Míle BuíochasOn behalf of the pupils and teachers travel-ling to Zambia over the Easter break I wouldlike to express sincere thanks to all who havesupported the mission project. Fundraising isnever easy, but in the current economic cli-mate your generosity of spirit, time andfinance has reminded us of all that is good inthe Irish psyche when asked to support thoseless fortunate than ourselves. To date30,000euro has been raised in what can onlybe described as an extraordinary display ofcollegiality. Teachers, pupils, past pupils, fri-ars, families and friends have rallied to con-tribute to what will be a historic event in thelife of the college.It is difficult and sometimes dangerous tosingle out individuals for specific thanks andpraise. Nevertheless, the opportunity to con-gratulate Ms. Jessica McCarthy and team fortheir organisation of the recently held fashionshow in the Rochestown Park Hotel, shouldnot be missed. It was a very enjoyable event,professionally organised and visually stun-ning...I refer to the models of course! Thanksto all who supported the event in a variety ofways, but particular thanks to Jessica whoremained cool and calm throughout. Theevent contributed 6,500euro to the Zambianfund.

We will give an account of our experiences inZambia in the summer edition of the RocoReport. While fashion shows, bag packing,quizzes and sponsored swims have been tak-ing place outside of school, an extensive extracurricular programme continues within theschool. Hurling, football, soccer, basketball,chess, Feis Matthew, choir and orchestra,Thomas Crosbie quiz and much more areongoing. Indeed the commitment of theteachers to continue offering their services inthese areas despite the imposition of the edu-cation cutbacks is commendable. Our finalyear pupils recently spent a day of reflectionunder the guidance of Fr.Richard HendrickO.F.M.Cap. The boys found this a veryworthwhile and thought-provoking experi-ence which afforded them the opportunity tocontemplate issues other than their impend-ing state exams. The coming weeks willprove vital in their preparations and we hopethat they will use their lead in time effective-ly. Our thanks to Fr.Richard for sharing histime and thoughts with the boysMar chríoch ba mhaith liom athbhuíochas óchroí a ghabháil le gach uile duine a oibríonnar leas na scoile agus a chinntíonn ár bhfor-bairt ó neart go neart.

D.Ó Mathúna

St. Francis CollegeRochestown

St. Francis College, Rochestown,

Co. Cork

Tel: 021 4891417 Fax: 021 4361254

Email: rococoll.ias@eircom.net

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Kieran McNeely presents the “Drive for Life” programme to theTransition Years.

School orchestra and choir performing.

Micheal McGrath visits 3rd years as part of their CSPE project

David Keating, Mark McPhilips,Tadhgh Dineen and OlanHannigan at a quiz to raise funds for the Zambia trip

Darren White, Adrian Crofts, Dharmanshu Singh and Réamonn ÓLuasa enjoying “beat box”.

U14 Basketball Team: (Back) Andy Harrington, Eoin O’Callaghan,Arthor Cirulis, Shane Dawson, Stephen Corbett and Jack Ronan

(Front) Cal O’Mahoney, Brian Byrne, Adrian Cullinane, LukeMurphy, Robert Noonan, Ryan Flanagan and Jordan Creed

Nathan Twomey makes himself comfortable at Beatbox.Michael McGrath and Breffni Creedon subsequent to a talk bythe T.D given to Mr. Hennessy’s C.S.P.E class.

Young ScientistIn October I submitted my idea for a young sci-entist project. I decided to see if a computercould classify music into different genres like aperson can when they listen to it. My first stepwas to learn how to program. I used a scriptinglanguage called PHP Hypertext Processorwhich is normally used to write web pages butI used it to open MIDI (Musical InstrumentDigital Interface) files. These are files whichcontain code for a piece of music that a comput-er can play.

I extracted the tempo, instruments and notes ina song and used this information to classify thesong as rock, pop, metal or jazz.After months of hard work, exhibition timefinally arrived. It lasted from Wednesday the7th to Saturday the 10th of January. Out of 1,600entries only 500 made it to Dublin. I had onejudge on Wednesday evening and two onThursday. There was entertainment every nightfor all the students. On Friday evening therewas a huge awards ceremony in the BT Arenapresented by Ray D’arcy and Aoibhinn NíShúileabháin. I came third in the SeniorIndividual Technology category. After the cere-mony I found that a rosette had been put on myproject stand.It was a rewarding experience and I enjoyedmyself thoroughly.David Vaughan

Feis MaitiuThis year, after a two year absence from the FeisMaitiu scene, I decided to enter a class. Aftermuch consideration, I finally decided on TheAdvanced Recital (17 years and under). I pre-sented a recital with the title of InterestingCharacters from Literature. Surprisingly, mytime on stage flew by with only a few errors.After an hour of intense anticipation, to my sur-

prise, I was chosen as the winner. I was present-ed with a Trophy and a Bursary Prize whichallows me to travel to Manchester and studyDrama during the summer. It was an enjoyableexperience and one that I hope to build on.Tadhgh O’ Herlihy

King Lear Review On a crisp February evening, a small group offifth year students ventured out to theEveryman theatre, accompanied by the inim-itable Ms. E O’ Daly, to see Shakespeare’slongest play, King Lear. It was an enjoyablenight but could have done without the disrup-tive and unrestrained crowd which at times

After an hour’s deliberation, Mr Hennessy finally settled on thenumber 8 jersey.

Roco the robot (robot2.jpg)

Mark McGuinness, Stuart O Mahony, Alex Coleman and JoshMcMahon 1st place medallists in relay swimming at the schools

gala.

Leaving Certificate 2009.Back Row L-R: Cormac Collins, Mark Jordan, Shane Kingston, Ian Humphreys,ThomasMcGrath, Ray Smith, Killian Whyte, Robert Kavanagh, Stephen Walters, David Burke,

Steven Downey and Adam Sheehan. Second Row L-R: Johathan Twomey, RyanO’Donoghue,Aonghus O’Drisceoil, Rory Cunningham, Eoghan Buckley, Brian Cusack,

Graham Murray, Luke Walsh, Stephen Hurley, Jim O’Callaghan and Conor Lucey.Third RowL-R: Mark Lynch, John Burke, Jonathan Hayes, Michael Murphy, Mark Bruton, and ShaneCahill. Fourth Row L-R: Peter Travers, Robert Harrington, Robert McWhinney and Timmy

Byrne. Front Row L-R: Joshua Byrne, Sean Driscoll, Richard Laide and Brian Goulding.

David Hogan sings at Christmas Mass.

Brother Jeremy, Christian Connolly, Jamie Herlihy, David McElroyand David O’ Callaghan with their robot “Roco”

John Armstrong, David Barrett, Chris Leahy and DavidO’Callaghan – Liverpool’s new defensive set-up.

David Vaughan being presented with an award by Mr. ÓMathúna and Ms. Lavelle for his work in the Young Scientist

Competition.

Ms.Farrelly with Eoin O’Sullivan, Michael Hughes and JohnGleeson – award winners at recent feis maitiu

Feis Maitiu award winners David McElroy and Daragh Connell

Tadhgh O’Herlihy with Br Paul O Donavan perpetual trophy afterwinning at feis maitiu advanced recital u17

2nd year trip to Anfield in December

impaired the actors’ performance. As for theplay itself we thought it was entertaining but ithad two weaknesses. Firstly, in an attempt tomake the story more accessible to the audienceand to make them soar with patriotism, it wasset in Ireland. This was not consistent with theplot as Regan and Goneril were worried aboutthe French invading England. Secondly we feltthe performance of Regan was not on par withthe rest of the cast.

We would give the award for best actorto The Fool. Not only were his lengthy mono-logues delivered impeccably and clearly but,his drumming skills (which counted down thedemise of King Lear) were amazing.Tadhgh O’Herlihy

Student Council My name is Peter Twomey and I am a memberof the school’s student council. The aim of thestudent council at Rochestown College is torepresent the students and to discuss and findsolutions to any problems that may arise inevery day school life.As well as this we aim to set up as manyfundraisers as possible throughout the year.Many non-uniform days, quizzes and a fooddrive for St. Vincent De Paul were all organisedduring the school year. Our main goal is to raisemoney for the charity trip to Zambia which willtake place during the Easter holidays.Although the student council is limited in theamount of power it holds we try to benefit thestudent’s life by improving the little things.Many ideas are put forward at every meetingand many are soon to be implemented. It mustbe said the student council would not existwithout the close involvement of the principaland the supervision of Mr. O’ Regan at everymeeting.

Peter Twomey,Student Council.

First Aid CourseA first aid course has been run in RochestownCollege as part of the Transition YearProgramme for several years now. Our first aidcourse was on for one week. Each class did twohours a day for that week. For the first threedays we practised CPR and for the last twodays we practised how to bandage peopleproperly. I think we learned a lot of things fromthe course; for example treatment for burns,water safety, drowning, bleeding, and otherpotential domestic emergencies from the tutors.

We also learned that there are different ways ofdoing CPR according to the age of the person.And also how to help someone when they arechoking or having an epileptic fit.

On the Friday there was a test on the workthat we had done that week. The first test was

on CPR and when the CPR test finished wewere asked five questions each on what welearned in the week. Altogether I thought thefirst aid course was a fun and educational expe-rience and I am pleased with the work that I didthat weekGrant Murphy TY

Pisa InternationalStudyRecently, on the 12th of March our studentstook part in the Pisa international study in theschool. Pisa is an international study of theskills and knowledge of students aged 15 and16. It takes place every 3 years .In 2009,67 coun-tries took part in Pisa. The main focus is onreading, with some maths and science ques-tions too. Our school was picked at random outof 160 random schools. For each school a list ofall students born in 1993 was drawn up. Then,up to 35 students were randomly chosen fromeach school list. All students were chosen to do

Jack Howard and Frank Bruen; another day, another dummysaved.

Alan Murphy and Ciarán Moore learning first aid as part of theTransition Year programme.

Mr.Buckley strutting his stuff Ms.Lavelle enjoying herself at the fashionshow

Mr. Lonergan shows howit’s done

Mr.Lonergan and Mr.Buckley with former Ireland rugby international John Kelly

Ms.O Daly models at the Zambia projectfashion show

Pinstripe suit modelled at Rochestown park hotel by Mr.Croke Br. Jeremy has his coolest moment-ever!

Ms. O Gorman on the catwalkat the recent fashion show in aid

of the Zambia project

a three and a half hour test in the morning andsome students did a reading test on the com-puter after lunch.

The Drumcondra Educational Research Centrein Dublin says that all tests and questionnairesare totally confidential. Your results will beused to compare students in Ireland as a groupwith students from other countries and fromthat we should learn how well the educationalsystem is preparing students for life afterschool.

Later on there will be a prize draw for eachschool and every student who took part has achance to win a gift voucher. Well done to allthose who participated.

Transition YearStudents GoLandscapingSome while back in the dark grey days ofWinter some Transition Year students weremaking suggestions about doing an environ-mental project around the school. Their bound-less enthusiasm was all the more remarkableconsidering the doom and gloom outside.Throughout several weeks they tried to narrowtheir focus until eventually they agreed the areaoverlooking the pond in front of the old churchcould be landscaped and 19 letters of SaintFrancis College could be laid out in Topiaryusing buxus sempervirens.

With the blessing of Br. Paul from the Friaryand the help of the Principal we got a JCB to dothe initial clearing. Trevor and Br. Hugh helpedwith cutting and root-pulling but there was alot of shale and stones to be levelled off after-wards. We like working out in the fresh air butthe truth is it is hard on the hands and shoul-

ders. The Deputy Principal put us in contactwith a man who trained in the Kew gardens inLondon and he advised us how to go forward.

“You wll need 3 rolls of mypex to block theweeds, rolls of chicken wire on top of that, and23 tons of one and a half inch slate mulch on topof that. We made our case to the Principal thatthis would be a long lasting feature in theschool and with his generosity and the generos-ity of another parent we were ready to go.

On Thursday we got our delivery of slatemulch. By Saturday 14th March we were outlaying mypex and wire and shovelling the slatemulch down on top .Although we had meas-ured the site to be 200sq metres some how weran out of mypex and we had to phone formore. Later, tired and sore we discovered wewere short slate mulch. We learned a lot of thetricks of the trade like you measure twice andcut once.

So as we write this on the 18th of March for theRoco Report we still have a fair bit to go for theplanting of the 225 shrubs. To be honest we arenot looking forward to another few Saturdays’work, maybe the Principal would give us timeoff classes.

Patrick O’Callaghan: Andrew Morrissey:Stephen Connolly: Eoin O’Mahony:Jack O’Mahoney: Liam Downey: Ryan O’Shea

U-14 GAAFootballWe began with a hard fought tie v Macroomand came out with a two-point win (1-8 to 2-3).Our next match brought St.Colmans of Fermoyto Rochestown. In this game the lads drove onat half time and ended up with a very convinc-ing victory (6-10 to 2-6) with some excellentmovement from the forwards. In the third gamewe faced a very difficult tie v Colaiste Choilmin CIT. However the St. Francis boys dug in and

came out with an encouraging victory. The next game proved our credentials in this

competition when Colaiste Chriost Ri visited.We produced a magical performance of defend-ing and attacking in the second half to come outon top (2-10 to 1-6). A particular exampleinvolved one of our forwards making a crucialblock inside our own 14-yard line. Our finalgame versus Spiorad Naomh gave us theopportunity to give 28 members of the panel agame and still come out on top.

Next Fixture : V Chriost Ri / Colaiste Choilm

HurlingIn our first game we faced a very strongMidleton team and went down on a score lineof 4-11 to 0-5. We had more time to prepare forthe visit of St. Colmans and duly produced afine performance. We finished strongly withsome intense hooking and blocking winningout 1-13 to 1-11.

We travelled to Chriost Ri for the third game.We showed strong character in the second halfled by our more senior members and ended upwinning 1-10 to 1-2. CBC was our most disap-pointing performance of the year beforeChristmas as we struggled physically in verymuddy conditions going down by six points.

The final score of the Mallow game in Februaryof 2-15 to 3-6 doesn’t reflect the closeness of thisencounter. However this team showed someexcellent skill and work rate in a late rally towin convincingly.

Next Fixture : V Blackwater 24/3/09

Progress and Future Development

While the panel is backboned by a large num-ber of players from Blackrock/ St. Michaels,Douglas and Nemo Rangers, we have a numberof significant players from other clubs such as

Cobh, Shamrocks, Passage, St. Finbarrs andCarrigaline. We look forward to the futuredevelopment of these players and hope that wecan work with all of these clubs in providing agood opportunity for each individual in theteam environment.

School Trip toPremiership GameThis year the second year school trip was toEwood Park to see Blackburn Rovers versusLiverpool in a Premier League match. Early inthe morning of December 6th we met at theschool to travel to Dublin by coach and latergot the ferry to Holyhead.

A few hours later we arrived at Cheshire OaksShopping Centre. We spent the afternoon thereand then moved on to an indoor-wall climbingcentre. That was great fun and everyoneenjoyed it as it had the tallest climbing-wall inEngland which is 40 metres high. We spent thenight at the Britannia Hotel in Wigan. The hotellaid on top nosh and Ger O Connell wasn’tfound wanting in the eating department! Weslept like logs knowing that the big day wasahead.

At 9:30 a.m., next morning we got the tour ofAnfield football stadium in Liverpool. That wasa great thrill as many of us were Liverpool fans.We got to see the dressing rooms, the tunneland where they do the post-match interviewsand the dugouts.

After spending some time in the Liverpool F.C.shop we travelled to Ewood Park for the biggame.We had a great view of the game as we satin the Jack Walker Stand. It was an afternoonkick-off, but it was played under floodlights sothat only added to the atmosphere and ourenjoyment. It was an exciting game and was agreat result for Liverpool fans as they won 3-1.Afterwards we went shopping in the TraffordCentre, the largest indoor shopping centre inthe world and that was an experience in itself.The day wasn’t finished just yet as we headedfor an evening of bowling. Students like Erick OConnor and Ryan Feeney had a great timewhen they realised they were supposed to leavethe ball go. It was then time to make the longjourney home and some very tired boys arrivedat the school Sunday morning. Thanks to all theteachers for their top jokes especially Mr.Hennessy, Mr Fahey, Mr O Flaherty Mr. Cotterand the delightful Ms Larkin. Alan O Donovan (2nd Year)

4th year landscaping project

U-14 GAA Panel

Andrew Morrissey and Patrick O’Callaghan working on the 4thyear landscaping project