Secondary Schools

For the past number of years, the Geography department of the Abbey School in Tipperary town have been using the Waterford coastline for our annual Geographical Investigation We have found during our trips to the area that the students come away with a much deeper appreciation of the different skills that a Geographer needs and in doing so also attend to the curricular demands of the course. A very important figure in this has been the role played by Tina Keating. She has always dealt with my colleague and I in a most professional and courteous manner. More importantly she has always used the environment to get all the students involved in a very active process of deepening their understanding of Geography while carrying out their tasks. I have seen the students answer questions on coastal processes based on their experiences of this trip in the Leaving Cert despite having focused on other parts of the course. In short, the trip to the coast and our dealings with Tina are something that we look forward to very much throughout the year.

We have visited the Waterford Coastline with Tina Keating for Leaving Cert Geographical Investigations over the past number of years and have found this programme to be of great assistance to both me as a teacher and to my students. The programme provides a service that is well organised and excellently executed. I am very pleased with the programme and those that offer it. In my dealings with Tina Keating, I have found her to be extremely helpful and the students have always enjoyed the experience. For the purpose of the investigation, students are put into groups and given a number of experiments to carry out. Tina liaises with the teacher prior to the visit and provides the students with recording booklets to record the data collected, and the necessary equipment required to carry each experiment while providing information on each task to each group and assisting with problems and questions throughout the morning. She creates a very positive and enjoyable environment for the students to learn and get practical experience in geographical experiments with an emphasis based around hands-on experience. Overall, this continues to prove a great resource available to De La Salle College with the outcome that our students achieve high results in the investigation each year

For the past number of years our school has taken part in the NAPD Creative Engagement Programme for schools. Tina Keating has worked with us in the Art Dept as an artist in residence for this programme over a period of 8 /10 weeks duration on different Creative Engagement projects over the years. Students have taken part in Jewellery making workshops where they have learnt the techniques involved in making their own Jewellery, beading, manipulation of wire, silver, embossing, repousse, soldering, and have individually produced beautiful handmade pieces, and more complex pieces working in small groups. This has been a very educational process for all involved. Workshops started with a show and tell, where Tina gave a very informative talk and PowerPoint presentation on her work and Career. She also had many instruments used in the making of her jewellery, different precious stones, and equipment available for the students to handle, look through, explore and discuss. We have also worked on large scale Fine Art pieces with Tina as a visiting artist where students used the techniques of traditional metalworking to produce two large pieces of Art as part of a group work Metalwork and Jewellery workshop.

I have also been involved in a Geology and Art project with Tina and a group of 5th year students where we explored the Copper coast as a daylong field trip where we sketched along the way ,took photographs and learnt the history and geology of the areas which we then took back to the classroom and the students produced a range of painting and prints based on all the exploratory work from the full day field trip. Tina has a very good rapport with students, and it is always a very educational and enjoyable experience to have Tina work with us in the Art room. As a visiting artist Tina encourages creativity and expression in the students and has taught them new skills which have also complimented curricular learning. I look forward to welcoming Tina into our Art Dept in the near future to work with us again on another exciting collaboration.