Discover Science
This year, 4th class took part in the Discover Primary Science Awards and were delighted to recieve our certification recently. The programme is designed to get children actively taking part in Science experiments and investigations, developing skills of observation, predicting, measuring, recording and analysing. The children worked on the topics of forces and gravity and had great fun trying out various activities. This year, there was an extra emphasis on using Mathematical skills also. The children also observed the arrival of spring by looking out for common signs of the season, frog spawn, primroses, swallows and buds on the trees. A record of daily temperatures was also kept. During Term 2, Professor Antoinette Sweeney, AIT demonstrated a number of science activities to the class in a very interesting class workshop.
Well done to all involved.
ACE
The school’s ACE committee continues to work hard to ensure that the aims of the “Activity, Confidence, Eating” programme are being met in the school. We are busy encouraging healthy lunches and plenty of physical activity during school hours, after school and in the home. We are currently in the process of applying for the Bronze Ace Award for the school and our members have been kept busy planning for this. This year our members are Mrs Keena, Miss Ganly, Jennifer Campbell, Chloe Hogg, Edel Stone, Hazel Mc Cormack, Mya Curtin, Lisa O’ Brien, Stacey Harte, Sophie Smyth, Caoimhe Lowry and Morgan Coffey.
Sports Day
By Deborah Fakeye (6th Class)
On Friday the 19th of April our school had its annual Sports Day, after a busy Active Week, where every morning the teachers led us in fun, but exhausting exercises. As part of Active Week each class participated in a minimum half an hour of daily physical activity that included basketball, hockey and football.
Every year our school sends Active Week out with a bang, weather permitting of course – but we were lucky enough to be blessed with a beautiful summer’s day – hopefully the first of many.
Sixth class plan on running a mile or two everyday in the month of May, so by the end of May we will have completed 26.2 miles – a marathon. We attempted to run our first mile, and though we were tired and thirsty afterwards, we all did great!
After our running we moved on to water relays, to see who could fill their bucket first out of the three teams. When we played uni-hoc everyone got involved and had a great time, but our ‘Player of the Match’ Hazel McCormack (6th class) looked like she was having the most fun.
Next was leaping, sliding and running in the obstacle course. Our aim was to get to the end of the obstacle course, pick our block and build a cube.
After all these years everyone still loves the classic parachute. We played a game where Mrs. Keena, our teacher was against us – she had to try and get the ball off the parachute and we had to keep it on. Unfortunately we lost and Mrs. Keena came out victorious.
Other activities we did included the Music Mat where we exercised to music.
After break we went out to the Community School pitch, which we were lucky enough to be allowed use. There was a great turnout from the parents who showed us children how it was done; having a go at the novelty races and a lap of the pitch. It was great to see the parents and teachers having fun too!
This year’s Sports Day was a huge success, and it’s a shame that for us sixth class it was our last. Everyone enjoyed such a wonderful Day.
Basketball
6th and 5th class started to do basketball during the second term. Our basketball coach Paddy, is one of the best around. He has coached loads of teams and has even gone to America to help out in basketball camps (NBA). He has been teaching us lots of different skills and drills. Every lesson he starts off with an inspiring speech, but the moral is always the same, “Don’t tell yourself you can’t do it, it’s an obstacle go around it.”
So every Tuesday we have forty five minutes of pure basketball. We have played a few matches outside our school and they were really fun. We are trying our hardest in all the drills and skills. We are really enjoying playing basketball and we thank Paddy for teaching us basketball and making us healthier.
By Emer Counihan.
