1916 Drama

Here are some class groups  re-enacting a some key moments in the life Seán McDonagh. Firstly, you see a scene where Seán's  mother is ill in bed when the IRB knock on his door looking for him to join up. Next a scene from the battle during the Rising and then Seán returning from fighting to find his mother was dead.

Powerpoint

             

  Power point

Power point is a new computer programme we are learning to use for presenting projects. We are doing our projects on Ancient people. Zack and I are doing Romans.  Other groups are doing Vikings, Egyptians, Stone Age People, Africans, Asian peoples, Maoris, Early Christian People, Celts. It is fun because you use pictures from the internet, you can use all sorts of backgrounds and different writing. It helps you to make a better project. We will be finished our projects at the end of March.

BY  JOSH.M

Enterprise Awards

The Fingal Student Enterprise Awards 2011  

Adrian, Saoirse, Coral, Liam and I went to the Fingal Enterprise Awards. We started the day off at 7.40am on Wednesday 16^th of March 2011.

The only good thing about getting up at that time is that is was fairly bright that morning.

 After that, we all headed up for school. After we got to school we all got on the bus and sat down. At the back the bus there were nine people from Skerries Community College. We then had to go to Eurospar to pick up some students from St. Joseph’s. Then we sat back and went to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Blanchardstown.

When we got to The Crowne Plaza Hotel we went in and got settled. First we had to go upstairs and register our school. Second of all we had to set up our stall. And when we got everything done and dusted we had a look at other schools’ stalls, and we talked to some of the people from other schools.

By Seán

We were given our own display to set up our business poster and video. The board we put our poster on was 90 x 90 cm. Our poster nearly fit the board perfectly, but it was slightly too short. We set up a laptop presentation as part of our display. Saoirse, Liam and Adrian had prepared a video, showing our Fun Day in action.

After looking at all the other schools’ stalls, we came back to our display and rehearsed our answers to questions, sorted out a ‘Talking System’ which was who was talking at a certain time.

When the judges came to our stall, they were impressed. They themselves were experienced in business life so they were excellent judges. They asked us the similar questions to what we had prepared, so it went well.  Best of all, we were presented with a Student Enterprise grant of €200 to use for another enterprise based project.

By Coral

After the judges came around we went down to have something to eat in the hotel restaurant where we 
ate sandwiches and there was tea and coffee as well. After that we went back up to our stand and packed our stuff away. We then went in to the awards ceremony hosted by RTE 2FM’s Rick O’Shea. Rick opened the ceremony by telling a few jokes. And then the actual awards started. The first award of the day was the best display for the primary schools which was won by Mulhuddart National School and their product Book Buddies. The next few awards were all for the secondary schools. The overall winners of the secondary school awards was St. Fintan’s  from Sutton with their website www.2buildbacklinks.com Second prize in the secondary schools category went to St. Josephs from Rush for their product Mus’ Stash it. The final award of the day was for the primary schools overall winner which went to St. Oliver Plunkett from Malahide. Well done to all of the winners. Every student and teacher that came to the awards was given a raffle ticket for the draw which was held during the ceremony. The student’s prize was Kinect for the Xbox 360 and the prize for the teachers draw was a voucher for The Blanchardstown Shopping Centre near the hotel. Unfortunately none of us won anything. At the end of the day every student and teacher got a free Easter egg. We travelled home with everybody from Rush and Skerries and we got back at around 3:15.

By Liam & Adrian

School Garden

Our school pond

Our school pond is a man-made pond which was created by Mary Ryan .It was created so we could see the life-cycle of a frog and what it goes through. We have actually spotted frog spawn and hopefully they will turn into graceful hopping little frogs.

Our Garden

Our garden is extravagant and now has its own outdoor classroom, a bug-box, and a bird-box with a camera inside to monitor any bird that nested in it. This couldn’t be possible without the help of our school gardener Mary Ryan and our class teacher Ms Dunne .They have worked worked very hard  and kept our school garden as beautiful and as neat as it possibly can be.

Our Spring Nature Walk

Our spring nature walk was great .We went over the different types of trees and flowers that have grown and blossomed over the years. We knew most of the names of the trees and flowers, but not all of them. We were brought around by Mary Ryan and our class teacher Ms Dunne. 

The Outdoor Classroom

Our school’s interest in nature has grown over the years, starting from our once a year nature walk to our twice a month nature walk which includes looking at thing that have been found in the garden and now we can look at the garden in comfort with our outdoor classroom that we won for entering the Bio-diverse School Garden of the Year. The outdoor classroom includes a table, blackboard and a bench that can seat thirty children.

By Roisin and Elanna J

  

Seomra Glas

We are all excited about our new Seomra Glas. We can do some of our lessons outside now. Here we are using the extraordinary garden for inspiration for a piece of creative writing. We will post them here soon!

Yard Games

Reading Corner

Penalty Shoot Out

Queue for Javelin Throw

Yard Games

6^th class have been running a selection of games on yard for the younger children since November when, due to the weather, we could no longer play on the grasss.

The games include penalty shoot out, obstacle course, basketball, javelin throw/beanbag and disc throw, skills school, dance corner,  reading corner and skipping.

Penalty shoot out is where the children line up and take a shot at goal it was one of the most popular at the start. Basketball is the same you just walk up and take a shot at the hoop. Dance corner is when 3or 4 people play some music and dance then the children copy them. The reading corner is a time to read and relax.

Out of all the fun and games we had, we are looking forward to going back on the grass soon.

From Padraic and Jordan

Blog Photo

I had a request to put a larger version of the blog photo up. Here we are in the Garden of Remembrance last October.

Visit to St Joseph's Musical

The plot summary below was written by Joshua R. I thought it was great and worth sharing with you all. It was lovely to see past pupils there including the star of the show, Daniel, who is Liam's brother.

St Joseph's Trip

On the 9th of March 2011 our class went to St Joseph's secondary school to see a play. A few previous students from St Catherine's were starring in the play which was called Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

The play was more a musical about Joseph. Jacob is Joseph's Dad and Joseph has eleven other brothers but Jacob likes Joseph the most and his brothers become jealous of him. They sell him as a slave to the Egyptians.

The Pharaoh likes Joseph and Joseph likes him but the Pharaoh's wife also likes Joseph and forces him to sleep with her. Then the Pharaoh heard them and imprisoned Joseph. However, Joseph can interpret dreams and after a while the Pharaoh needs Joseph's help to tell his dreams.

Then  Joseph becomes the Pharaoh's second man. Joseph's brothers come in search of food but they don't recognise Joseph. The ask for food and Joseph gives it to them but he forces one of them to steal his golden cup and sends this brother to jail. When the other brothers beg for mercy for him he sees that they have changed and he tells them he is actually Joseph.

Joseph's father Jacob comes and brings Joseph's magical coloured coat. And they live happily ever after.


by Joshua R

Cross-Country, Soccer, Gaelic and Hurling

We are a very fit and sporty class. Please see below a little information on recent sporting events:

Cross-Country Race

Our class took part in the cross country league  race in Swords yesterday. 6th class ran a 1,000 m race against the other schools in this area of Fingal (e.g. Holy Family, Swords Educate Together, Hedgestown, St Treasa's, Loughshinny, Garritstown). Adrian came 1st (for the third time in a row). Gavin came second, Stephen came in 8th. Everyone else finished middle of the field. Well done Amy doing her first cross-country race at such a long distance.
By Cian M

Gaelic

We played a Gaelic match last Tuesday in St Maur's against Balscaddan. We lost by only a few points. It was a close match and Mr O'Se came to watch the Gaelic team. Adrian, Cian S and me scored. Mr McGrath said we played the best we ever had. Ms Mc Dermott said we have to keep fighting back and try to win the ball as much as possible but besides all that we played great. It's just that they got the better of us. Next time we won't make that mistake again!

by Michael

Soccer

On Wednesday 9th March we played a soccer match in the Phoenix Park. We played against the team that won the league last year, St Patrick's. We beat them by an amazing 13-1. Adrian scored four goals, Gavin scored three goals, Ryan from Ms Mc Dermott's class scored two goals and I got two goals. Liam and Stephen got a goal each.  Ms Dennis told us to score as many goals as we can because we were one point behind on goal difference - and we did!

by Cian S

Hurling

We played a hurling match last Monday in St Maur's. The first half was mainly played in our field. The second half, we came out and played as a team. We played Belgrove. We lost unfortunately but we had a great time.

by Padraig 

Book Club

We started new books in our Book Club reading groups this week

Pancake Tuesday

We made pancakes with Alida and wrote up the recipe.

Bloody Battle in Room 11

Room 11 was the scene of a bloody battle between Luke Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III and well known villain, Captain Hook O Se. Luckily, we managed to pull them apart before serious injury to life or limb occurred.

Book Character Dress-up Day

Here we are last Friday dressed as characters from our favourite books. Thanks to all the parents who came to assembly for the parade of characters and prizegiving. 

Book Week Author's Visit

As part of our Book Week activities, we had a visit from the writer Tony Hickey. He told us all about how he got inspiration for his books from everyday events. He brought lots of his books with him and showed them to us and told the background story for each one. We read 'The Black Dog' in class, it is the first in a series about the Maguire family from Co Kildare. Tony advised us to keep a journal, even if you only write in it 3 or 4 times a year. Just write in it when important or unusual things happen or when you notice something that makes you stop and think. Then you always have something to go to for inspiration. He says there is only one way to be a better writer: WRITE, WRITE and WRITE!

Class Mass

On Friday 4th February, Fr Coughlan came to our class to celebrate Mass as part of Catholic Schools Week. The theme we chose was Giving Thanks and we all had lots to be thankful for. We had a wonderful time preparing the classroom, studying the readings and learning the songs (with Mr O'Se's help). It helped us to prepare ourselves for Confirmation.

Snow covered school

We are all enjoying the garden in the beautiful sunshine. However, it was stunning just before Christmas too. Zach and Padraig took the camera out to video the school grounds in the snow. Look for the ash tree twigs towards the end.