School in Ireland

Sooo my little sister has been staying in Ireland since January, in order to get better in English, so she can join the OIB. Sadly, she does not really talk to us often, but I eventually managed to keep her on skype for long enough for me to know everything about her school life, and I thought, why not write about it ? (ok no the article was the excuse to keep her on skype, so thank you Charlie, you gave me a talk with my sister)

First things first, here is the way the day is set out :

She starts the day at 8:45, has a break from 10:45 to 11:00, and a second one from 12:20 to 13:15, and finishes at 16:00. This is the case from Monday to Friday, except on Wednesday when she does not have the second break but finishes at 13:05.

Her lessons are 40 to 45 minutes long, and she has 9 of them per day except on Wednesday, when she only has 7.

About the breaks : she usually spends then in the canteen, but they can go anywhere in the school (yes, even in classrooms !), and they should be seated before the teacher arrives at the beginning of the lesson that's after the break. To manage that, there are two bells : one telling them to go to class, and one telling the start of the lesson.

Another usual thing for her is to bring her own food, a snack and a lunch, as they can mostly buy muffins and crisps in the canteen (but sometimes there's free cookies ! She loves those days.). The school offers to put the meals in a fridge for free, and they can also heat it up for free ! Isn't that awesome ?

And there are clubs too ; she couldn't give me a list, so I'll just say those she's participating in : basket-ball and debate.

About the lessons :

The first thing she told me was "we have a lot of art". So I asked, and it turns out she has 4 of them per week.

Another thing she talked about at the beginning of our chat was the home economics class. This is a class she chose to take, whereas some people prefer business... but some take both. To be honest, I haven't quite figured out what is compulsory, what is not, and how all of that works. In that class, she learns a lot of different things : cooking (they even adapt it : the class was making sausage rolls, but she made something else as she too is vegetarian), sewing (the others have to make a project that they will present at their exam, along with a diary about it, but my sister will not be there anymore so she has more freedom). These two things are quite traditional ; as she is in an all-girls school, there are influences of traditions, but it has also been modernised and is quite useful. Indeed, they have also talked about subjects such as how to eat healthily, how to balance a budget or how fashion works, overall, things that would be useful to everyone. She has 4 classes of that per week.

She also has religion lessons. As she is in a catholic school, you'd expect that to be all about christianity, right ? Well, you're wrong. They're learning about what makes a religion, and about the different religions that exist. My sister has had to prepare a project about buddhism, for instance. Fun fact : her religion teacher is also a science teacher.

So, about science now. What they learn in science lessons is a bit different from here : for instance, geology is taught in geography, not science. There are 4 lessons per week, and so far, they've studied metals, energy, pressure, plastics, acids and bases, and they do real chemistry experiments (fun fact : my sister got a bit of acid on her hand, it was red for a little while but it's fine now) !

I've mentioned geography just before. She has 3 lessons a week, and as I've said, they study geology as well as what we learn in geography here.

In our french educated minds, geography goes with history. Well, it's not the case there : she has 3 lessons a week. When my sister arrived, they were studying colonisation, and how cultures are erased... sounds familiar ? She wrote her first essay ever about that, I think she's training for the OIB already ;) since then, they've started studying the French revolution, and they have done the US one, and will then do the Irish one.

So, since we're talking about familiar things, let's mention something else, shall we ? Most people take gaelic lessons, it's a lot more popular than I thought it was ! Well, my comparison base was the popularity of our provençal lessons, but still ! And there's 1 lesson a day ! I find that very interesting, the people there are still very connected to their roots. Moreover, people take pride in speaking gaelic, so much that sometimes the microphone announcements the headmistress makes are in that language !

But sadly, my sister did not take up that option (she couldn't because the others've studied for over a year, and she has no basis). Instead, she has extra English, where they are 8 in the class (well, all the others are studying gaelic !). In that lesson, they write tests about stories, checking their profound understanding of the story and the grammar, but sometimes they just do their homework (that they have a lot of, my sister works around 1 hour and a half every evening). Lately, they've started studying a movie. Which one ? I do not know.

While we're on languages, the school also offers French and German lessons... and my sister was not allowed to take the French ones, so she's learning German (on top of Spanish and latin in France, and already knowing French, English and Hungarian, and trying to teach herself Japanese) now. She has 3 lessons a week and can choose to not take the tests (because she's only there for six months), but since she loves challenges, she does take them, and has good grades. How does she do that ?

In sports lessons (that consists in 2 lessons right after each other once a week), she is free to choose which sport she does. She started with basketball, now she is doing dance lessons.

There are also two lessons with obscure names, that she has one lesson of per week (each) : CSPE, where she's studied politics, and SPHE, which has talked about bullying, and, although she agrees with the teacher, my sister perceives it as some kind of brainwash. Why ? Because there is absolutely no nuance in it...

Now, onto the subjects I know for sure are compulsory :

There is maths, that she has once a day.

And last but no least, there are English literature lessons 5 times a week ! She's studied To Kill a Mockingbird. Since she's been there, the class has written two essays about it, one about courage, that I could not have the precise subject of since she did not do it as she was very new there, and one that was "how does the character of your choice deal with betrayal", or something like that, which I find is quite interesting and also a good introduction to the OIB for her !

I'm finished with lessons !

But I still have to talk about some stuff !

They've got lockers !

They're smallish, but very much needed : they have plenty of books, and need several ones for each class (except CPHE), so they go and change the books in their bags during the breaks.

They also have a uniform, but sometimes there are uniform-free days. Why, do you ask ? Well, if you don't come in your uniform, you pay 2 euros and the profit goes to the school !

Aaaaaaand I think I've finished saying the most important stuff - for the grading, the teachers choose how they do it, the phone policy is very strict and very respected, and so are the teachers - they are used to total silence !

Sorry for the long article,

Judith, with her sister Adèle's cooperation.

PS : it's Saint Patrick's Day tomorrow, maybe I'll be able to hear all about it and then tell you !

PPS : sorry sis, I'm stealing your future potential articles