St. Brendan's Boys Primary School

Green School Committee Members 2018

First Class: Fionn Whelahan, Callum Kennedy
Second Class: Aidan Kearns, Shane Dillon
Third Class: Dylan Carroll, Jack McAulay, Sean Scully
Fourth Class: Micheal McAteer, Leo Shannon
Fifth Class: Dylan Guilfoyle, Noah Richardson, Evan Brady ,Stephen Nolan
Sixth Class: Sam McAulay, Tymon Kaczmarczyk, Conor Kelly

Staff – Ms Pilkington / Ms Doyle

Overall aim- To continue and develop the Green schools an taisce programme within the schools.
Encourage and promote Green Travel.

Build up to the following year 18/19- new application / application renewal

Credit Union Quiz 2018

Thanks to Mr Cunningham for organising trials for our school team.

U-13 team was : Conor Lally Greijmans , Steven Dillon , Charlie Loughnane and Sam McAuley

U-11 team was : Harry Reynolds / Reece Swanepoele / Barry Tierney and Alex Hough

Both teams represented the school well and enjoyed the night with Mrs Kelly in attendance to support the boys–
Well done to all 😉

The school held its annual EASON SPELLING BEE event in February. The school hall was packed as over 40 boys from 5th / 6th classes stood up to take part. Each boy was asked a spelling at the podium and all deserve great credit for having the courage and self-confidence to take part. Eventually the final few remained.

Fifth class placings:
1st – Kiefer Shalloe
2nd – Conor Lally-Greijmans
3nd – Keelan Franks

Sixth class placings
1st- Damien Delaney
2nd -Thomas Martinez
3rd – Aran Corcoran

Then after a few days we held the play off between both class champions for the school title.
10 WORDS each – Damien V Kiefer.
It was a draw at 7 / 10 each.
To a play off it went with the words VIVACIOUS / BABYLON.
Damien Delaney emerged victorious and will go on to represent the school at the EASON offaly spelling BEE in Tullamore next week. Best luck to Damien,

Community games-

Sincere thanks to Birr community games ( Margaret and Valerie) group who have allowed our boys the excellent opportunity to take part in art / modelling and handwriting. Lots of classes took part supported by Mrs Kelly with prizewinners ( pictured). Best luck to all the boys going forward to Offaly round in Daingean next weekend.

Arguments are flying around in 6th class as Mr Cunningham prepares his team for the next round of the midland schools debating competition. The team under captain Damien Delaney have already had two great debates with Oxmantown NS and St . Cronans NS Roscrea which they narrowly won. Thanks to Mr John McArdle who officiates are independent judge. All involved in the school teams should take great pride in the high standard and no doubt we are witnessing future politicians in action ! ( Pictured St Brendans PS V Oxmantown NS)

Well done to all the boys who took part this year. We had a great entry and thanks to all the teachers and Mrs. Kelly for promoting this great event. Special mention must go to the artistic boys in 5th class who had some fantastic entries. We hope to hear from Catherine Barry after the Easter Break about any medal winners we had.
WINNER ANNOUNCED !
Community Games Modelling
Denis Konev – Silver
Luke Sheils – Gold———- OFFALY CHAMPION
Brad McEvoy – Silver
Kealan Franks – Silver
Darragh Tierney – Gold
Darragh McNamara – Gold——-OFFALY CHAMPION
Alex Byrne – Gold————-OFFALY CHAMPION
Darragh Mooney – Silver
Joe Hutchinson – Silver
Ronan McArthur – Silver
Sam McAulay – Bronze
James Carroll – Bronze
Dinny Kelly – Bronze
Reece Swanepoel – Bronze
Ben O’ Brien – Bronze
Damien Delaney – Bronze
Kristian Bodik – Bronze

All roads led to Marian hall Birr last Wednesday night 9th March as St. Brendan’s Boys Primary school staged their historical production and tribute to 1916. Heritage has a major influence on the school and so they were delighted to have Michael Donegan ( Former Principal) back to write and direct the first half of the show. Current principal welcomed the huge crowd to the free show and thanked the people of the parish for their continued support of the school. He also thanked the parish for use of their fine hall and to hall caretaker Martin Walsh for his support with the show. The stage looked fantastic with set designed by local artist George Dempsey and painted by pupils from the school with lights and sound by Phil Walsh kindly organised by parent Pierre Greijmans. Then the boys took over !

Boys from 6th , 4th and 3rd classes took the audience of over 600 on a journey from the glaciers of Ireland up to the famine. Classes came on for scenes in magical costumes to a rocking soundtrack as they retold Irish History through the first farmers , celts , , Christians , Vikings ,Normans, Plantations, Penal laws and suffering of the famine times. All through this they had a commanding performance from the director ( Jack) and the story kept great flow through the narrators (Paul and Jack).The audience were on an emotional roller-coaster from laughter at the ABBA dancing Vikings to sorrow with the famine dead. Then came the interval with tea/ coffee provided by parents association and shop.

The second half began with 120 boys on stage playing a tin-whistle medley of Irish traditional and republican songs and a booming version of Fields of Athenry. The 5th class under Ms.Ward and placement student Eoin Pilkington then held the audience spell-bound with their version of “Triumph of Sorts” written by local principal Damien White. Drums and rifles were to the fore as Padraig Pearce ( Darragh) led the rebels to the GPO where the proclamation was dramatically read aloud to the audience with drum beats bellowing. It was special to see the proclamation being read aloud by pupils born in other countries but who now see themselves as Irish. This is really Ireland in 2016. Music and song interspersed this part with Banna strand and foggy dew being sung with a highlight of grace being sung by 5th class accompanied by the talented Ms.Pilkington and Ms.Ryan.
Thanks were expressed to all through the booklet on the night for all the elements that go into a show of this scale with funding support from Offaly Arts Council and Birr Lions club. Mr Crofton thanked the audience and community for allowing the boys the opportunity to perform on stage and to celebrate 1916 in this manner. Michael Donegan was thanked for his time, energy , passion and inspiration to the show and he then spoke of the pride he has in the school , the boys and the school community which is such an integral part of Birr. The audience then sang the finale of Amhran na bhFiann to conclude the night and send the audience home with a spring in their step and happiness in their hearts.
We hope it was both educational and entertaining and respectful to the memory of the heroes of 1916.

Winner of the design competition for ” St . Brendans Boys Beats” is Aurimas Ozelis from 5th class with a wonderful entry which wowed the judges from the cd committee.
Well done Aurimas – This will be our CD cover !
CD art design

“ All primary school pupils to get their own mobile phones” – Well, that was the argument proposed by the 6th class debating team of St. Brendans PS last week. Needless to say the boys spoke passionately on this subject. They took part in the Primary school debating competition organised by Laois Education Centre. It was the first time the school had taken part in the competition and they were excellently prepared by class teacher Mr. Damien Cunningham. They had an excellent and enthralling debate with the team of girls and boys from St. Ciarans NS from Broughal who travelled through a snow blizzard to take part. Both teams spoke very well and outlined their arguments and sparks really flew in the crossfire round. It was an impossible decision for the panel of judges to pick a winner and it came down to small margins. In the end St. Brendans PS team got the victory led by super-captain Darragh Cleary. Team was Darragh Cleary , Nathan Williams , Padraig Kelly, Cain Long, Luke Nolan and Dean Byrne. They look forward to the next round!

6TH CLASS TRIP TO RDS SCIENCE FAIR 2015
On Thursday 8th of January 2015 my class, Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Carroll, and I went up to the RDS in Dublin to take part in the young scientist’s exhibition. We arrived at school at 7:00 am and we all got on the bus. On the way up I sat beside my best friend Christopher Masterson. 5 minutes of him is bad enough but imagine 2 hours! It was a very long drive.
We arrived in Dublin at around 9:30 am. On the way into the RDS we met Ryan Tubridy. We put our badges on and headed down to our stall. We set up our project and then we were split up into our groups for the day.
Our project was about “why do giraffes have long necks”? I was in group number 2 so we got to go off for an hour and look at some other science stalls. First we went into a road safety authority van and looked at some really cool driving games and videos.
An hour later we headed back to our stall because it was our turn to present the project. We had loads of people coming up to our stall and asking us all kinds of questions about giraffes. A while later a RTE news reporter came up to me and asked me if I would do an interview for the 1 o’clock news. Wanting to be famous I said yes !! After making sure my hair was looking good for the camera, he explained to me how to talk in front of the camera. I answered all of the questions that he asked me and then text my mam to say watch the news. After that a judge came to our stall and asked us loads of questions about our project. We took a model giraffe with us to display on the day which was made with the help of local artist George Dempsey.
Then later it was time for us to go off and look at some more stalls. On the way out of the RDS we met the RTE news presenter Sharon Ni Bheolain. Our teachers were very happy to meet her too! We went outside into a tent to eat our lunch. After lunch we went into a really big tent to see a robot show. There were 2 robots that were fighting in a ring. It was really cool.
Then we went into a really big hall to see a famous robot called Titon. His show was very cool. After seeing Titon, we went back to our stall for another little while. I met Michael Martin the Fine Fail leader and got a photo with him. I should have taken the photo myself as some old man messed up the photo. After that a woman from the RDS presented us with a trophy. Sadly, it was time to pack up and go home. On the bus on the way home we stopped at junction 14 and got something to eat. We arrived back at school at 6:30pm. We were very tired after a very long and enjoyable day.
We would like to thank our teachers Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Carroll for bringing us up to Dublin and for all their hard work. We would also like to thank Mr. Mcardle and George Dempsey for all their help and hard work.
It was a great day out and it was much better than sitting in school doing work! Hopefully in the future I will get to have a project in the main event and if not maybe an RTE news presenter.
By: Cian long 6th Class pupil St. Brendans PS