The UCC Entrance Scholarship Award Ceremony for the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences took place on November 27th.

Congratulations to current PME 1 students Dara Keane and Laura Keeley who were awarded bursaries from the Cork Branch of the Irish Mathematics Teachers Association (IMTA).

The bursaries were awarded to Dara and Laura at a small reception in Leeholme on the 15th of November.

Huge thanks to the Cork IMTA for their generosity in awarding bursaries to support incoming UCC PME mathematics student teachers in their studies and well done to Laura and Dara on their successful applications!

Many thanks to Eoghan Long (Cork IMTA Chairperson) for making the presentations on behalf of IMTA.

Congratulations to four School of Education PhD students who were conferred with their PhD degree at a ceremony on October 26th, 2023 - Dr Conor Philpott (Staff, School of Education), Dr Katie Power, Dr Carmel Hinchion and Dr Fergal Harrington

The following B.Ed. in Physical Education, Sports Studies and Arts (PESSA) Programme graduates of 2023 recently received awards on the 20th October:

- Robyn Sheehan - ‘Award for Academic Excellence 2023’
- Kate Dooley – ‘The Eamonn Ryan Role Model Award 2023’
- Sean Murphy and Danú Ní Thuama jointly received - ‘The Oisín Kelly Above and Beyond Award 2023’.

A special mention must also be flagged with respect to the Oisín Kelly Above and Beyond Award – Oisín passed away recently on the 10th August of this year, and his legacy to the PESSA programme will be forever remembered by naming this annual student Above and Beyond Award after this incredibly resilient and brave young man from Carlow. We are very proud here in UCC to have gotten to know Oisín, when he joined the BEDSSPE programme in September 2020 as a first year undergraduate student from Myshall in Co Carlow.

The B.A. (Hons) in Early Years and Childhood Studies Student Awards for 2023 took place on Friday 20th October. A small reception and prize-giving award ceremony was held on campus in UCC.

The fourth transnational meeting of the Erasmus+ project titled "Digitalisation of multilingual programs in the EHEA" (DIMPE) was held at University College Cork in Ireland 16-17 October 2023.

Congratulations to our colleague Dr Fiona Chambers who has recently been elected as Vice President of CEREPS, the European Council for Research in Physical Education and School Sport. CEREPS was founded as a non-governmental, non-profit organization in Luxembourg in autumn 2015. The purpose of CEREPS is to develop, to implement, to evaluate and to disseminate research on European level about aims and objectives of physical education, school sports and other physical activity in school contexts (PE).

The School of Education is currently the lead partner in the delivery of a series of numeracy professional development workshops for adult practitioners. Series 2 of Numeracy-Meets is aimed at supporting practitioners who teach specific adult numeracy vulnerable groups. Funded by the Adult Literacy for Life (ALL) Collaboration & Innovation Fund 2023, the Numeracy-Meets are organised by third-level practitioners interested in the promotion of numeracy in partnership with the National Adult Literary Agency (NALA). Numeracy-Meets are an informal, yet structured community of practice for numeracy practitioners to share best practice, resources, and personal insights into teaching adult numeracy.

Congratulations to our colleagues João Costa, Diarmuid Lester, Camelia Bran and Kate Feeney, as well as all the Teaching Fellows from the id+ Project Team, who recently received the Frank McGrath Perpetual Award for Wellbeing and Welfare at the University Staff and Campus Companies Staff Recognition Awards 2023. This Award is presented to individuals or teams who demonstrate outstanding contribution towards wellbeing and welfare at UCC.

The UCC Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Unit (EDI) recently ran a Soapbox event to share knowledge of EDI initiatives across the university.