St. Brendan's Boys Primary School

Congratulations to Mr.Kennedy and his hurlers on another triumph at the Offaly Indoor hurling blitz in Shinrone. We entered 3 teams with over 30 boys getting the opportunity to play and it was great to hear of many boys making school debuts in the famous black and white hoops. All 3 teams reached finals with 2 teams winning and one team being defeated by last puck of the ball. All played with great skill , heart and pride. Well done to all and sincere thanks to the parents who helped with transport to Shinrone.
Indoor school senior league was also played with huge numbers of boys taking part this year. Team training continues each Friday at 2pm and school Championship will begin after mid-term. Thanks to Mr. Kennedy for his passion for hurling and to all the staff for helping with class arrangements over past few weeks without which travelling to Blitzes and training would not be possible.

Friendship week 2014
Dear Parent / Guardian,
The purpose of this week is:
• To promote a friendly atmosphere around the school.
• To develop an awareness among the pupils of Bullying ( through policy)
• To make parents/ community aware of our new policy ( parental responsibilities) –
• This is our chance to get the school policy and approach to friendship (Values through school ethos of kindness, goodness, inclusion etc) and bullying (anti) across to the pupils and parents.
Some of the things we do this week are:
• All classes do ANTI –BULLYING LESSON – Appropriate to class level.
• Senior classes ( 4th -6 th ) to address issue of cyber bullying according to school policy with input from Mr. Crofton and visit from local Gardai to reinforce the seriousness of this issue (Garda visit will be next week due to their availability)
• GOTCHA CARD SYSTEM for each class – Staff “catch” friendly behaviour in class and on yard – Prizes for each class and raffle.
• Whole school assembly on yard someday after break to spell word- CARA
• Friendship post on junior yard- Boys who stand there to be invited to play by other boys
• Happy music on intercom during week-
• Drumming workshop with our old friend Dave from JABBA JABBA JEMBE- This is on Wednesday for classes 1st-6th and there is no cost for this to ensure all boys are involved in this lovely workshop where teamwork and friendship is encouraged.
• Theme for each day –
o Monday- Greeting others
o Tuesday- Joining in
o Wednesday- Sharing
o Thursday – Waiting your turn
o Friday – Friendly words

• Poster / colouring competition – Friendship : anti – bullying
Junior / senior infants to colour poster- Other classes to design own
• Friendship bracelets on sale € 2 – Support of Amnesty international – These will be on sale Wed/Thurs/Fri
• 6th class yard friends… Rota to help younger pupils (JI/SI) for a week.

You can support this week at home by:
– Chatting to your son about Friendship / Bullying
– Becoming aware of internet safety and home responsibilities relating to cyber-bullying and use of social media ( Letter from school policy overleaf)

We thank you for your continued support of the work we do at St .Brendans PS in providing a holistic education for each pupil.
Kind regards, Niall Crofton (Principal)

Despite being back at school the boys have been enjoying the lovely summer weather. Weather has been perfect for lunchtime Gaelic football with Mr. Crofton , lots of cycling and walking to school along with September visits to the park and castle. Our garden “An Ghairdin Draiochta” has also been getting a late summer revamp as Ms. Treacy and her team of volunteer dads and Grandads have been doing Trojan work in clearing it up. Mile buiochas lads !
The school also presented the boys with a LITERACY CHALLENGE over the summer holidays. Boys had to write a “Dear Brendan” letter or postcard about their holidays and post to the school. A huge number of families took part with postcards from received from Kerry to Spain, Legoland to Poland and Galway to Athlone. The boys met in September to chat about their cards over a little treat. Pictured are two of our young writers who took part looking over the cool cards :

Going to school each day is cool! Our attendance strategies are proving to be really working as overall absent days last year were down by 23%. We had a huge increase in boys who had 100% attendance for the school year 2013/2014 and these 23 boys received certificates at our attendance assembly (Pictured). We also gave attendance awards to boys who only missed 1-3 days all year. Congratulations to all the families involved and keep up the great work !
As part of our efforts to get boys to attend school as much as possible we award certificates for full and improved attendance at the end of year term. Attendance teams are a successful initiative that we have created to encourage boys to attend school more regularly. Teams are comprised of boys from 1st class to 6th class and the average attendance for each team is worked out on a termly basis with reward for best attendance team. The purpose of this is to encourage improved attendance from all boys.

We are delighted to hold our annual music day on Thursday 5th June 2014.
This is a fun day for the boys to display their talents, take part in music performance, listen and respond to various forms of music and overall to have fun with music. The boys display song singing and tin whistle skills developed in the school through support of staff and under the watchful eye of our music teacher Ms. Majella Killeen. Parents and families are invited to attend any part of the day with us in the hall and let the sound of music fill the air in St. Brendans PS

9.20-10.50 – Stage set-up and final practice

11.10 – 1st class song with Mr. Kelly
– 3rd class (tin whistle) – 3 songs
– 5th class (tin whistle)- 3 songs
– School peaceproms choir- 1 song

11.45 – 4th class (Mr.Cunningham) – Kodali demonstration
– 4th class (Mr.Kennedy) – play and sing
– 2nd class (Tin whistle) – 2 songs and one action song
– Mr. Kennedy choir group song

Lunch break

1.10pm – 6th class ( Tin whistle) – 3 songs
– 6th class group – Amhran as Gaeilge
– Junior Infants – 2 songs
– Senior Infants – 2 songs
2.00pm – Peace proms choir
– Staff + guests + past pupils + individual pupils who play and sing and finish with choir performance

Abhaile !

This year wee held spelling bee’s in a lot of classes again.
Mr. Crofton acted as “spell master” and the standard was extremely high. All boys were encouraged to take part in what is a fun event and is a nice occasion to celebrate those pupils of ours who excel at spelling. Overall school champion was Padraig Kelly. Trophies to follow shortly for winners in 3rd -6th as 1st, 2nd spelling bees more informal occasions.

6th class
1. Michael Hand
2.Ronan McNamara
3.Jake Heather

5th class
1.Padraig Kelly
2. Thomas Byrne
3.Nathan Williams
3. Edvinas Ozelis

4th Class
1. Michael McCarthy
2.Paul Heather
3.Oran Digan
3.Josh O’Meara

3rd Class
1.Damien Delaney
2.Darragh McNamara
3.Charlie Gallagher

2nd class
1. Conor Lally Greijmans
2.Matthew Donoghue
3.Tymon / Kiefer / Adam

1st Class
1. Conor Gallagher
2. Evan Brady
3. Antonio Anspoks

Skippy John visited the school and instructed all classes on the art of skiping. The pupils were very interested in the demonstration and thoroughly enjoyed the presentation. They were told how to hold the rope, how to turn the rope, how to skip in various rhythms, speed skipping, one footed skipping, pairs skipping, backwards skipping and skipping with a long rope with many friends. He also showed them how to look after and mind their rope and explained the health benefits gained from doing the skipping exercises. Skipping ropes were on sale afterwards and there was huge interest in the skipping project. Afterwards, various areas of the school yard were set aside as designated skipping areas and the pupils were able to practice their skipping skills in safety with their friends.

Athletics Coaching continues this term for our boys involvinh running, jumping, bounding, hurdling and co-ordination drills and exercises. This term also the coaches have introduced Spike Ball which teaches our pupils the basic skills involved in volleyball.

Our school celebrated St. Brendan’s Day by participating in a lovely ceremony in St. Brendan’s Church. The boys sang , played and read prayers. Ms.Ward’s class performed a wonderful St. Brendan’s play dressed in full costume. It was bright, colourful and inspiring. It was great to see former teachers from our school attend the ceremony. The boys were accompanied by Majella and Fr. Cahir presided over the ceremony. All the pupil involvement really added to the ceremony.

We held our Rememberance Service in the gym to remember and pray for family, relatives and friends who have passed away.Fifth class and senior infants made Rememberance Trees and hung crosses on them with names of family ,relations and friends on them. Other classes made rememberance charts which were displayed in the gym. Sixth class played Inisheer on the tin whistles and the boys read prayers of the faithful. Mr. Kennedy’s class played the theme song from the Titanic and all classes sang the Rememberance Song. Mrs. Ryder read a beautiful poem about angels and Rosary beads were presented to staff members (blessed in Rome and given by Fr. Cahir). The ceremony ended with the boys playing Amazing Grace as each class returned to their classrooms.