The Transition Year (TY) is a unique one year optional programme that promotes the personal, social and educational development of students and prepares them for their roles as autonomous, participative and responsible members of society.
TY enables students to make the transition from the more dependent type of learning associated with the Junior
Cycle to the more independent learning environment associated with the Senior Cycle. It encourages the development of a wide range of transferable critical thinking and creative problem solving skills. In addition to traditional subjects TY students experience a wide range of interesting modules including:
| Film Studies | Cooking | Horticulture |
| Law Studies | Eagles Flight | First Aid |
| Mini-company | Enterprise Education | Forensic Science |
| Young Social Innovator | Gaisce | Mentoring |
| Coding | GAA Coaching Course | Car/Driver Safety |
| Spanish | GAA Future Leaders | Media Studies |
| Mindfulness | Career Development | Work Experience |
Links with Industry
Each year Abbott Vascular selects 10 students to participate in a 3
week work placement with them which includes work experience,
project mentoring for Young Scientist competition and local
school visits to promote STEM subjects.
All our students are invited to visit Abbott to provide engineering career information. In addition Abbott sponsors a bursary for our top leaving cert
student each year studying an engineering related discipline.
We have also connected to several businesses in the town of Thurles and the surrounding area. We strive to connect our students with local industry to ensure both our students and local industry can benefit from this valuable community link.
“We had an amazing experience as part of our Transition Year when we entered the BT Young Scientists and Technology competition. With the help of our teachers we completed a difficult proposal form
outlining our idea, aims and work completed to date. In early November we got the good news that we had qualified for the finals in the RDS in January. A lot of hard work took place over the next two months to prepare. The experience of the event itself was unbelievable. The sheer numbers of people we explained our project to was crazy. Finally, after 3 days of the exhibition, the awards ceremony took place. After a nervous wait we heard our names called out as the winners of the Samsung Award. We had barely settled back into our seats when we got called for the second time as overall winners in our age group. We have received great opportunities with Samsung, BT and UCD as a result of our project. The staff of our school, BOM and parents supported us with advice and financial support wherever possible. This support was vital to our success.”
Óisin O’Brien & Sam Quinlan, 6th year
