TY Challenge Programme – An Access & Outreach Initiative
The Access and Outreach service recently successfully completed its TY Challenge Programme for the sixth year.
TY students from St. Paul’s CBS, Secondary during the Biology Challenge
Established in 2017 to support the Transition Year initiatives being run in DEIS schools local to Grangegorman, the programme expanded to eight schools in 2022, offering 16 different challenges (workshops, lectures and activities) to 170 students.
The challenges are chosen to:
- Appeal to the teenagers and their inherent talents and abilities
- Link with the secondary curriculum
- Relate to courses offered in TU Dublin and the skills needed to complete them
The range of challenges offered ensure maximum student engagement. The workshops, lectures and activities are delivered by TU Dublin lecturers and staff and external facilitators.
- Debating – Lauren Wright and Ruth Lynam (Concern Schools Debates Team) – Deirdre McGowan, David Irwin and Fiona Broughton Coveney
- Photography – Tim Kovar
- Visual Merchandising – Kerry Meakin and Michelle Lalor
- Restaurant Experience – James Sheridan
- Electronics – Frank Duignan
- Music – Conor O’Malley
- Team Building - Workday
- VFX & Game Design – Stephen Lohan and Peter Lynch
- Design Craft – Jennifer Byrne
- Product Design – Mark Ennis
- Chemistry - Ziga Ude, Vanessa Murphy and Professor John Cassidy
- Baking – Shannon Dickson, Mary Jenson and Ann-Marie Dunne
- Biology – Leanne Harris and Marcus Maher
- Dunsink - Sadhbh Leahy (Dunsink), Kevin Nolan and Keith Colton
- Podcasting – Roisin Boyd
- Sports – TU Dublin Sports Team
The schools participating in the programme are: Cabra Community College, Mount Carmel Secondary School, St. Paul’s CBS Secondary School, Stanhope Street Secondary School, CBS Westland Row, Larkin Community College, St. Joseph’s Fairview and Presentation Secondary School Warrenmount.
Our school benefitted hugely from an expanded TU Dublin TY Challenge Programme this year. As a small DEIS school we can be stretched to provide a full TY programme, with teachers going above and beyond to fill the curriculum. The TY challenge programme allowed us to have students engaged in a broad range of activities with the support of expert TU Dublin staff. We appreciate that the workshops are genuinely engaging and the students feel that. There are other programmes where students feel the part of a tick the box activity, the opposite is the case with this programme and student feedback is uniformly positive. From the school's perspective it allows the Co-Ordinator to target students to activities that match their interests. It has the added benefit of introducing some students to 3rd level courses and possibilities. It was a huge success for us this year and featured largely in student evaluations and portfolio reports
One example of the impact of the TU Dublin workshops (Dunsink, Podcasting, Music Production) from a student is provided below (there were a number of other similar examples):
I learned more about myself this year, I learned that I enjoy things like astronomy, podcasts and music production from doing workshops. I also increased my confidence in presenting, while I still despise it and feel anxious while doing so, I am less afraid now then I was. While this may seem small, compared to last year this is a huge step for me that I am proud of myself for
John Davis Guidance Counsellor CBS Westland Row
This programme is one of many coordinated by the Access and Outreach Service in TU Dublin, which delivers various projects, taster workshops and information sessions to DEIS schools, community groups and Further Education colleges to engage with prospective students of all ages.