MY TY WEEK:Megan Dalton Rafferty (15), Presentation Secondary School, Ballyphenane, Co Cork

‘We’ve been promoting our fourth year website around the school. The idea for the site arose from a European Computer Driving License (ECDL) module that we have every Monday and Thursday.

“One day our teacher Ms McCarthy told us about the Eircom Junior Spider Awards which encourages students to make websites. We split up into teams of three or four and picked the type of website we wished to design. Our group – Nicole King, Sarah Giltinan, and myself – came up with the idea of designing a website to help third years with Junior Cert fears while also giving them an insight into Transition Year. We called it ‘Junior Cert fears? Ask the fourth years’. We made the website using an online website maker. We each picked a section to write about. Nicole wrote about TY activities, I gave study tips for third years and Sarah described our preparation for the TY musical. Over the next few weeks we set specific times to work on our website. Our blogs were updated regularly and we also uploaded photos of our activities to the website. We devised a calendar which showed upcoming events in TY.

“In December our teacher Ms McCarthy gave us the news that we had won the Best Concept category in the Spider Awards. We were delighted! Our principal, Sr Sheila, and indeed the whole school were elated and extremely proud of our achievement. The following week, we went up to the Eircom HQ in Heuston South Quarter to accept our award. We still can’t believe our luck and we want to pay tribute to the hard work and dedication of our IT teachers Ms McCarthy and Ms Laoi.

“Following on from this, we’re entering the group category of the Bank of Ireland National Student Awards which recognises successful teamwork. Fingers crossed!”