Steps to Excellence for Personal Success (STEPS)

Posted on May 18, 2012 by HSCL

Dear parents,

Michele Condra, our School Completion Programme Co-ordinator for Balbriggan, is beginning a new STEPS programme for parents in Balbriggan. There is a limited number of places on the programme so it is important to book your place early should you wish to attend.

 

How does it work?

The STEPS programme is designed to  help individuals move beyond where they have become stuck to more fulfilling and successful lives.

How is it delivered?

It is delivered in a group setting with a qualified facilitator who helps participants to co-create their learning through interactive discussions, personal reflection time, the use of DVD bursts and activities utilising a wide variety of learning styles.

Who is it for?

The programme has been implemented with success in a variety of settings and has been particularly effective in:

  • Helping long-term unemployed people develop the motivation and self-belief to complete other training and find jobs
  • Equipping parents with better parenting skills
  • Enabling those being made redundant to develop a new future for themselves
  • Improving relationships between teachers and parents and fostering increased parental involvement in school life

Outcomes

Participants in STEPS programmes regularly report the following changes:

  • Raised confidence and self-esteem
  • Increased willingness to try new things
  • Improved personal relationships
  • A feeling of using more of their potential
  • More openness to change
  • Being more confident as parents
  • Taking greater accountability for their lives

The course is free.

 Dates: 12th, 13th, 19th and 20th June

Venue: St. Therese’s National School

Time: 9.40am – 1pm

Please feel free to contact Cathal by calling into my office or by calling me on 0861688890 to book a place or for more information.

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Assembly Award winners – 18th May 2012

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Brónagh

Congratulations to all our assembly award winners today.

Senior Assembly:

Sandra, Karim W, Kuba B, Albert M, AbdulbasitA, IoanA

Middle Assembly:

Paula P, Christina I, Imran A, Noah M, Seun, Rene M, Zainab S, Nicholas Z, Sofiat A, Elijah T, Clíodhna TF, Josh GS, Kelly I

Junior Assembly:

JesseM, Lily L, Molly K, Maja, Anna K, Finn B, Esther J, Ali A, Umar A

Well done to Mary’s and Breda’s classes on reaching their class target.

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Parent Newsletter Wednesday May 16th

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Fintan

Parent Newsletter Wednesday May 16th
1 Internet Safety
The Parent Association are hosting a talk tonight (Wednesday 16th)at 7.30pm by parent James Dunne on internet safety for children in the home. Bronagh( teacher and parent) will also talk and help answer any questions that you might wish to raise. ‘Bullying’ and ‘dangerous/inappropriate’ behaviour by children on the internet/social-media are emerging as serious issues affecting the happiness and welfare of all children, including incidents affecting the children in our own school. So please try to come along.
2 Monies due
Huge thanks to the many people who have alaready paid the 140euro per child for each child returning to us for the 2012/13 school year. And a gentle reminder to those who have not yet that we hope that you will do so on or before Friday June 1st.
3 Request to Parents…… Balbriggan Summerfest 10KM Fun Run
The Balbriggan Summerfest 10km Run takes place at 7pm on Wednesday May 30th at 7pm. We would very much like to make our presence felt at this event to show our support and engagement with the wider community of Balbriggan. It would be great if we could have a big number of people ( mums, dads, teachers, ‘friends of the school’) taking part in the event; you can run, you can walk, you can ‘win’, you can ‘finish’, you can ‘get fit’, you can ‘make new friends’. If we have enough persons commiting to taking part, I will get T-Shirts printed up for us to wear on the night naming our school and expressing our support for the town community. It could be, if we get enough persons, a great opportunity to develop a positive image and positive relations with the wider community. ( Please note that this is not an event for children). If you feel that you might enjoy doing this, and please please think about it, please give Fintan (Principal) or Lorraine (Secretary) your name straightaway (01 6904635)
4 New Community Centre
A group form the school’s Board of Management recently visited a Community Centre in the Swords area that will be similar to our own that is currently under construction on our school campus. This building is magnificent and will be a real positive development for both our school and the wider community. We expect to have the Community Centre available to us by November 1st.
5 school website
Don’t forget to visit our school website www.balbrigganetns.com for an ever-changing update on all our ongoing activities in the school; sporting, cultural, academic, news/information and the opportunity for you to contribute to a variety of debates and discussions on the various blogs. This is an ideal way for you as a parent to interact with our school in keeping witht he Educate Together ethos of parental- involvement.

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Reminder: Parents Association Safer Internet evening

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Brónagh

The PA will be hosting an evening for parents tonight, Wednesday, 16th May at 7:30 pm in the school.  The purpose of the evening is to go through websites that may be used by children and guide parents through the play and settings.

Please come along to this important evening if you can.

 

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The Lifecycle of a Butterfly in Aideen’s 2nd Class

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Aideen

We’ve been learning all about the lifecycle of a butterfly in class. We listened to a story on the interactive whiteboard about the changes that take place during the life of a butterfly. We learned how the female butterfly lays eggs on a leaf. The eggs hatch and a caterpillar crawls out. The caterpillar then eats and eats and eats until it gets too big for its skin! The caterpillar then builds a chrysalis around itself and while it is inside it begins to change. After a while the chrysalis opens and a beautiful butterfly comes out! Then we used pasta to illustrate our own butterfly lifecycle. In art we traced our hands & feet to make butterflies. Check out the photos below.

     

     

     

 

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Lego Club

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Brónagh

The Junior and Senior infant lego club is the “best in the world”, according to the lucky children who are attending it every Wednesday with Margaret.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in After School Clubs | 2 Comments

Skype

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Brónagh

In Niamh’s class today we had another great Skype call with our partner school in Newtown, CT, USA. Today some of the pupils in our school were able to share and demonstrate their latest Scratch projects. Here’s some pictures of them sharing their projects all the way across the Atlantic ocean!

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A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Sixth Class

This is Ronan and Angel here. Sorry we haven’t posted a blog in a few weeks, we have just been so busy in class.

This is one of our friends taking part in our public speaking competition, which we would like to congratulate Szymon for winning in Round Two.

This is Aylin during her speech. Each person spoke for about two minutes on any topic they wanted.


 

 

 

This is another couple of our friends measuring each other’s time to run and skip along lengths of the yard. In class we were then able to calculate the speed at which they travelled.

This is us practising cricket with coach Derek. We would like to congratulate our cricket team for winning their first  ever cricket match against Balrothery.

Dawid was our wicket keeper in our match and we also got the chance to meet John Mooney, the Ireland captain. Here we are holding the ICC cup.

The following is a picture of Sharon teaching us about our transition between primary and secondary school.

Beth took us for a Samba lesson.

We also learned a lot about the Titanic disaster by looking at artefacts and newspapers and listening to stories.

     

This is a picture of our finished Titanic project!

 

 

Posted in Sixth-Class | 2 Comments

Thinking Time

Posted on May 11, 2012 by James

The following Turkish tale about a man and his donkey was shared with 5th class on Thursday 10th May. What followed was any extremely interesting philosophical discussion, which brought up a number of interesting questions and theories. What are your thoughts on the issues raised below?

One day Nasreddin Khoja and a group of his neighbours were going somewhere together. They all rode upon their donkeys. When they came to a hill, Khoja noticed that his donkey was sweating. He got down from its back and whispered into its ear, “I am sorry that you are working so hard that you are sweating.” His neighbours noticed Khoja get down from his donkey’s back and whisper into its ear, and they were curious about this. “Khoja, what did you whisper to your donkey?” one of them asked. “I told my donkey I was sorry he had to work so hard that he sweated,” answered Khoja. All of his neighbours laughed, and one of them said, “Why did you do that? Donkeys do not understand human speech. They are not at all human.” Khoja replied, “What I have to do is what concerns me. I did what is expected of a human being, and I do not care whether or not he understood what I said.”

 

Comments from the class during our discussion included:

 

“Just because donkeys don’t talk doesn’t mean they don’t think.”

“You should care for all animals like you would care for a pet.”

“This animal was bred for work and there is no need to have pity.”

 

“Other people shouldn’t laugh at you when you are doing what you think is right.”

“You shouldn’t care what people who laugh and ridicule you think if you believe you are doing the right thing.”

 

“Just because people use donkeys for work now doesn’t mean that it’s right, people take things like this for granted.”

 

“When you encourage anybody or any animal they like it better than if you don’t bother.”

 

Donkeys will always comply as they are not intelligent like humans, it’s ok to keep them working because they don’t know any better and that’s what they were bred to do.”

 

“The man might have just felt guilty about what he was making the donkey do, so maybe he only apologised to make HIMSELF feel better.”

 

Please share your views with us; we would love to hear what you think? Having discussions and challenging our own beliefs is a great way to grow and develop.

Posted in Thinking Time | 10 Comments

Friday Awards May 11th

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Fintan

Congratulations to the following award winners:
Senior Assembly: SzymonB, AngelM, JessicaB, MalikG, NicolaP, SamanthaC, SarahE, SophieD, DanielG, KubaZ
Middle Assembly: KatieW, TimmyA, AlessiaM, EoinA, HughL, JenniferC, AdemS, TammiA, AoifeF, HollyD, DylanW, IsaacA, LukaMc, MuheezO, DavidB, OyinA, LukeM
Junior Assembly: ElliotI, PeterJ, TofunmiO, AlexM, SaarahW, JamieK, AliA, AnziateK, EmilyA, AdamW, AlphaB, StellaR

and congrats to Niamh’s Class, Eimear’s Class, AnnMarie’s Class, Jackie’s Class, Clare’s Class and Aideen’s class on reaching their class target.

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Visitors from The Childrens’ Village

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Brónagh

Today we had some special visitors from The Childrens’ Village creche & montessori which is one of our local pre-schools. Pupils from the montessori classes came to watch our Junior Choir performing in the hall. Some of these children will be with us in September when they start ‘big school’ so it was great they got a special preview of what to expect in September.

Well done to the choir who have really grown in confidence over this year under the fantastic guidance of Pauline and Hannah.

 

Posted in Arts | 2 Comments

Friction experiment in Aideen’s 2nd class

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Aideen

We’ve been learning all about forces in Science. In one of our experiments we wanted to investigate the effect of friction on a moving object. So we set up a ramp in the class room & used a toy car to see what item would make the car go furthest.The items we tested were carpet, bubblewrap, wood & cardboard. First we predicted which one we thought would make the car go furthest & then we tested each one using the toy car. We measured each distance with a metre stick & recorded it on our results table. Then we wrote up the experiment in our copies. We found that the wood made it go the furthest.

     

     

 

 

 

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Cross Country 2012

Posted on May 4, 2012 by James

Summer is coming, but you wouldn’t have believed it at Santry last Tuesday.

This years Fingal League Cross Country finals were held in the most atrocious weather conditions at the Morton Stadium in Santry on Tuesday the 1st of May.

 Our school had no less than 36 students participating in the finals. Two of our team members (Cian and Claudia) also qualified for the final of the Fingal Future Olympians competition which comprised of athletes from all over the county and surrounding areas.

Congrats to Cian (pictured above) from 5th class who raced brilliantly to finish with a silver medal, only narrowly missing out on the gold. His performance was watched closely by Irish Olympic hero Eamon Coughlan who had some very kind words of support and encouragement after the race.

This has been our most successful year to date in the cross country championships and the interest and participation levels among our children continues to grow year on year.

Finally, I would  to thank all of the parents who travelled to watch the races and to support all of the runners. I know for sure that this support makes a huge difference to the children  as they compete. I would especially like to mention by name Margaret and Andy who’s help has been invaluable throughout the season. It has been a wonderful team effort all year. Here’s to next year, we are looking forward to it already.

 

 

Posted in Sports, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Friday Awards May 4th

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Fintan

Congrats to:
Senior Assembly: OisinB, CaineG, GrainneM, EoinWC, DavidN, PeterL, GwenS, AlexanderL, TundeG, DanielO, NastijaL, KrystovM,
Middle Assembly: DavidT, NikiahO, FavourJ, VincentB, ReginaO, AvaL
Junior Assembly: MitoszB, AnaP, GloryA, PhilipG, CharlieG, MenaalS, AnaelleLSC, AdemolaO, MajaZ

And congrats t9o Dan’s Class, John’s Class, Monmon’s Class and Jenny’s Class on rreaching their class target.

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Friday Awards April 27th

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Fintan

Congrats to our winners of April 27th!
Senior Assembly: TammyA, LauraC, ShaunaK, JessicaB, SalhaB, PatrickK, AoifeOS, BobbyF.
Middle Assembly: DavidW, AntonT, KelvinO, ColmB, Robyn, G, AimanK, HollyD, CarnegieE, MiznaS, KatieW, FionnMc,
Junior Assembly: SophieD, VaivaG, PreciousE, AnnesM, TodiO, AbdulwarrisJ, AlphaB, SarahC, GiftO, AbdulraheemB

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