...and less running) Hi! Eoin Jackson here. I am looking for some volunteers to get involved in a quirky fundraiser we're running as part of the 20 year anniversary celebrations for the XLc Project. The fundraiser involves people signing up for and sitting a Leaving Cert. exam this coming June, and getting sponsored to do so. ------------------------------------------------- Hebrew Studies has been available as a LC subject since the Leaving Cert was introduced. It is one of the few subjects whose syllabus has remained unchanged for many decades... possibly since the 1950's, or maybe as far back as when the the Leaving Cert was first introduced in 1924. The subject mainly serves the Jewish community in Ireland, as it revolves around the Jewish faith and traditions with a focus on the ancient Hebrews, their folklore, beliefs and legends. Until as recently as the 1990's there was a reasonable uptake on the subject, but as the Jewish community here has dwindled, the subject has lost popularity and is now only really popular amongst the occasional aspiring Rabbi or Talmudic scholar in Stratford College. The interest in Hebrew as a LC subject has dipped so low that in 2018, 2017, and 2016 the only students in Ireland doing the subject were from the XLc Project! The exam paper had to be drafted and emailed specifically for our students. ------------------------------------------------- So, why might you want to help out with this bizarre fundraiser? 1. It will raise much needed funds for the school. . 2. You will get to study some interesting historical and religious material. . 3. You will get some familiarity with an archaic script that dates back millennia. . 4. There is a chance you might pass the exam, and if you do, you'll be the first person in the South East of Ireland to have passed the exam for several decades! . 5. It will be mighty craic! ------------------------------------------------- How will it work? 1. Send me a pm to indicate that you are interested. . 2. I will reply with more details. . 3. There will be a fortnightly night class in the Manor that you could attend should you so wish. Otherwise it can be studied from home. . 4. There will be a support group on facebook where we will share resources and advice. . 5. During the new year, I will give you sponsorship cards to be filled by any interested friends / neighbours / businesses etc. . 6. Sitting the exam costs somewhere in the region of €50, (the sponsorship should be able to cover that) . 7. The exam itself will take place in June (Most likely from 9:30am on Monday 17th of June... but this is not confirmed as yet.) ------------------------------------------------- So that's everything! If this is something that you would might volunteer for, then get in touch via private fb message (or by text to 0866061287) as soon as possible. Thanks and shalom! :)

XLc will be closed tomorrow Monday the 15th of October. School as usual on Tuesday

***XLc INTERVIEWS 18/19*** The student interviews for the coming Leaving Cert year take place this week on Wednesday and Thursday. The interviews for Junior Certs take place from 10:30am on Wednesday. . All relevant students have been contacted via text. If you have not been contacted yet, or if you hope to sign up, but have yet to fill an application, then come in for interview at one of the following times:- WEDNESDAY 29th - 11:30am THURSDAY 30th - 3:00pm. The interviews take place on the 2nd floor of the Manor [boi!] -just across the road from Masons.

***REQUEST for feedback from PAST PUPILS*** As part of the celebration of our 20 year anniversary, Nuala is compiling a book. To this end, she would like to hear stories from past pupils about their personal experiences in school, and in the XLc. . The piece can be of any length. Even something very short would be fine. Contributions can be credited or anonymous if desired... and she would love if you could also send on a photo if possible. . So, if you are a past pupil, you can send something by the following methods:- by email to:- xlc@live.ie by private fb message to me (Eoin). . (We may not have time to include any story that comes in later than SEPTEMBER 1st, so keep that in mind.) . Also, it would help if you read this, and can spread the word to a past pupil you know of (perhaps someone who doesn't frequent facebook) who might like to contribute. Thanks!

Great LEAVING CERT results at the XLc Project today! We've been operating for 20 years, and the pass rate was our joint highest ever (tied with 2008). 7 of this year's bunch, scored points high enough to stake claim to a spot in our all time "Top 100 Points Hall of Fame"... So, fair to say ...I'm happy, as are many of the people who came in to pick up results today!

There was the usual media hysteria because 3 child psychiatrists had resigned from the South East Region. The ‘apparent’ and accepted consequences would be that thousands of children would be adversely affected in their mental well being.! To illustrate how children would be unable to thrive, the media rolled out the story of the distress of one family. A mother shared her problem about her son. She identified the beginning of this lack of mental well being as starting in 2nd year . (Note it’s correlation with school . ) This manifested itself in what she called a low mood. This was diagnosed as the child having mental health issues. The blatant question; was the environment, 2nd year with it’s lack of any obvious target e.g. exam or accreditation and the lack of stimulation, the generator of the low mood, rather than any mental health weakness in the child.? I would say a low mood in a child compelled into a 2nd year schooling, is a sign of sanity rather than any suggestion that his mental health is dysfunctional. The shocking outcome of this diagnosis is that the mother began spending hundreds of euros to drug the child. Apparently what aggravated her grievance wasn’t that her child was being drugged , but that we the taxpayers weren’t paying for this. When I put forward the suggestion that children would learn better if they were happy, this was considered too naïve and would lead to children resorting to their ‘natural ‘ disposition of idleness (not an obvious natural disposition when they achieve enormous learning ;walking and talking. ) When I suggested that children could achieve academic qualification without the features that were irksome to them; homework, having to wear prescribed clothes, my colleagues told me I was living in ‘cloud cuckoo land.’ So instead of just talking the talk , I walked the walk and migrated to ‘C loud-Cuckoo-Land’ Twenty years in Cloud -Cuckoo land have provided a safe haven for anxious children, a happy friendly affection school and academic success in the state exams close to 100% in the Junior Cert and in the 80-95% in the Leaving Certificate. It is time to say , what everybody knows,’ the Emperor has no clothes’. The help I need to do this, is for our Past pupils to tell the stories of how school undermined their sense of self and worth, and how their confidence was restored and if XLc’s ethics of respect and affection and fun helped. You can write your own experience and get them to me preferably with some picture or Art work , or I can ring and debrief you. Pod is going to help out with producing the booklet and I hope to be able to launch it at our 20 year re-union Nuala Sent from Mail for Windows 10

Looking to contact Peter Burke, who sat his LC with us in 2004... If anyone has a ph no. etc, get in touch, tx.

***ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ALL PAST LC PUPILS*** The CAO has introduced a new common points scale since 2017... This means that EVERYONE's LC points scores have been affected. I have spent the last two weeks painstakingly going through all the results since 1999 and recalculating the points. I've noticed some trends:- 1. If you had a medium - high points score (anything over around 220pts) your score has more than likely been reduced by a tiny margin. 2. If your points score was low-ish (approx 150 or lower), your points have risen... in some cases doubled! 3. If you scored an "E" grade at HIGHER LEVEL... that now counts as a pass rather than a fail, and carries 33 CAO points... so your LC may have been dramatically altered. . There are 36 past pupils whose LC have been affected in a VERY good way by these changes (in some cases, a failed LC has become a passed one) If you want to work out your new points, go here:- https://www.cao.ie/index.php?page=newcps. If you're not arsed with that, write a comment below, or send on a pm, and I'll send you details of your new pts score, and by how much it has risen (or fallen).