Well done to the four boys who travelled to Nenagh on Tuesday and came home with a national schools title , the Checkmate Cup! This is the fourth time our school has won this competition, but the first since 2008. The boys were very well ranked in the individual competition as well, with one boy coming first. We’re very proud of the sporting way they represented our school and the great attitude they showed.
We’re all very grateful to the parent chaperone who made this possible. Thank you so much!
An ambitious plan to promote Gaelic Games in schools has been launched by St Finbarr’s GAA Club in conjunction with Ryan’s SuperValu, aiming to maximise involvement of young boys and girls in hurling, football, camogie and ladies football and help provide for the future of club teams.
The initiative involves placing a team of 10-15 young coaches into the schools, to help support Gaelic games across all age groups with an initial focus on 3rd and 4th classes as well as an expansion of the Iomáint Cois Locha, Hurling by the Lough programme. St. Joseph’s has been very lucky to have two coaches coming to the school every Wednesday to train our 3rd and 4th classes. They have been working on developing the hurling skills of our students.
One of our students from 3rd class represented the school at the launch of this great initiative at the Barr’s club on Friday evening.
Junior Infants have been working on the Agri Aware Incredible Edibles Healthy Eating Programme over the past few months. We have been really busy and have had lots of fun learning about Irish produce, planting fruit and vegetables and doing research at home for this. We were set with five tasks to complete and are hoping to be recognised as a healthy eating school 😊
You can click through the slides to see lots of photos of us undertaking each task!
For our first task, we were so lucky that Brother Ben came to visit us in his tractor and had a chat with us about all things growing and planting!
Mary Porter was so kind to show and help us to plant some potatoes, onion, spinach, lettuce and chard in the garden. She explained how to plant each and what they needed to grow. Thank you to Brother Ben for preparing the raised beds for us and Ms. Neville for organising soil from the farm for these too! Many hands made light work of this 😃
We planted strawberry plants and potatoes in the classroom so we could see their progress daily!
Agri Aware sent us some lettuce, spinach, turnip, and carrot seeds to sow too. Here we are planting those!
For another task, we were set the challenge of looking out for Irish produce in our homes and when shopping. Thank you so much to all of our parents for taking on this challenge and helping the children to recognise the importance of eating healthy and buying Irish produce! Here are some photos of the children finding the Bord Bia Quality Mark on Irish produce.
After all of our planting & research on Irish produce, we then prepared some soup and stewed rhubarb using Irish fruit and vegetables and other Irish products.
For the final part of our Incredible Edibles journey, we had a ‘Healthy Eating Week’. Each child aimed to have at least 7 portions of fruit & vegetables per day for this week. We tasted some fruit and vegetables in class and the children were great to give some new fruits and vegetables a go. We’ve also kept a close eye on everything we’ve planted and can’t wait to harvest everything over the next few weeks!
Five boys from our school took part in the Munster Junior Chess Tournament in Limerick last Sunday. They all played very well and one boy managed to win all six matches and come home with a trophy!
It was a great experience for everyone involved and they enjoyed themselves greatly.
The creative schools initiative is all about putting creative at the heart of the school. We have been doing just that since September. So far this year the boys have had several creative school workshops including rap and song writing, dance, baking, , print, LEGO, along with our weekly Art, Music and Drama lessons. With their drama teacher tower to put on the amazing performance at Christmas.
We celebrated creative skills week on May 8 to 12 it was a celebration of creativity and an opportunity to share, showcase and connect all the exciting creative work that is being undertaken on a daily basis in our school. Four creative schools week, St Joe’s held their very first fashion show and talent show both events were huge success, and really showcased the amount of Talent and creativity we have in our school!
We have lots of plans for the remainder of the year, and for next year, to explore creativity some more, and provide the boys with new, exciting and interesting ways of being creative. We look forward to seeing where our Creative Schools journey takes us!
As part of the Creative Schools, we had a talent show. It was a huge success. The show is open to all pupils who wanted audition. It was a tough job trying to whittle down the acts. The performers were amazing The audience was enthusiastic and encouraging. Well done to everyone involved and to Ms McGill for organising Creative schools week.
We had Lego workshops for Junior Infants to 3rd class last week as part of Creative Schools. Each boy got to construct their own battery operated car and race them down the hall. Well done to all our Master Builders and to Ms McGill for organising.
This year Senior Infants entered the Step into Spring challenge with Cork Sports. As well as being able to observe all the signs of spring, the variety of plant life and even the various heights of the river as we travelled, we also managed to complete 20 kilometers. Here we are with our individual certificates to celebrate this achievement.
Eight boys from 2nd and 4th class traveled to Awesome Walls in Dublin to compete in the finals of the Irish Schools Climbing competition. The walls were 15 metres high! The boys showed perseverance, skill and determination when completing their climbs. They supported each other and showed excellent teamwork throughout the day!
There was great delight, joy and excitement when the results were announced and our two teams took first prize and Jack O’Herlihy came second in the individual category in his age group. A huge congratulations to Oisín Hegarty, Ethan Hegarty, Jack O’Herlihy and Charlie Costello from 2nd class and Charlie Wynne, Finn Kerrisk, Rowan Hegarty and Matthew O’Shea from 4th class. They did a lap of honour around the yard at morning assembly. We are very proud of you!
St Joseph's NS 