By Michelle Crean

Transition Year students from Killorglin Community College have won a national award.

They were announced as the winners of the Think Languages 2022 social media competition which is in conjunction with Languages Connect, an annual celebration of languages and culture.

The fifth annual #ThinkLanguages event was the biggest yet with over 15,000 TY students taking part from 180 schools nationwide.

This year’s theme once again focused on 'Think Global, Act Local'. Students were encouraged to look at the diversity of languages spoken within their school, community and beyond as inspiration for their activities and events.

Two Transition Year classes together with their teachers, Ms Saoirse Riordan and Ms Karen Fitzgerald, organised a variety of events over a two-week period in November.

These activities included a language class, whereby students of different nationalities taught the Second Years French, German, Ukrainian, Afrikaans and Tamil. There were also language workshops, including a whole school Irish Sign Language workshop along with Polish and Chinese, an exhibition, ‘Le Petit Déjeuner’ and a primary school lesson in which the TY groups taught Spanish to the Fourth Class pupils of Scoil Mhuire, Killorglin. On top of all this, they created a video using greetings in different languages.

The Transition Year students also took part in a 30-minute opening ceremony with inspirational speakers including Olympic Council of Ireland CEO, Peter Sherrard, Comedian Killian Sundermann and Content Creator Mandy Cherie who provided an insight into their relationships with modern foreign languages and the immense value their skills have brought to their lives. This was followed by a virtual quiz where one of their teams came 12th out of over 800 teams.

All events were actively promoted and shared on the group’s social media.

“We are extremely proud of all the Transition Year students who hosted the event," Saoirse Riordan, Spanish Teacher, said. "The creativity, leadership and teamwork skills the students displayed are a testament to them. They fully embraced the initiative which was evident in the variety of languages and cultures represented. As a school that prides itself on being innovative and diverse, this accolade undoubtedly represents what we as a school are about; inclusion, equality and learning.”