Transition Year Series - Megan Kavanagh (Scoil Chríost Rí)

Moving school at any age can never be easy but it's something that Megan Kavanagh did when she and her family moved to Ireland, having lived previously in London. Megan had done all her primary school education in London before moving to Portlaoise ahead of her starting second year in Scoil Chríost Rí. Now in Transition Year and on work experience in LaoisToday, she is the first guest on our new Podcast series. "I moved over from England so I missed out on first year," she explains. "Transition Year was definitely a good chance to catch up on anything I missed. A lot to catch up on myself. "I was told it was a good break year - you get a lot of opportunities like musicals and trips and obviously work experience and you don't get that in England. "There are some teachers and students that still call it a doss year," she jokes. (But) I am definitely enjoying it. So much stuff has happened, so many opportunities have opened ... it's great fun."In a good-humoured chat, she goes through some of the differences between growing up in Ireland and England, trying to explain to her English friends about the GAA and not having to do Irish in school. "Mainly the curriculum is a lot different - Irish history and English history are two very different things!"I don't know if this is just me but the teachers are so much calmer here. In England I feel they were very serious about school. Obviously they are here too but just more friendly and easier to talk to."And she describes how nervous an experience it was moving to a new school - and how she remembers how warm a welcome she was give.  "I was shaking walking in ... I was terrified," she recalls now. "I was only shown around the day before in. I didn't have a clue what I was doing."But it didn't take long to settle in. "It didn't take too long because I met a great group of girls. They welcomed me, they showed me around, they just hung out with me."They were great fun, still friends with them now. It was easy enough settling in because of them and the teachers as well once they understood I had never been here."