Swim A Mile

On Wednesday our year took part in Swim a Mile in the National Aquatic Center. We were raising money for The Ian Daly Foundation, who work with children affected by cancer, and had had a few talks beforehand on what the organisation does. The charity is named after Ian Daly, a young boy who died of cancer age 11. To find out more about the charity and the work they do, visit http://www.mycharity.ie/event/the-daly-family-event/

A few days before the swim, I went around to my neighbours and friends asking for sponsorship. I had managed to raise 40 euro, and was excited to do the swim. On Wednesday, we arrived at the National Aquatic Center at around ten o'clock, then got changed into our swimming gear. Me and seven other girls had originally planned to split the mile between us, but when we got there we decided to do it in groups of four and rise to the challenge. I was in a group with Laura, Kathleen and Molly. We were all really excited to start.

We had planned to do sixteen lengths each, but when it came down to it, we had completed the mile well within the time limit and decided to do a second one. I was really happy with myself afterwards, and it felt great to have raised money and contributed to such a worthy cause. I'm definitely going to do it next year!



We got out of the pool and were given special t-shirts. We had our photos taken and ran back inside to get dry. Afterwards, we went to Blanchardstown for some food and shopping time. I enjoyed my day so much- it was definitely one of the highlights of the year.

Next week is a busy one- we've got Sports Day on Monday, Sci Fest on Tuesday and our TY Retreat on Wednesday. Our science group have been putting the finishing touches on our project this week. We had to develop it more as we had already entered it into the Young Scientist, so decided to find out in which type of music First Years learn better. Our Science teacher Ms Ward taught two lessons to her First Year class, one with rock music playing in the background and one with classical. She then made up a short 14 question test for them to answer on the lesson. Needless to say, they all did a lot better with the classical music! It was really interesting to see how they reacted to the tests, as it is unusual to have music playing in the background of a class.

:)