School doubly proud to scoop top prize at competition

HAVING a Young Scientist winner in your school is an incredible feat for any teacher or principal, but two in just over a decade has made staff at Scoil Mhuire gan Smál doubly proud. Sarah Flannery's win while a student at the Blarney school came in 1999 and Richard O'Shea's victory last Friday added to a long list of category winners in the school's 28 years of participation in the project.

The common denominator was physics teacher Sean Foley who, accompanied by fellow teachers, Annette McNamara and Triona Buckley, brought 10 students with six projects to this year's competition.

"I think the level of interest here is all about the fun they have with science, we've always had groups coming back with top prizes," he said.

Asked why the same enthusiasm was not matched by students when it comes to taking up science subjects to Leaving Certificate, he said his opinion was that the Junior Certificate science syllabus is very uninspiring.

Mr Foley said he was hoping he was not tempting fate when he printed a list of previous category winners in the competition for the school open night last November, and inserted the year 2010 at the end followed by a question mark.

Also on Friday, sixth-year student at the school, Ruairi Kenny from Donoughmore scooped third prize in the senior chemical, physical and mathematical sciences category for his project: Agent-based modelling of traffic congestion.

Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál is the second Cork school in successive years to scoop the top prize at the competition. A year ago, Liam McCarthy and John D O'Callaghan followed in the footsteps of fellow Kinsale Community School student Aisling Judge who was crowned BT Young Scientist of the Year in 2006.