Gaisce Awards
In DCS the Gaisce is offered to students in Transition Year with many students signing up each year. Most begin with bronze and move to the silver award in 5th year.
The award has three levels Bronze (13 weeks) Silver (26 weeks) and Gold (52 weeks).
A student registers on Gaisce.ie and chooses four key activities.
A Community Involvement: coaching a team, helping out with scouts, the student council, school mentoring, offering to help for an hour in a charity shop, helping with recycling in the school, the school library.
A Personal Skill: An instrument, a language (outside of the school timetable), first aid course, computer skills, LCVP, cooking courses or any outside of school time course.
A Physical Skill: sports teams, individual sports, personal training, walking, running, cycling.
The Adventure Project: students plan a trip with their PAL (president award leader) to spend two days hill walking or cycling. We stay overnight and students plan and prepare their own meals for the trip. There have been many memorable recent trips to KilIarney, Kenmare and Drimoleague.