Stratford College has been selected as one of 400 schools to participate in the Department of Education's new innovative Arts-in-Education BLAST Residency Programme in 2021. Adrienne Geoghegan, a visual artist and illustrator, is going to work with the TY class in January and February 2022 to help them write and illustrate their own children's books.
Children’s books can function to replicate damaging stereotypes and maintain a ‘safe’ status quo, however the inverse radical power of children’s literature to embrace diversity and to subvert stereotypes, is a complex area we don’t have the space to analyse in the Junior Cycle or Leaving Cert English curriculum. TY provides the scope and freedom to pursue this.
Illustrator and author Adrienne Geoghegan has over 30 years’ experience in this field. Adrienne’s work has appeared in The Guardian, The Irish Times, and The Economist, to name a few. She has been published by Bloomsbury, Scholastic and Oxford University Press, amongst others. She has lectured in DIT and run courses in the Irish Writer’s Centre since 2014. She brings a wealth of creativity, imagination and publishing knowledge to our students, and we are delighted she's agreed to work with them.
We're very excited to get started on this collaboration and look forward to documenting the Transition Years' creative process. Thanks to the Blackrock Education Centre for facilitating this project.
Ms Talbot
The 1st years completed a zombie lab today where they used their scientific methods and thinking to identify patient zero from the zombie suspects. Using measuring skills, pH, observation skills and much more they successfully identified the source of the outbreak!
Read more →
The TY Horticulture class were out in the Autumn sunshine planting Spring bulbs using the chaos planting method. This is when a multitude of different spring bulbs (Hyacinths, Daffodils, Tulips, Crocuses, Narcissi) are mixed together and randomly planted so that we have a mixture of flowers and patterns emerging in the spring. It mimics nature and so is more enticing to pollinators and native insects that need the food in Spring.
Stratford is celebrating Maths Week 2026 (12th - 18th October) with daily activities around the school, at breaktimes and in Maths classes! The tutor-time daily quiz is proving to be extremely competitive as each form group tries to solve it and then run to find Ms Matthews in order to win the box of chocolates!
Read more →
