The Credit Union school quiz was on the 7th of February. It was in Tullow Secondary School. I walked through the big doors into the room where all the

teams would be participating in the quiz. There were 7 schools competing - 2 junior and 2 senior teams each. I saw my other teammates Maddie, Cathal and Peter.

I was so relieved to see Maddie because she was out the last 2 days. As I sat down, Mr Bryne, our really nice and Irish-loving teacher, who has been encouraging and working tirelessly to prepare the Ballyconnell quiz teams for nearly 2 months, came over to talk to us. “Don’t worry guys you'll do great, you know your stuff,” he said and left. I was feeling considerably more nervous than when I sat down!

As we waited for the quiz to start, Maddie and I started to eat our jellies that had been laid out including a bottle of water and a packet of crisps each. In no time at all, the quiz master walks up and says through a microphone, “The Quiz will be starting in a few minutes. There will be ten rounds with 6 questions for the junior and 2 extra rounds for the senior.”

A few minutes passed and it started. The first 2 rounds were easy but then the questions got harder the more we got through so we had to guess a lot after the first 3 or 4 rounds.

When round 5 was over we were allowed a break. Lots of people were heading for the toilets. When the quizmaster said into the microphone, “The quiz is beginning so take your places,” everyone scrambled to get to their tables. He started calling out the answers from the previous rounds. After round 6 they put a table up on the interactive whiteboard. We were happily shocked to find we were in joint second! So with a new spring in our step we kept going confidently but a bad type of shock came to us when they were calling out the other rounds and we got a fair few wrong so we thought we weren’t going to get into the top 3 let alone first place!

When round 10 finished the junior rounds were over. It was just the extra 2 for the senior teams but Maddie and I decided to do it on our rough work sheets. They were VERY hard!

When it was finished, they were calling out the top 3. My stomach was full of butterflies. I told my teammates to cross their fingers and they did. Third place was called out, it wasn't us. My heart sank a little bit. Second place was called out. It wasn’t us! We had lost hope. The quizmaster called out “I doubt anyone can drumroll, anyway our winners are …………………TEAM 3!” My heart jumped for joy! WE WERE TEAM 3!!!!!!!!!!! We were all startled as we walked out. We were all grinning from ear to ear as we took our stunning plaques. I vaguely heard the quizmaster say, “We are getting that plaque engraved and sent to the school.”

Sadly, no other Ballyconnell teams won but at least 1 junior team won a first title in about 30 years!!! We’re getting ready for the next quiz in Kilkenny on the 7th of March. Hopefully our win is the beginning of a new winning streak for Ballyconnell NS!