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When
the Beech Hill Nursing Home
was advertised for sale in September 1972 County Monaghan VEC
identified the site as an ideal location for a second level school. The
Vocational School located on a four acre site in the Glen Road did not
have sufficient room for the increasing enrolment numbers of the time.
The seventeen acre site at Beech Hill was purchased for
£50,000
in October 1972 and the transfer from the Glen Road to Beech Hill
College was completed in September 1979.
Since its inception, the College has provided a very comprehensive
education for thousands of students from the catchment area and beyond.
Past pupils are esteemed members of all the professions. They have
contributed greatly to the economic revival of our country either in a
professional capacity or as entrepreneurs who generate employment and
thus create wealth.
During that time our country has come through a period of great change.
Immigration has replaced emigration. There are now no barriers to
educational advancement. Opportunities abound for those students with
ambition. Beech Hill College has responded to those challenges. In 1979
the College offered the Intermediate Certificate, Leaving Certificate
and Secretarial Courses. Today the courses on offer include the Junior
Certificate, Junior Certificate School Programme, Transition Year
Programme, Leaving Certificate, Leaving Certificate Applied Programme,
Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme, School Completion Programme
and programmes for students with special educational needs.
At school today, students speak many different languages and come from
countries in an ever-expanding European Union. Beech Hill College has
very close links with Evangelisches Gymnasium, Werther, a second level
school in Germany and through the Comenius School project our teachers
and students meet with and share ideas with teachers and students from
other European countries.
The College is also involved in other projects such as LET (Learning
and Educating Together), KEY (Knowledge through Education for Youth),
CaSe (Citizenship and Science Exchange), Education for Reconciliation
Project and the Peace II Seafood Education Project.
Students participate in games and athletics, poetry and short story
writing, quizzes, public speaking and debating as well as art
competitions. The fact that Beech Hill College students regularly
feature as award winners ranks not only as an expression of their own
abilities but it is also is a tribute to those teachers who provide the
encouragement and stimulation needed to identify that innate talent.
“We
don’t remember days we remember moments.” (Cesare
Pavese)
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