Transition Times: Students on Inis Mór are used to crossing the water for work experience and other parts of their education. Now mainland students are coming the other way, reports Gráinne Faller.

The sky is looking ominous, and as the boat approaches the pier the rain starts with a vengeance. Big driving drops pelt down as we disembark. Once the crowd moves off the pier most of the tourists pile on to the many waiting buses that drive around the island. A few braver souls put on rain gear and rent bicycles or even tandems to make the hilly journey up to Dún Aonghasa. Even in this weather the islands are busy.

Inis Mór is the biggest of the three Aran Islands, which lie off the coast of Co Galway. It is home to some 900 people, although this population varies according to the season - tourism is a massive industry on the island.

Gairmscoil Éinne, the local secondary school, has had a transition-year programme since 1999. The year is compulsory, and the school even has scholarship opportunities, in which students from other schools can participate in transition year on Inis Mór, returning to their original school afterwards if they wish. Elements of the year are much the same as any, but the school's location means that, overall, this is a transition year with a difference.

Being on an island is both an advantage and a disadvantage, as Marion Bean Uí Iarnáin, the school's transition-year co-ordinator, explains. "I definitely have one advantage," she says. "We get funding from Údarás na Gaeltachta and Cumas Teo. A lot of these programmes are very expensive, and without them it wouldn't be possible to do what we do."

There is a downside, of course; the difficulty of bringing students to and from the mainland for various reasons is an organisational headache that comes with the territory. "You cannot stay on until ten o'clock at night if you need to," she says.

Most of the transition-year courses are given through Irish; students have just completed a week-long film-making workshop. The class seems happy with the resulting five-minute film. The story "is sort of like Jumanji", says Avril Sharkey, a student. "But it is with a Ouija board instead of a board game."

They will be putting the skills they learned into practice this year, as the local co-operative has asked them to make a documentary about the work the co-op does to develop the island.

Work experience is a part of every transition-year programme, but getting it is slightly more complicated for the 13 transition-year students at Gairmscoil Éinne. They will spend a week working on the mainland and, later in the year, another week on the island.

At the moment, the students are trying to secure both placements and accommodation for the week on the mainland. "I have a place in Scoil Mhuire, a primary school," says Aisling Ní Dhioráin. "I'll be staying with a friend."

Other students aren't fully organised yet, but they are making phone calls and writing letters to potential employers. "It's hard to find a place to stay if you don't have relatives on the mainland," says Avril.

As with any transition-year programme, location and availability of resources are important. "We get to do lots of courses that we wouldn't normally do," says Orlaith Ní Iarnáin.

There are a number of unusual courses and projects that students at Gairmscoil Éinne participate in.

For further information on Gairmscoil Éinne's transition-year scholarships e-mail Mícheál Ó Goill (099-61184) at gseinne.ias@eircom.net. Entry is closed for 2006-2007, but the scheme is going ahead again next year

Basket Weaving

Vincent McCarron, who lives on Inis Mór, gives a course in basket-making to the transition-year students every year. "It's important to keep the culture alive," he says. "The old people who would know the craft are dying, and it's really left to me to pass it on now."

While students learn how to make different kinds of baskets, they also get a lesson in local history, as McCarron gives a running commentary. "This type of basket dates back to 1750," he says, indicating a large, shallow basket with a raised well in the middle of it. "Families would boil potatoes and pour them into the basket. Everyone would sit around and eat. You could have 20 people eating between aunts and uncles. They wouldn't have had tables at all."

As he hands around the beginnings of baskets, and the students begin to weave, he tells them how you could determine people's wealth by the size of the handles on their baskets. "You'd only need a small handle to carry something on your shoulder," he says. "If you had a donkey the handle would have to be bigger, and if you owned a horse it would have been bigger still."

The students are engrossed in their baskets. It's a demonstration day rather than a part of the course, so McCarron does the difficult weaving, such as finishing the small baskets and attaching the handles to them.

"There are designs that are native to Aran," he says. "It has been sort of a hobby of mine for years, and I went around to the old people on the islands. They would make baskets, and I'd make replicas of those. . . It's important to keep it alive. There are basket-makers in Ireland at the moment, but most of them aren't Irish."

McCarron travels around to schools, giving basket-making workshops. Fionnuala Ní Fhlaithearta did the course when she was in transition year last year. "It was brilliant," she says. "I made seven different types of baskets."

By the end of today's brief introduction, a number of small baskets are complete. McCarron will return slightly later in the year to give his week-long workshop to the transition-year students.

Safety at Sea

The students will soon be doing this course, which is run by Bord Iascaigh Mhara. This year students from Tory Island will travel to Inis Mór, where the students will learn how to operate a VHF radio. They will learn about health and safety as well as fire prevention aboard a vessel; they will also learn how to survive at sea in the event of a boat sinking.

Bob Walsh is the nautical-skills instructor who will be giving the course. "There are a number of schools in coastal communities that I visit to give this course," he says. "I work on the west coast, so the transition-year courses I give would be in places like Spiddal and Rosmuck, as well as the islands, like Aran and Tory."

Although the course is aimed at people who might want to work on fishing boats or ferries, Walsh believes the skills are useful for anyone living in coastal communities. He will be on Inis Mór for three weeks, giving the VHF workshop in the first week. The following weeks will include the safety-awareness module, the basics of first aid and a course in personal survival techniques.

The day on personal survival techniques, or sea survival, will take place in a swimming pool in Clarinbridge, in Co Galway. "There will be half a day of theory," says Walsh. "We'll go through life rafts, how to deal with hypothermia, the different types of life jackets [ left]." The second half of the day is spent in the swimming pool with a 12-person life raft. Students learn to launch the raft, how to board it and how to right it if it capsizes, among other things.

"Although you couldn't possibly expect all students to be working on boats in later life, the practical element is rewarding," says Walsh. "It's always helpful for people to learn about survival."

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Community Survey

It may not be very unusual for a transition-year class to survey its community, but the manageable size of Inis Mór means the students at Gairmscoil Éinne can cover the whole island, coming up with some useful information and resources for everybody who lives there. Micheál Ó Goill, the school's principal, says: "The students do a social study of how many people are on the island, what they're working at and so on."

The students are unfazed by the task. "You kind of know how many people are in your village and how old they are," says Oisín Ó hIarnáin, a transition-year student. "It's interesting," says Aisling Ní Dhoiráin, another student. "You have to walk around to every house and get their details."

Teachers are taking advantage of this opportunity. In construction studies, for example, the students are conducting an energy survey. "We have to find out about things like insulation in every house - what kind they have," says Avril Sharkey.

These surveys are an annual undertaking in transition year at Gairmscoil Éinne. Last year's students had a positive experience. "We started counting things like the number of tractors and cars on the island," says Máirtín Ó Goill, who is now in fifth year. "You kind of know these things anyway."

The results of the surveys are compiled into a small magazine. Last year's results are on the way, and this year's survey has already started. The study is not just an academic exercise, however. This year the students will also be gathering details in order to compile an island phone book. "We did this a number of years ago," says Ó Goill. "But it needs updating. They'll go around and collect phone numbers, and we'll include things like e-mail addresses as well this time around."