"Promoting Personal Excellence"
MODERN LANGUAGES
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The Languages Department in St Patrick’s promotes the learning of French/Irish in an enjoyable, active and realistic manner.Our aim is to enable pupils to use French/Irish for the purpose of effective communication and provide them with competence in the language suitable for further study, work and leisure.
A variety of extra-curricular activities help support the delivery of the curriculum. Pupils of French are encouraged to establish Pen-pal/E-mail contact with their counterparts in France and there are regular educational trips to France.
The Irish department works very closely with Gael Linn, Comhaltas Uladh and Cnoc na Ros to promote the language in school. The school has produced the Northern Ireland winner of ‘Abair’, the public speaking competition organised by Gael Linn, for two consecutive years. The winners participated in an All-Ireland and All-Scotland competition in Glasgow and County Meath respectively. The school also recently won ‘Corn an Athair Ui Mhuiri. This is an Irish language inter-school competition in which secondary schools in Ulster and Louth compete.
Students are actively encouraged to attend different colleges in the Donegal Gaeltacht. Scholarships are made available from Irish language organisations and the local council. In March, in co-operation with the PTA the school organises a Ceili for pupils and parents. The ‘Club Rince’ starts in January and helps prepare the pupils/students with their one-two-threes.
Part-time language assistants support learning and teaching in both languages.
Pupils are entered for GCSE Irish (CCEA) or GCSE French (AQA).
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