Erin Seils |
The night began with the Chairperson’s Remarks from Christopher Henry. This was followed by a prayer from the new St Bride’s parish priest and school chaplain, Father Bill Bergin.
Award winners, guests and the platform party, consisting of Christopher Henry, Head Teacher Fiona Mullen, Parent Council Caroline MacDonald, Head of Education Wilma Bain and Vote of Thanks Daisy Iles were provided with a wonderful source of musical entertainment before the Prize-Giving Ceremony began. A small group of pupils from a mix of different year groups performed a few instrumental pieces which I believe everybody found pleasing to the ear.
Fiona Mullen, Head Teacher, gave her first annual report. Mrs Mullen told everyone attending about the fantastic exam results that our school has achieved and said “we have gone from strength to strength”.
Guest Speaker, Wilma Bain, Head of Education, reiterated the Head Teacher’ s words “strength to strength” although she made a funny comment saying that she had not compared speeches with her and Mrs Mullen nodded her head in agreement. Mrs Bain’s words were indeed very inspirational. She told us to be confident and ambitious and also referred to a quote from Theodore Roosevelt “Believe you can and you’re halfway there”.
It was then time for the freshly motivated prize winners to receive their awards, after all this is who the night was for. First up were the First and Second Year General Excellence awards . There were Third, Fourth and Fifth Year subject awards. Prizes were given for Excellence In National 5 Examinations and Excellence in Higher Grade Examinations. There were also Special Awards for things such as Special Achievement in Sport and Ambassadors of Sport, Citizenship, Silver and Gold awards in Mathematics Competitions and awards for special achievements in Art, Drama, Geography and Modern Studies.
As well as all of these awards there was the Ian Sweeney Award for Craft Work, James McGivern Award for Graphics, SAIC Technology Award and the Gerry Colgan Award.
A new award was introduced this year, the Junior Dux. This came with a shiny new glass panel from the Parent Council, which is hung above the entrance to the E Wing in the school, for Dux and Junior Dux winners’ names to go on, for many years to come. The Proxime Accessit (runner-up) for the Junior Dux was Melissa McGrory and the joint winners of the Junior Dux were Rachael McCusker and Kerrie McNulty. The Proxime Accessit for the Dux Award was Ronan Doyle and the joint Dux winners were Heather Addison and Megan McGlone.
The Prize-giving went on for a long time because of the amount of pupils that won awards and I think everyone was surprised that Mr McGurk had managed to read the long list of names without having to stop to catch his breath.
The Vote of Thanks was given by one of the sixth year students, Daisy Iles, and the Concluding Remarks were given by Christopher Henry.
There was a final celebration before the ceremony ended and an opportunity for a good picture. The pupils had been given gold tubes when they went to collect their awards and as these were thrown up into the air, at the end of the Prize-giving, parents, carers and guests took out their phones and cameras to take a quick snap of the moment! Nobody got injured but it was lucky that the students real awards were ready for them to collect in the drama studio, as a few people ended up with no tubes and some with too many to hold.
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