Welcome to our school website!

St. David’s Holy Faith Secondary School, Greystones, Co. Wicklow is a thriving secondary school, for boys and girls, providing the very best for our students - academically, in the field of sport and the world of arts. The school was founded in 1906 by the Holy Faith Sisters and we are a very proud school with extraordinary history and heritage. We are a Catholic school under the Trusteeship of Le Chéile Schools Trust. Our school has four key pillars that we are proud to live out and promote daily – our school ethos exemplified by our proud Catholic history and heritage; academic success and achievement for all students; excellence in sport; development and promotion of the arts.

 

St. David’s Holy Faith Secondary School, Greystones, Co. Wicklow, as of January 2024 has 752 students with sixty-eight staff members consisting of sixty teaching staff, inclusive of our P.M.Es and two S.N.As, and eight non - teaching staff members. Over the course of thirty months, up to August 2023, the school undertook a huge re-development of existing buildings and the construction of two new buildings, giving us a brand new school which cost €20 million. Our facilities, that are now state-of-the-art providing us with forty-six classrooms inclusive of four Science labs, two Construction Studies rooms, two Art/Visual Art rooms, one Engineering room, two Home Economics rooms, one Graphics and one D.C.G rooms, Learning Support room, one Music room, one Computer Science lab, library, one sensory room and twenty-eight general classrooms. In addition to this, the school now has a new sports arena and state-of-the-art gym and a 4G astro-turf pitch for our sports programme and the delivery of the P.E curriculum. Greater details on the school building can be found on the school website under About Us and the sub-heading Facilities.

 

St. David’s Holy Faith Secondary School, Greystones, Co. Wicklow values the promotion of a culture of hard work and high expectations for all of our students. This is achieved with extraordinary work from all our staff, teaching and non – teaching. Each year, the students of the school perform exceptionally well in state exams, Junior Cycle and Senior Cycle. Annually approx. 94% of our students secure a third and further education place in Republic of Ireland and E.U. universities/colleges, with 4-5 % securing apprenticeship and/or vocational training.

 

Students enter First Year and study English, Gaeilge, Mathematics, History, Geography, Science and Religious Education compulsorily for exam purposes to Junior Cycle. Students study non-exam subjects C.S.P.E, Physical Education and S.P.H.E and choose three additional subjects, for Junior Cycle exam purposes, from French or Spanish and two others from the following choices: Business, Engineering, Graphics, Home Economics, Music, Technology Wood, Visual Art. At Senior Cycle, students have a choice of eighteen optional subjects that they study four, in addition to English, Gaeilge, Mathematics. These are Accounting, Applied Mathematics, Art, Business, Biology, Chemistry, Construction Studies, D.C.G, Economics, Engineering, French, History, Home Economics, Geography, Music, Physical Education, Politics & Society and Spanish. Further details pertaining to these subjects can be found on this website in the section entitled Teaching and Learning.

 

Transition Year in St. David’s Holy Faith Secondary School, Greystones, Co. Wicklow is a very exciting year for our students. The programme is run by a brilliant team headed by Transition Year Co-ordinator Laura Courtney and Year Head Morgan Ryan. We have, in addition to this great team, a further forty teachers who deliver an array of workshops, speakers, day trips, European Easter trip, leadership and ethos leadership programmes, annual Transition Year School Musical, opportunities to lead whole-school programmes (Green Schools, Digital Teaching and Learning, school Website Team, Alpha Leadership Programme, Editorial/school Magazine Team, school Social Media Team (X/Tik-Tok/Instagram), F.1 Team, S.V.P, Library Team, Barretstown, French Language Team with local primary schools, Buddy system with First Years, Amber Flag, Paired Reading Team, Stage Team) to name just a few. Students study a total of thirty five subjects and are assessed twice per year, January and May in English, Gaeilge and Mathematics. Our Transition Year Programme allows students an opportunity to partake in a language exchange, to France and Spain, for two weeks. Transition Year also affords Transition Year students four weeks work experience and voluntary work.

As part of our new school building, we now have a stunning new school library on the first floor of the new school building, which looks out to the Irish Sea. I am thrilled that we have a school librarian who works three days per week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and we offer our students an array of wonderful opportunities. Through our school librarian Mairéad, the school library offers students and staff film club, book club, creative writing club, library council and mindfulness workshops. Our library is fully stocked with a huge collection of books and fourteen chrome-books.

Our Sports Programme is now in its second year, since September 2022. The school has a whole school sports policy which details our programme for students – there are three parts to our programme: competitive sports (boys: gaelic football, rugby & soccer and for girls: basketball, Gaelic football & soccer), non – competitive, recreational sports (camogie, core strength training, fighting fit, gym classes, Irish dancing, table tennis, volleyball and yoga) and once – off other sports such as athletics, golf, tennis and sailing. There are greater details for you to read on our school website under the section Extra Curricular Activities, and sub-heading Sport.

Our Arts Programme is now in its second year, since September 2022. The school has a whole school arts policy which details our programme for students. This consists of two areas – big, once off arts programmes and weekly clubs and societies which run all year round. We celebrate the Arts with three large events annually: Christmas time sees a Christmas Show/Art Exhibition/Music event which we alter annually; the annual Transition Year Musical at the end of February and finally, Live from the Sea-front summer concert, at the end of April. Secondly, the Arts programme sees over eighteen clubs and societies focusing on language promotion as gaeilge, in French and Spanish; library; book, film, drama and art clubs, science and tech promotions, choir and student activism. There are greater details for you to read on our school website under the section Extra Curricular Activities, and sub-heading Arts and Extra Curricular Activities.

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Student Leadership is a very important basis of school life here in St. David’s Holy Faith Secondary School, Greystones, Co. Wicklow – students are encouraged to put themselves forward for election annually with the Student Council; students in Transition Year have an array of opportunities to lead programmes and initiatives, as outlined under Transition Year section of this piece such as Transition Year buddy system with First Year students and linked with our Ethos, Transition Year Alpha Leaders. Moving up into Senior Cycle, Fifth Year Prefects and finally, our Student Liaison Team (Head Boy, Head Girl, Deputy Head Girls and Deputy Head Boys) hold very important student leadership roles in our school. Senior student leaders receive training workshops every September. As a school we encourage extensive student engagement with all aspects of school life: over the course of the past three years, student leaders have held important roles with whole school change: new crest/uniform and PE uniform teams, during the academic year, 2021 - 2022; school self evaluation as well as school vision and strategic plan, 2021 - 2026, during the academic year, 2022 – 2023 and the establishment of the school’s new Alumni and P.P.U during the academic year, 2023 – 2024. 

By exploring our website, you will see all of the extraordinary work we do here in St. David’s
Holy Faith Secondary School, Greystones.

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Simon Carey
School Principal