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Ard Scoil na nDéise "Reaching our Potential with Respect, Care and Friendship" |
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My year at Ard Scoil na nDéise by Carly Fenudi
When I came to Ireland for a year, my head was full of questions. What would my host family be like? Would I be homesick? Would my English be good enough? Would I make friends? But one of the main things the other visiting students and I talked about was our new school. Ard Scoil na nDéise was chosen to be my school for the next 10 months and the place I was going to spend most of my time. We met the day before the summer holidays ended and the new school year started. Mrs Hughes, our principal showed all the visiting girls around the school. She told us where to go on our first day of school and introduced us to some of the teachers. Then she showed us where we could find her if there were any problems. Her door is always open for us to talk to her. She reassured me and I felt a lot calmer about the coming challenge: My first school day. I never wore a school uniform before, and I was somehow looking forwards to having one, especially because it would have been hard to decide what to wear in a totally new school where you don't know anybody. I mean it is hard enough to pick your outfit for the day at home. The uniform saved a lot of time in the mornings and gave me security. It was also new to me to go to an all-girls school. But I am sure that was a good thing because my year was like a big circle of friends different than in Germany where we have many groups of friends. I think that because this school isn't as big as most of the schools at home, it was a lot easier to settle in and find our way around. It also formed a closer relationship between students and teachers. The learning is a lot more personal. On my first day, Mrs Hughes introduced us to three girls from our year who were going to stay with us for the next days to show us everything and help us to settle. They were very nice and looked after us very well. To find friends can be very difficult, if you don't make the required effort. What we did was, we went up to any of the girls, maybe one you previously had a conversation with and asked them, could you spend the lunch break with them. That was definitely the hardest part, because none of us were used to doing that. But once, I asked they said, “Yes of course you can!” and I went downtown with them. After a few days I found the girls that I clicked with and we became friends. Of course the stuff we did in class was harder in Ireland than in Germany. First, because I was much younger than most of the girls and secondly because it was a different language. But the teachers were so helpful and willing to explain everything again, that it was totally manageable. And I still had enough free time to meet friends and have hobbies like horse riding. There was a school pantomime on once. I did not participate in it but I went anyway to watch it with my friends. The teachers and students had worked on it for ages and had put so much effort into it. It was great and so funny! We also went on a few school trips like to the Ploughing Match. That was so much fun because there were so many people and we saw a lot of the Irish culture. My whole year went to Waterford in December to go ice skating. That was definitely one of my favourite trips we did. We stayed for the whole day and after the ice skating and shopping, we went for a hot chocolate all together. In April, my art class presented all our work in an art exhibition in Lismore. It was very nice because we were all dressed up and met lots students from other schools from all over the country. Now my year is nearly over and I am so grateful for everything I was able to do. Not only did my English improve but I met so many new people and found some very good friends.
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