See pictures from awards evening at Wicklow community college
The hall was packed put with proud family members of all the students, and Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, from neighbouring Kildare, was in attendance and helped with the presentations.
Principal Brian Doran started off proceedings and introduced everyone, including special speakers, the Cathaoirleach of Baltinglass Municipal District, Cllr Patsy Glennon, who is chair of St Kevin's board of management, and Deputy Edward Timmins, who is a former board member. Also in attendance was Cllr Avril Cronin, who sits on the St Kevin's board of management and is also a member of KWETB.
Cllr Pat Mahon also attended the event, while two other special guests, Irish 7's rugby player Kathy Baker and basketball player Lorcan Murphy, helped out with the sports awards presentations.
Principal Doran said: 'Awards were presented for different academic achievements and sporting awards were also presented. We also had best attendance awards and presentations for highest Leaving Certificate results. The main trust of the evening was attendance and endeavour. We wanted to reward students who made a committed effort throughout school, which ties in with our school motto 'striving together for excellence'.
Notable winners on the evening included Lauren Donaghy, who was presented with the award for best leaving certificate results and currently studies veterinary medicine at UCD. Lilly Ann Swaine Fogarty was the winner of best overall result in leaving certificate applied 2024, while Conor Bruce was the winner of the Citizenship Award.
The Dunlavin based school is still waiting to go out to tender after receiving planning permission in May of 2023 for the construct of a new school campus that will see the capacity at the secondary school increase from 700 to 1,000 students. The proposed development at St Kevin's will include the refurbishment of the existing two-storey school building and the demolition of the existing single-storey school building (c 2,139sq.m) and the removal of temporary classroom accommodation to make way for the construction of a three-storey extension (c 8,023sq.m).
The development will provide new specialist classrooms, a Special Education Need (SEN) unit, a library, two new multi-use games areas (MUGA), an outdoor classroom/ biodiversity area and a SEN external play area. The existing sports pitch will be relocated as part of the development, with solar photovoltaic panels (PV) erected at roof level to reduce electricity costs and a total of 82 car parking spaces and 200 bicycle parking spaces for students, faculty and parents created.
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