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Projects - Education Centre Kildare

Ficheall 2023/2024

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Ficheall.ie is the national network of primary teachers promoting chess in their schools for the social and cognitive benefits it has for primary school students. Ficheall teachers use chess as a tool to teach through and an opportunity for their students to develop new skills and values, as well as representing their school at Ficheall tournaments called Féile Fichille (chess festival).

The Ficheall.ie website contains many excellent resources created by fellow primary school teachers such as:

Ficheall Summer Course

Kildare Education Support Centre have hosted the Chess for Social Skills summer course previously with great success. Upon completion of this course teachers can play chess (most attend the course having never played chess before) and can teach the basics of chess to students in their class while also teaching key SPHE curriculum objectives from 1st to 6th class (all of this without worksheets).

Féile Fichille Chess Tournaments

Féile Fichille tournaments are non-competitive chess tournaments organised annually in Term 2. No medals, prizes or trophies are presented. Instead, the day is a celebration of the students learning chess and social skills as well as their teachers’ leadership skills to introduce the initiative in their school. For many students it is their first opportunity to wear their school jersey and represent their school. More details about Féile Fichille Tournaments can be found here (including a checklist to ensure students are ready for the Féile Fichille)

Féile Fichille Timeline

  • September: Registrations Open
  • October: Registrations Close
  • November: Schools informed of tournament date and venue
  • January/ February/ March: Féile Fichille tournament will be scheduled in term 2. Registered schools will be allocated one Féile Fichille tournament to attend. Schools are required to be at the venue at 9.30am with the event concluded by 2pm

Contact Us

If you have any queries regarding the Féile Fichille Tournaments please contact Ficheall using the Contact Us link here.

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Chess, Primary Chess Festival

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STEAM Weekly Challenge

Kildare Education Centre and Ms. Niamh Brady are delighted to Launch the Weekly STEAM Challenge.

Starting on Wednesday 20th May we will release a STEAM Challenge each week. This can be included in your plan for the following week.

Students can get their parents/guardians to send a picture or video of their project and tag us on Twitter @KECtweet using the #KildareSTEAMChallenge or email entries of This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for a chance to win a €20 One4All voucher.

Week 1: Closing date for entries - 29th May 2020

 

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IZAC9 Project

 

Kildare Education Centre is currently running and IZAC9 initiative for 5th and 6th class Teachers.

 

Izak9 takes the form of a box of 27 colourful cubes accompanied by an online support area of tasks and questions most suitable for children between the ages of 8 and 14.

https://www.izak9.com/ 

izac9

 

Taking part in the initiative involves at least 2 teachers signing up for a series of training sessions in Kildare Education Centre over the rest of this school year. The number and content of the training will be decided based on the needs of participants.

 

The school then get the use of the IZAC9 cubes for the remainder of the school year (to be returned to Kildare Education centre in June 2020).

 

This is all provided free to schools.

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We will be looking for 8 more school to take up this opportunity in 2020/2021 school year.

 

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ATS STEM

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WHAT IS ATS STEM 

Assessment of Transversal Skills in STEM is an innovative policy experimentation project  being conducted across 8 EU countries and involving a partner network of 12 educational institutions.

It aims to enhance digital assessment of second level students’ transversal skills in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

 

ACTIVITIES

ATS STEM consists of three phases: the pre-experimentation phase (research and development and detailed planning in partner institutions), the experimentation phase (field trials and evaluation at schools) and the post-experimentation phase (data analysis, reporting and exploitation).

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ATS STEM PILOT SCHOOLS

Kildare Education Support Centre has 13 schools involved in the Pilot Phase of this project -  2020/2021 school year.

7 Primary (5th and 6th class) and

6 Post Primary (1st and 2nd Year).

For further information on the project please visit: ATS STEM | Ireland 

ATS STEM website

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Write-a-Book 2018-2019

 WRITE-A-BOOK PROJECT 2018-2019

Creativity can be described in many ways. One description is “the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality”. The Write-a-Book project, now in its 19th year, is an outlet for such creativity and enables children to become real authors. In Write-A-Book children create their own books by actively engaging in the processes of writing, composing, constructing, designing, illustrating and presenting their work to a wider audience.

At the start of the 2018-2019 Write-a-Book Project, we thank all those who have been involved in previous years. We encourage them to participate again this year and we ask others to enter, if they have not done so previously. We are looking forward to working with you to build an inclusive and supportive Write-a-Book Project.

This year we will follow the same format as in the past few years, with schools hosting their own Award Ceremony. The Kildare Education Centre will provide medals for the winners and runners-up. The Centre will also supply a certificate and pencil for every child who participates.

As you can appreciate, a considerable amount of work is involved in administering this project. To help us with this, we ask that schools provide 2 copies of each Class Entry List (see attached) when submitting the entries.
The entry fee is €15 per class entry, the same as in previous years.
Entries may be submitted in Irish or in English.

Please find the following documents relating to Write-a-Book as attachments to the bottom of the page: 
1. Application Form
2. Project Guidelines
3. Guidelines for Readers
4. Judging Guidelines
5. Individual Class Entry List **
6. Labels for attaching to individual Books **
7. Teacher’s Checklist

** To facilitate the checking-in of entries and any queries that might arise with same, please note that a label must be attached to the OUTSIDE of the BACK cover of all books being submitted. Please do NOT attach this label to the inside of the book. The name of the author and number on this label must correspond with the name of the author and number on the individual Class Entry List being submitted.

It is the responsibility of the class teacher to ensure that the topic/content of each book entered is suitable and appropriate for the age of the child.

When judging books, it is important that the same procedure is followed by everyone.
The judging of books must take place within the school only – books should NOT be given to children to take home. Books should be returned to the Centre in their original condition – please ensure that no comments are written on the books being judged.

Important Dates:

Wed 13th Mar 2019: Closing date for entries - All entries must be submitted to Kildare Education Centre by this date

Wed 10th April 2019: All judged books to be returned to Kildare Education Centre.

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