The evening of Thursday 3rd October saw Year 8 pupils, their parents, families and teachers join together in celebration to mark the beginning of the year 8 journey here in Dominican.

The theme for the mass was the power of dreams.

Prior to the Mass, all our Year Eight pupils individually designed personal dreams which decorated the walls of the assembly hall. Their chosen dream, represented their uniqueness their personality and their aspirations.

Our celebrant on Thursday night was our College Chaplain - Father Raymond and the special celebration coincided with his twentieth anniversary as our Dominican chaplain. This special evening will only be repeated when many of these pupils take their leave of Dominican in May 2026.

Fr. Raymond told our Year 8 pupils that they too must pursue and find their beautiful dream and how God would both bless their dreams and help them to realise their dreams. He asked pupils to consider what God’s dreams for them would be.

A group of our Year 8 pupils performed a special drama which focused on the importance of sharing love and how love only becomes love when it is a shared gift.

In his homily Fr. Raymond told the story of three trees to illustrate the differences between what we might want for ourselves and what God might want for us each of which. Each tree had a big dream which seemed to be frustrated as they were chopped down; only later would they realise that they each played a key role in the Christ story.

Fr. Raymond spoke about his deceased father, Joseph as “a quiet man”, much like the Joseph in the reading and showed pupils a small statue of the sleeping Joseph to illustrate the importance of giving your dream to God and contemplating how to make God’s dream come true.

The post communion reflection challenged pupils to have big dreams and the courage to persist in pursuing them. Each year 8 pupil was given the gift of a Dominican book of prayer and reflection produced as part of our recent centenary celebrations.

Ms. Ronan concluded the evening by thanking parents for entrusting the school with their children and welcomed them all into a new Dominican family. She paid special tribute to the work of Fr. Raymond as school chaplain and thanked the RE and Music departments for all their dedication in preparing the evening’s celebration. Most of all she thanked our newest Dominican parents for entrusting us with the gift of their child’s education.

Well done to all our Year 8 pupils who read, sang and provided the music for this mass.

Thursday 3rd October gave our Year 10 pupils the chance to develop their digital and entrepreneurial skills for the C21st and to help guide and direct them towards careers in Digital technology.

Causeway Coast and Glens Council launched this Year’s Young Enterprise Digital masterclass in Dominican College based on the very positive impression made by our pupils in last year’s initiative and competition. The mayor, Councillor Sean Bateson was present today for the launch of this Year’s Digital Youth initiative and the local council are once again sponsoring the event.

Also present today were representatives from Zymplify, All State, Startacus and Youth Enterprise NI.

Carly Warke from Zymplify hosted a presentation all about the Portstewart-based company and how marketing automation fits into the current Digital Revolution we are currently living in, she told the Dominican pupils that “We’re delighted to be here”.

We were also delighted to welcome into school Carol Fitzsimons the chief executive of YENI for the launch of this year’s programme.

Pupils were introduced to the new technologies of Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence before being set a group challenge.

Mr. Peter McDaid, Head of ICT at Dominican College explained how our year 10 Pupils were asked to “Design and develop an app for a niche market harnessing the new technologies. Firstly, pupils had to agree on a product, develop and defend a business case and then deliver a presentation of their idea to fellow pupils and judges. This work brought together a wide range of skills from across the curriculum including ICT, communication, entrepreneurial skills and designs skills.

Six groups on the day were selected by the judges to pitch their business canvas to the wider audience outlining what their product is, how they would fund it and why it would succeed”

Judges paid tribute to the professionalism of the pupils and the quality of the ideas they produced.

 
The winning Dominican group: Joy, Holly, Molly, Keeva, Clare, Eliza and Alice will now have the chance to refine their product and presentation ahead of the grand-final.

Well done to all our pupils today for their ingenuity, energy and enthusiasm and to all today’s facilitators who made this a day to remember for our Year 10 pupils.

Mr McDaid concluded the event by congratulating the pupils and assuring them “The facilitators were hugely impressed by the conduct and enthusiasm of the pupils and I felt very proud of all your work today. Dominican College was the ideal venue to launch this year’s nationwide initiative”.

Following on from relationships developed during the Beach Walk, today our new Year 8 pupils had the opportunity to meet with their U6 “Buddy” who will help ensure a positive transition for them as they commence their new school.

Today also gave our Junior SVP group a chance to welcome the new Year 8 pupils to our school. Mrs Dallat and Mrs Willighan explained how they felt that while so much of the work of this group is targeted on helping those outside the school; today they thought it would be beneficial to reach out to help our youngest pupils. The group had a coffee morning with our new year 8 Pupils and gave them a chance to sit and chat with the U6 pupils who will provide them with friendship, leadership and mentorship during this key year of their Dominican journey.

Our year 8 pupils have been very excited about the prospect of meeting their new “Buddy” and pupils have been carefully matched up to ensure that our most senior pupils can provide help with organisation, friendship and support to their junior counterparts.

As a school we are delighted with the way our Year 8 pupils have settled into their new school and all the challenges associated with transition and change.

Our Year 8 pupils will celebrate their special Start of Year Mass on Thursday 3rd October with Fr Raymond our school Chaplain with the theme of “Dream Big”. We look forward to welcoming our Year 8 pupils, their parents and families. 

Our annual School Beach walk took place on the gloriously sunny afternoon of Friday 20th September and, once again, our entire school community, in line with our school ethos, walked together in support of social justice. Our Year 8 pupils had a chance to meet and walk with their U6 buddy and this process will continue in PD class next week.

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