Saturday, December 04, 2010

Business Studies

See video here.

Believe it or not you are looking at a business studies project.

Manor House School (for girls) got an interest-free loan from the local Roman Catholic Church to finance the reconstruction of their hockey pitch. You are looking at one element of a fundraising drive to pay off the loan.

Manor House is an enterprising school. As far back as 1965, when girls did not do honours maths in the Leaving Certificate examination, this school took the plunge and, in 1967, became part of the first wave of Irish girls ever to sit honours maths in the Leaving. A new curriculum had been introduced for that cohort and (surprise, surprise) the corresponding textbook was not available through the normal channels. So the girls had to use the only text book that was available. This was compiled by the Christian Brothers (for boy's schools) and it was available in the Irish language only. So the girls in this English medium school had to study the new honours maths course through the medium of Irish.

Clearly the school is still in pathbreaking mode and its business studies faculty is on the ball.

2 comments:

  1. I think I'm right in saying that Manor House introduced its first male teacher just before I left in 1967. He was a sports teacher. I wasn't too hot in the sports department but I'm pretty sure he was there just before I left. If not, he arrived immediately after. I doubt if that was common in convent schools at the time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I attended Manor House from 1967-1972 and took honours Maths The textbooks have not left a mark on my memory so I guess they were in English. I was one of the first three girls to take honours Physics. At first there was a plan to send us to St Paul's, the neighbouring boys school for the subject [that would have been fun!] but timetables could not be coordinated. We had wonderful female teacher from the UK in 5th year and a man in 6th year, who was probably doing his H dip. and struggling I think. There were at least five men on the staff at that time that I can recall.
    I really disappointed a lot of people in the school by deciding on a career in education instead of science after all their efforts.
    T

    ReplyDelete

Bona fide comments only. Spamming, Trolling, or commercial advertising will not be accepted.