Start of Cross-Country Season

Our cross-country season began with the Brother/Clonliffe Schools Meet in Santry Demense on Wednesday 10th October. In October,  5^th and 6^th class were working on the Athletics Strand of the PE curriculum. One of the objectives is to develop in the children ‘an understanding of the rules of athletics and apply them in suitable competitive settings’. To this end,  all of the children from 5th and 6th took part in trials to select 20 boys and 20 girls to enter as competitors. The rest of the children came as supporters to experience this exciting event. There was a field of over 150 in both the boys and girls 1,000 m races. All of our athletes did us proud with our fastest boys and girls holding their own in the top 30 against the elite athletes from the top Dublin running clubs. For many of our athletes it was their very first competitive race and we were very proud of them for completing the course. Thanks to Ms Deery, Ms O'Neill and Mr Dunne for all of the organisation that went into this. Well done to all our athletes!

 Our girls' captain Rapha sprinting out at the start.

 Boys' captain Ciarán cruises home.

Secondary School Boys & Girls

It was great to see so many of our old sixth class today. We missed them when school stated this year, especially since so many of them had been our school mentors for over three years! Everyone was very happy with their first few days at St Joseph's but some said they  found it hard to be the youngest again after having so much responsibility in their last year at St Catherine's. It is obvious that they have all made a great start in St Joseph's!

Welcome Back to School Everybody

It is very nice to be back at school and I look forward to working with EAL children again this year. I have been helping Mr Fahey and Ms Murphy to settle the new Jr Infants into school. We are amazed by how well they have all done!

This year I will be working in a 'Power Hour' team with Ms Carrig, Ms Quinn, Amanda and the class teacher. For six weeks, five of us will work in one class for an hour a day and then we will move to another class for another six weeks. This way we will be able to work with the children in small groups for English and Maths. We did a trial of this method in Sr Infants last year and we were really pleased with the marked improvement (there are some pictures on Ms Carrig's blog) particularly in reading. We will start next Tuesday in Mr McGrath's Sr Infants for English.

Unfortunately, due to cutbacks we have only one EAL teacher this year as opposed to the two we had last year. However, I hope we can still make great progress working together in small groups in my room and team-teaching in class.

Visit from Lusk Hospital Friends

Here are the children from 6th class who have been part of the inter-generational project with the Thursday Day Group from Lusk Community Hospital for the last three years. We all know each other so well now! The boys and girls below are waiting for their friends to arrive in our school to spend some time together in our Outdoor Classroom.

Back Row L-R: Valerija, Izabela, Evelina, Paula, Sarah, Natalia, Ciaran, Eduard, Foluso, Liam

Front Row L-R: Leah, Sophie, Ross, Rainers, Damian, Idoreyen (missing from picture: Morgan).

 Kevin was first off the bus looking very dapper in his straw hat! Valerija was waiting to escort him to our lovely outdoor space.

Susan, the nurse who leads the project taught all the children over the years how to link our older friends to support them walking. The boys love to watch Paddy operate the wheelchair lift and they are experts in pushing the wheelchairs now thanks to Susan's training. They managed very well getting the wheelchairs through the bumpy grass.

 Natalia and Kathleen

 Foluso and Una

 Eduard and Maureen

 Sarah and Mary. Mary remembers being brought with her class to Kenure House for an orange at Christmas.

Damian, Sophie, Maura (wearing her beautiful lace collar) and Kay.

 Mary, our wonderful school gardener prepared lettuces for us to plant together. We took photographs of the old hands and the young hands working together and we are going to use them for an art project. Here are Leah and Angela working the compost into the pot.

 Ross and Christy

 Peggy and Valerija

 Idoreyen and Terry

 Paula and Patrick

 Eduard and Maureen

 Frank and Morgan

 Evelina and Maura

 Mary and Natalia

 We had time to chat and catch up on all our news in the beautiful weather.

 But then, sadly it was time to say goodbye...

As all the boys and girls are moving on to secondary school, our project will come to an end in June. We will have our final visit to Lusk Community Hospital next Thursday. See you all then!

Overall 4th in Fingal Cross Country League

I received a message from Niall, Sports Officer with Fingal Coco this afternoon. He told me that our school was 4th overall in the Fingal Athletics League and that they were really impressed with the achievement for a smaller school. A great result for our team. Here are some more pictures of the last race. Well done everyone!