Quarantine Quarterly June 2020

ST PATRICK’S COLLEGE QUARANTINE QUARTERLY Welcome to our Lockdown Newsletter! We have been experiencing the strangest time in our lifetime. None of us have ever had to spend this much time at home—who though we would miss school? (Admit it – you have missed us too!) In this newsletter, you’ll see what our school community has been up during their time at home. Everything from PE, to baking, to school work. To the class of 2020… What a memorable end to the year it has been - and for some of you, the end of your time in Saint Patrick’s College. As you know, we like to mark important occasions in our school community, but Covid19 put an end to that. So... your teachers thought that perhaps the best way to signify this momentus occasion was to create this short little video for you to reminisce over. As Principal of Saint Patrick’s College, it has been my honour and privilege to watch you grow and develop into talented, articulate and unique young adults. Year 14, while I am so very sad to see you go, I wish you Contents: every success as you embark on the next stage of your life 2+3: Fundraising journey. Never, ever forget your time here in Saint Patrick’s 4+5: Baking College and always know, that we are always here if you need 6-9: English a listening ear or a nudge in the right direction. 10+11: Maths 12+13: Spanish Year 12, we hope to see many of you back with us next year as you embrace the challenge of A levels. We look forward to 14+15: ICT and T&D playing our part in your continued growth and development 16-19: Art and I have no doubt, the next two years will be as memorable 20+21: PE as the last 5! To those of you in year 12 who are leaving us for pastures new, I hope you continue to work hard to realise your 22-25: Life at Home dreams and ambitions in life. Mrs Woods x 1

WALKING ALL OVER THE WORLD OVER THE LAST FEW WEEKS, WE HAVE HAD TWO “WALKING ALL OVER THE WORLD” CHALLENGES GOING ON. Let’s start by hearing from Mrs Quinn on her family’s challenge! In the month of May my family and I decided to join a challenge to climb or walk the equivalent of Mount Everest with others from our local community in an attempt to raise money for Chest, Heart and Stroke NI and the local GAA club. Within the first week it became obvious that Everest was not going to be a big enough challenge so it was decided that we would all attempt to walk around the world in May. We succeeded in our challenge and raised over £11,000. It was such an amazing experience meeting all the locals out on the roads, seeing the coun- tryside in all its beauty and walking distances we never thought we could manage. Lockdown in the month of May in Saval will be remembered for a long time. Our second “Walking All Over the World” is being undertaken by our super PTA. We have some of wonderful parents and staff hit the pavements in the hope of raising some vital funds for Southern Area Hospice and the Fostering Network. The aim is to have covered the world by the end of June. By the end of the first week, we had walked, ran and cycled past The Eiffel Tower, The Leaning Tower of Piza, The Acropolis and The Pyramids, and are well on our way to The White House!! Keep an eye on our St Patrick’s PTA Facebook for updates on our progress and how to contribute your miles. To donate, please see the link: https://www.justgiving.com/ crowdfunding/sharon-crawford- white-2?utm_term=7BvYRGa32 2

Hamper Donations Walsh’s Newsagent kindly donated an Easter Hamper to our PTA to raffle off. However, Eve Walsh from year 8 suggested that it be donated to the fantastic NHS staff in Craigavon Hospital as a thank you for all the hard work they did, and do every day to help us through this strange time! Thank you Eve for you kind suggestion, and thank you to Walsh’s Newsagent for their donation of the hamper! Thank you NHS “The mark you will make” by Clara 9CM also donated Sheppard, 10AGD their Easter Hamper to our local My auntie Bernie makes a good mark on midwives in Daisy the world today as her job career is a Hill hospital. The nurse. She has been working for the NHS staff said they were and has a family of her own. She has four over the moon to children two young ones and two older receive this very ones that are in primary school. kind donation from Meanwhile my auntie and uncle have 9CM, and we are been trying to squeeze in teaching them sure they enjoyed school work as well as having fun. their treats! “Elaine Boyle makes a good mark on the world” by Cormac McGovern 10AB My cousin is contributing in the fight against the coronavirus in her job as a science analyst. She tests all sorts of different samples from various medical facilities and care homes. 3

COOKING UP A STORM… SOME OF OUR KIDS AND STAFF HAVE BEEN VERY BUSY COOKING AND BAKING IN LOCKDOWN AND SOME OF THEM HAVE BEEN VERY IMPRESSIVE! HERE ARE SOME OF THE DELICIOUS CREATIONS TO MAKE YOUR MOUTHS WATER! First up we have some of the Easter Crowns. At Easter, we remember Jesus’ sacrifice for us, and normally we do that together in school. However, this year, things were different and our students made some lovely chocolate nests to represent the crown of thorns that Jesus wore as a symbol of the strength of Jesus’ love for us. Egg-cellent work! Some more egg-cellent work! 4

Some delicious treats made by Henry Murphy! Miss Cartmill could give the HE department a run for their money! Mairead Stewart, year 8, made and decorated this cake with a tractor for her brother’s birthday—a cake and a piece of Art! 5

Two Minute Tales Earlier in Lockdown, BBC ran a competition for young people to write a short piece with the theme of “Home”. Our students came up with some incredibly creative and personal stories and poems to reflect life at home. We are delighted to be able to say that some of the students who sent their work in to the BBC received certificates. This is a true testament to their fabulous work! Have a read through some snippets of their work! “Home is where the heart is - or is it?” by Jessica Watters, 9AC Home is a place where you feel welcome. Home is a place where you feel loved. Home is a place where you are happy and can be yourself. Home is family. At this time we are lucky that there are people around us who love us, and we know we are not alone. Yes we miss our friends and relatives but for some people in their home they might have no one. Some children and adults are alone right now in their homes, they may be so lonely and going to work or school may have been the only time they would have seen other humans. So this time we are going through right now is really tough for some people. People who have family to come home to every night are lucky. My nanny and granddad say ‘home is where the heart is’ but the question is, do all homes have hearts? For some people, is home really where the heart is? Home is where we have been spending most of our lives for the past couple of months. I know what you are probably thinking, you can’t wait to escape from your home of chaos and madness. Or your brothers and sisters are driving you mad and you cannot wait to go and have a sleep over with your friends. May- be even parents can’t wait to have a night out to have a break from the kids. But hey and least some of us have this home of madness, chaos, to keep us distracted at this time and make it go faster. At least we have people around us every day to keep us going because people don’t have that. So when you think of home think of how lucky some of us are to have one. 6

“The Futuristic Wardrobe” by Anna Brolly, 8CMA Once upon a time there was a girl called Alison. She lived in a comfortable home in Banbridge. She was a kind person who cared for others. One day Alison was tidying her wardrobe. She had a lot of clothes! Too many! Her cousins had given her lots of things, so she was trying to sort it all out. She lay down to have a rest but fell back through the back of the wardrobe and then realised she was somewhere else! When she looked around she realised she was in the changing room of a shop. She went out of the changing room and saw clothes, soft toys and dolls. She left the shop and went out onto the street. When she looked up she saw that the shop was called ‘Collectables’. She was puzzled. Everything in there seemed so modern. When she looked around, everything was different. This was still Banbridge but it was amazing. The sky was blue. There were beautiful fragrant flowers everywhere. People were sitting outside drinking coffee and chatting. Nobody seemed in a rush. They were dressed very differently. Alison felt out of place. She asked someone what day it was and they replied that it was the ‘15th May 2040’! There were only a small number of cars on the road and they were all very silent and smooth. Lots of people were riding bicycles. Even older people were riding electric bicycles. Everything was so clean. The river was sparkly and clear. Alison decided though that she better try to get back home, even though this was beautiful. She went back into the shop, into the changing room and was able to get back home to her messy wardrobe. She woke up and realised it had all been a dream. “The Dream Bedroom” by Ava Magill, 8RF One magical night, as I was tucking myself up in my cosy quilt, my bright lamp suddenly turned off, I was terribly confused. Suddenly, after precisely 20 seconds the lamp shone light again, but my bedroom was astonishingly different. I had to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming so I blinked a couple of times and pinched myself, but it was real. I felt like I was in paradise, actually you know what, I was and it was amazing, OMG I can’t believe it. My head was sinking into my fluffy marshmallow like pillow. The ceiling was lit up in shiny stars and they were as realistic as the night sky, straight in front of me was an enor- mous flat screen TV. To my left there was a walk-in wardrobe, the walls were lined with shoes and clothes but what caught my eye the most was the beautiful make-up table. It was snow white in colour, had lights all around it and had breath taking makeup strewn around it. The next thing that was eye catching was a door made of coins, it fascinated me so much that I decided to jump out of my fluffy, cosy and silky covers and see what was behind this magnificent door. So, as I walked across a bubble wrapped floor it popped and crackled like a bowl of Rice Krispies. Finally, I made it to the door, I slowly turned the golden doorknob...... and out of nowhere I was struck with heat, I was gobsmacked, you will never guess what I saw …... There was a waterfall shower and a huge sauna, there were colourful spotlights coming from the bottom of it and there was dim lighting coming from the ceiling, it was just beautiful. Suddenly, I could her my mum saying, “get up your going to be late for school” ... and it was then that I realised, I was dreaming all along. 7

“Home”, by Kori, year 8 My name is Susan Doyle I’m 15 years old and like most girls at my age I would consider my myself ordinary. I have ordinary blonde hair; ordinary green eyes and my height and build are also ordi- nary. There is one thing about me though that isn’t ordinary and that’s my home. My home is no ordinary home there is no white picket fence, there is no lawn to mow and there is no porch to sit on. in fact, there aren’t even any walls, you see my home is a travelling circus. We travel around the states of America with our tents and caravans bringing entertainment to the towns we stop in. We have five main acts the Ringmaster is my dad he performs and introduces the acts, strong- man this is my uncle he can lift heavy weights and pull large objects to entertain the crowd, the clowns these consist of my older brothers Barry and Steve as well as two family friends Hunter and Stacey. They perform different acts for example juggling and tightrope together to entertain the crowd. We also have many animals in our show they are trained with love and care by our animal handler Zack. Our acrobats are my two cousins called Tyler and Andrea (She prefers to be called Andy). I almost forgot to mention the most important part of the team and that’s my mum she does her best to be my teacher making sure I get an education she also cooks for all of us. These people are not only a team but they are my family. Just like a regular family we have fights and have arguments but at the end of the day we still love each other, we forgive each other and we move on. So, no matter what town we travel to it’s the fact that we are all together which makes where ever we put our tents and caravans our home. “The Contraption” by Alex, year 8 I live in a four story house with my Mum, Dad, my big brother AKA the Ogre and my little brother and sister who can be annoying but my little brother can be quite funny too, and my dog George. Mine and the ogre’s rooms are at the bottom of the house which we nickname the dungeon. We named it that because it was at the bottom of the house. One night I was awoken with a start – there was a strange noise, a banging, BANG BANG BANG. I got up to see what the noise was and where it was coming from. I am usually afraid to go out into the dark by myself, my Mum and Dad at the top of the house wouldn’t be able to hear me if I need to shout to them but I was so curious. I crept outside my room took down the keys from the hook and opened the back door and peered outside. I could hear the banging louder now coming from my neighbour’s house. I climbed onto the steep bank and made my way over to their garden. I saw a figure hunched over a machine banging it with an unusual contraption. It looked like a rubber mallet but it couldn’t have been it was making so much noise every time it striked the metal. He turned round “oh hello Alex, I am nearly finished my sleeping machine” he said “looks like you might need it too”. No way I thought the last time I used one of Chris’s inventions I ended up like one of the kids from ‘Huni I shrunk the kids’. “No thanks Chris” I said “I’m going back to bed”. I went back inside and snuggled down and fell back asleep hearing the rhythmic sound of banging! 8

“Home” by Shea, Year 10 Home the place where people feel safe as can be and nothing will hurt them when they are at home. There is something powerful about the feeling to return to a place of belonging. So much of our lives revolve around finding a place to call home. We keep building that home into something more and more familiar. As I write this, I keep distracting myself in the hunt for more geeky wall decorations for my new apart- ment. It won’t feel like my own place until there is a Hobbit quote about food somewhere and a lightsaber over the mantle. And that’s just it. My apartment is mine. It’s something that I take ownership of. There’s more to ownership than just possession, though. There’s something to be said about earning it. (And with the amount of spiders I’ve killed already, I’m earning the hell out of this place.) There’s something about living in it. Making memories here. That’s home. “Home” by Eimear, year 11 I was taking the usual dreary path on that typical Thursday afternoon home from work, nothing out of the ordinary. The rhythmic pitter patter of rain was echoing off of my umbrella as I trudged past the long row of bright lamp posts, when I noticed what seemed to be a lump of blankets lazi- ly thrown on the side of the road. When I advanced towards it I heard a soft shuffling sound and realised that this was not a lump of blankets but it was a person huddled up on the damp, cold ground with nothing but a thin blanket and their bulky coat to keep them warm. I wasn’t normal- ly the charitable type, but something drew me towards this particular person, maybe it was a sense of obligation, the pity that was welling up inside of me or something else entirely but none- theless I did end up approaching this person. I decided to just give her some money and be on my way but as I drew closer I heard the woman croak, “Come and have a chat with me dear.” I don’t know what compelled me to listen but next thing I knew I was sitting beside her on the damp floor with my umbrella sheltering us both from the worst of the rain listening to her beau- tiful stories of her old home. She described it with such intricate detail that I almost felt like I was there, gleaming white walls, luxurious linen bed sheets and dazzling marble floors or at least that’s how I pictured it but when she presented me with a photograph of the house I was left dis- appointed and confused. This could not be the home she had described to me with such longing. I stood up to walk away with the feeling of being mocked but when I turned around, she was gone. I was confused and baffled at this unusual experience and pondered on it for weeks before I came to realise the true worth of my belongings and home and how I had been taking them for granted my whole life. 9

Making Lockdown Count Not only have we been busy stretching your imagination and creativity in English, our kids have also been very busy with Maths too! Here is a showcase of some of the fabulous work completed! 10

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Quedarse en casa - To stay at home Me quedo en casa Te quedas en casa Se queda en casa Nos quedamos en casa Os quedáis en casa Se quedan en casa Some phrases to add to your vocabulary! 12

One Y8 student has labelled all the rooms in her house in Spanish! What a brilliant idea! Surrounding yourself in a language is one of the best ways to learn! This fabulous student is also going that extra mile and enjoying the interactive episodes of BBC Mi Vida Loca online! Our Key Stage 3 students learned about 'La Semana Santa' in Spain and were tasked with making their very own 'nazareno'. Trabajo excelente! 13

Our Year 8’s have been learning about the famous designers Charles and Ray Eames. They are famous for their architecture and furniture designs. Have a look at some of our excellent 3D Elephant designs inspired by the work of the Eames. Congratulations to two of our Year 9 students who achieved a Bronze Award in the online Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award (iDEA) programme! Tara Russell (9CMG) and John Kearney (9AH) worked very hard to achieve and truly deserve these certificates! Tara said she found the topic of “The Citizen” most interesting; while John highlighted that the animation and graphic badges his favourites! Well done guys! 14

Amy McAlinden got very creative with her Some of our Eames-inspired elephant using some Year 10 have materials she had. Superb work, Amy! been researching and designing their own Eames- inspired furniture! Meanwhile, our Year 9 students have been researching and designing geometric clocks, inspired by George Nelson. 15

Here is St Patrick’s, we are very blessed to have some amazingly talented artists. Here is a showcase of some of their lockdown artwork. 16

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A broken arm didn’t stop Bronagh Downey doing some beautiful art! 19

In Lockdown, we have all been busy keeping fit– running, cycling, walking, PE with Joe Wicks! We will all be coming back to school in the best shape ever! Here’s a message from Mrs McGInley on fitness in lockdown! I send the pupils in each year group challenges/exercises/video links to various workouts including Joe Wicks through google classroom on a regular basis and I keep encouraging them to do some form of daily exercise. I, myself do PE with Joe Wicks everyday as it sets me up for the day ahead and it’s part of my routine. I have improved my core strength so much over the last number of weeks!! Not only does this workout and other daily exercise such as walking/running and cycling improve my physical health but it is ALSO so good for my mental health. Hope all the pupils and staff are taking part in daily exercise!!! Keep up the good work REMEMBER YOU ARE ONLY ONE WORKOUT AWAY FROM A GOOD MOOD!! #staysafe Mrs McGinley showing her unreal press up skills on TikTok in time to the Vengaboys classic “Up & Down” (showing my age here!) Miss Keeley and her daughter, Miss Malone and Eoghan Fitzpatrick, year 8, all out enjoying some fresh air and exercise! 20

Dearbhla McGarrity has been keeping up with her Irish dancing training over Zoom— amongst other things to keep herself busy. (Your mum apologises for this Dearbhla! ;) ) Sean McClure out playing some football with his dog. Hope the dog is a good goalie! Bronagh and Sinead Downey out walking their dog in the beautiful May sunshine. Ashling Reid practising her Netball skills—Mrs McGinley will be delighted! 21

Miss Malone’s sister turned 21 during lockdown, and celebrated at home with an amazing balloon arch made by her brother! Happy 21st birthday! Oran Doherty did some parkour while Miss Keeley’s daughter made sure she was going on a walk with his family, and ended to enjoy every second of the May sunshine by up in an ambulance and a cast for 8 getting a pool. Miss Keeley had to test it out of weeks! Hope it heals quickly! course! 22

Miss Cartmill celebrated her Hen Party at home in lock- down with her husband-to- be—not the usual hen party attendee! Mrs Young has been very busy fixing up her deck and picking up some shifts at a local nursing home 23

Miss O’Brien celebrated her 30th birthday in lockdown. It wasn’t quite the birthday she had hoped for, but a socially distant drive by from some of her friends in St Patrick’s certainly helped make it a birthday to remember! Happy 30th birthday Miss O’Brien! Mrs Green and her husband used some pallets to build this excellent climbing frame for her sons! Absolutely Pinterest worthy! Miss Cassidy has been busy in lockdown baking DELICIOUS scones and finding some rainbows. Rainbows have become synonymous with saying thank you to our incredible NHS workers during this pandemic. As we know, rainbows come out after a storm, and it is fair to say that 2020 has been a storm of a year! Rainbows are coming. 24

Miss McGrath/ Mrs Sinclair adopted two kittens during lockdown. While they look cute, they have a particular interest in climbing her curtains and her legs when she’s cooking! Her husband also built a bar out of a few pallets lying around. 25

ST PATRICK’S COLLEGE QUARANTINE QUARTERLY Finally, a note from the editor, Mrs Sinclair, and all the staff... The last few months have been the strangest that any of us have experienced, and hopefully will ever experience. No-one ever foresaw the world shutting down as it did, and this has been an increasingly difficult time for us all. Together, we have managed to come to the other side of it and this is something we will remember forever. In years to come, we will talk about this period in history - we will tell our grandkids about how we had to stay at home; about people stockpiling toilet roll and pasta; the wildlife re-claiming the lands and seas for their own in the absences of humans. We can not wait to see you all again in September, to hear that welcome buzz in the corridors and hear of your stories in lockdown. And to our incoming Year 8s, we cannot wait to meet you and welcome you into the family at St Patrick’s College. But for now, please take care of yourselves, of your family, and of your friends. Enjoy your summer, and we will see you soon! 26