Caring - Cúram

Caring means taking care. And in Coláiste Chríost Rí taking care is essentially a person-centred process. The pastoral Team taking care of each student includes Subject Teachers, Class Teacher, Guidance Counsellor, Deputy Principal and Principal.

Guidance
A comprehensive Career Guidance / Counselling Programme focuses on: study skills, examination technique, subject choices, career classes, and interview drills and skills. In Individual Guidance sessions, pupils are made aware of their particular strengths and given an understanding of the career options open to them. Each student is alerted to the choices facing him at various points and helped with his decision-making.

Parents
Parents, too, play their part. We have a close relationship with parents and regard our work as an extension of theirs. Our objectives cannot be attained without parents. We keep a boy's family fully informed of his application and achievements. Reports are supplied at Christmas and Summer. Parents may arrange to call at any time, and Parent-Teacher Meetings are regularly organised. A Newsletter jogs the memories of parents about how action-packed and fun-filled school days are! 'Rí Eolas' always includes the activities of parents themselves! An energetic Parents' Council organises many helpful Coláiste Chríost Rí events and evenings.

Facilities
In a modern school, caring for students commits us to update our facilities constantly; we must cater for contemporary teaching demands. However, we have learned long since that the technology hasn't been invented that can replace enthusiastic and creative teaching at the chalkface - teaching enlivened, of course, with DVD and videotape, audiotape, overheads, models and visuals. You might say that in our pedagogy we defer to Bill Gates; "Technology is just the tool. To get kids working, for motivating them, it is the teacher that is most important."

Teachers
We teachers would not be qualified to teach others, if we ourselves were not learners. Through courses, in-service, lectures, and staff development days we keep ourselves informed, professionally. In Coláiste Chríost Rí, recent infrastructural investment in computing, for example, has propelled staff into becoming as computer literate as our students! Teachers are now downloading, off-loading and sometimes exploding!