Kinvara pupils develop new study aids

THREE South Galway girls are hoping to revolutionise study with a simple and innovative pupil stationery set. With the Leaving and Junior Certificate exams just two months away, second-level pupils are beginning to step up their study, with many going into study overdrive during the Easter holidays.
With this in mind, three transition-year pupils, Ellen McCrossan, Helen MacMahon and Nicole Brennan of Seamount College, Kinvara, have just launched their range of study stationery. The group designed the set to help fellow students through the Junior and Leaving Cert.
Made up of Revise Me bookmarks and Remember Me stickers, NerdMe study aids are new learning tools, which aim to increase organisational skills, avoid pupils over-highlighting, encourage focus on examinations and also aid pupils struggling with dyslexia using specific colours to highlight important information.
Each NerdMe Study Aid pack comprises 56 Remember Me stickers in four colours, which allow pupils to highlight the section of the page they need to revise and eight Revise Me bookmarks, which allow pupils to highlight the section of the book they need to revise, index the accompanying Remember Me highlights, have a tick box option for pupils to check once they have finished revising and also act as flash cards in the run-up to exams.
NerdMe co-founder, Ellen McCrossan, hopes the new study aids will help pupils in the lead-up to exam time.
“While studying for the Junior Cert last year, we all found that keeping notes organised was very stressful and highlighting all our notes took too much time. Our stationery ensures you know where all your notes are, what is essential learning and exactly what quotes and formulas you need to know for exams,” she said.
The three teen entrepreneurs initially set up NerdMe as their mini-company as part of their transition-year studies. However, due to the huge success and demand from local schools and after winning first place at the Galway Student Enterprise Awards, they decided to take their idea from the classroom to the business world to help pupils become more organised in the lead-up to their exams.
They are also through to the national final of the Get Up And Go Mini-Company Competition.
“We carried out a lot of research before manufacturing the product. We held focus groups and found people wanted to stay away from the luminous colours. Pink, blue and green were the most popular colours on the colour chart we offered them.
“We also wanted to add in orange, as from research we found that orange is a colour associated with memory and used to aid people with dyslexia. Nerd chic is very fashionable at the moment with televisions such as The Big Bang Theory growing in popularity so we decided on the ‘nerd’ style glasses for our logo.
“We also feel this is a brand that we can develop and roll out other study material, revision books, pencils and so on.” Ellen continued.
NerdMe Study Aids are available from www.nerdmestationery.com and from a number of local retailers nationwide.