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.