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alaskagirl

hi, i was just wondering, what is school like in Ireland? i still dont understand the way you guys do years and all. hmm. i just was looking for some interesting tidbits.

how many classes do you have? how long does school last? what kind of classes do you have? i really dont know anything. are your schools overcrowded? i any information would be great!


i am just curious!

thanks!

~clare~

alaskagirl

i forgot, what is this whoel prefect thing? and tell about transition year. school sounds alot better there.

Man U babe

Hey Clare,
School sux a$$ over here. My school is all girls Catholic and has nuns. Prefect=power over juniors (1st-3rd year) As you know i'm in 6th year (exams yaaaaaargh) thats senior year in US. Transition year is a waste of time where you do nothing in school for a year and "mature" by it. yeah right!:D :rolleyes:

lordsippa

school here is silly. we have to do irish. to give you an understanding of what that means to us (those of us who are bad at languages and resent being made do one which we'll never use) here is a comparision: imagine all americans being forced to learn some abstract native american language. imagine needing a basic pass in it to be accepted into certain colleges. imagine sitting there muttering "but... why?" now you can understand.

TY is a year where you do a variety of different subjects so you can experience a much wider spectrum of them and have a chance to spark interest in one you had before neglected. there are also many more non-educational (in the traditional sense) activities. It is also to prepare you for your senior years and to help you expand your horizons. In theory that is. If anyone had a TY that went well let me know so i can hate you.

Prefects are seniors told to be in charge of juniors. Basically they're asked to act like teachers in the absense of any. if some juniors are fighting the prefects are to break it up and (if they so choose) report it. Etc. They are also there so if a junior is getting picked on they can help. Again, in theory.

Shoeless Ailbhe

T.Y is really cool..... but we have this subject called culture for some reason.... all it is is Geography, and its dead boring!!!

I'm in I.T. at the moment, bored out of my head. Still, we're doin the musical and all that, so its fun. By the way, neone doin the Young Scientist here ( need i ask)

Asuka

Originally posted by Man U babe
Transition year is a waste of time where you do nothing in school for a year and "mature" by it. yeah right!:D :rolleyes:

Hmmm... you may be interested to find that i thought Transition Year was the best year ive ever done in school... it DID actually help to mature me (somewhat ) and i learned and experienced a lot that i wouldnt have otherwise. I think everyone should do TY, but i do acknowledge that its $hit in some schools (possibly because everyone does it...)

A

qwidgybo

ty is tremendous in my school-or so i'm told by those who have done it-it's all ahead of me yet
they make films-drama people acting,music people doing the soundtrack,other people producing...
another activity in ty is work experience i.e. pretending to be all grown up for a week or two
in my school,ty's also do self defence,first aid,current affairs,mini-companies,environmental studies,legal studies,and the other normal subjects and stuff

on the subject of prefects,we also have class prefects,who take the role,see if teachers are absent,and generally get a lot of slack from teachers about the poor behaviour of their class

Cait

We don't have prefects, and our TY sucks.
It's all stupid, but I like Irish, it is a great subject, yay for irish!!!
and music is cool, and we're doing grease this year in school. YAY!

qwidgybo

Originally posted by Cait
yay for irish!!!

shouldn't that be "yay the tree"??!!

Cait

yeah, that too.......but sure you know that anyway

alaskagirl

ok ,so do you have "discos?" we dont call them that we call them dances. we had homecoming last night. blah. it sucked. ennyways, great great great that people are actually replying.... um...... bye!!!!!!

nosmo

The major suck factor of all skoolz in ire has not yet been mentioned:

Uniforms and the COMPLETE elimination of all self, and all self confidence and all identity.

So, in short its a load of ****ing **** **** *****.

alaskagirl

ok ok ok so another prompt.... My schedule at school is thus:

7:30 am -orchestra
english
algebra2
lunch
french
history
biology
2:00 pm

ok so thats it, except that every tuesday, wednesday, and thursday we have some stupid thing called reading period. its really dumb because if people were going to read, wouldnt we do it? i mean, i am an avid reader , but its not fabulous to make people who dont like to read do it. most people just sleep. it is a waste of time. to add to that, we have a different schedule of the order of classes EVERY day of the week.observe

monday-1,2,3,reading,4,5,6
tuesday-1,reading,2,lunch,4,5
wednesday-2,reading,1,lunch,5,6
thursday-3,reading,1,lunch,6,4
friday- 3,2,1,lunch,6,5,4


ok and then we can be on sports teams:cheerleading, skiing (winter), hockey(winter), basketball, (american) football, and all sorts of other things depending on your school and the like.

so anyway, more later, and could someone please tell me how this whole "class" thing works? like what is the equivalent of our grades (kindergarten, 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th, 9th(freshman) 10th(sophomore)11th(junior) 12th (senior) and 1-6 is elementary school, 7-8 is middle school or jr. high, 9-12 is high school.) what is the equivalent? how does it all work? i feel so....uninformed!

thanks!

~clare~

Asuka

Originally posted by qwidgybo
ty is tremendous in my school

It's actually your school i had in mind when i said that ty is $hite in some schools - i was reliably informed that it was a waste of a year. Of course that could have just been an excuse... (glares at smiles)

A

littlebopeep

well to start with there is baby infants for kids aged 4 to 5 ish, followed by senior infants, then 1st class, 2nd class, 3rd class, 4th class, 5th class and 6th class-they're all in primary school.
in secondary school is 1st year-typically ages 13years, followed by 2nd year, 3rd year in which you do the junior certificate exam, then comes 4th year aka transition year and it is optional, then comes 5th year and finally 6th year in which you do you leaving certificate which is really icky and no fun and that can be followed by college which is a lot of fun and not that much work(well so far anyway)