Scoil Naomh Padraig Measc
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Cuireadh céad míle fáilte roimh Na Gaeil, go háirithe roimh Mr Paul agus Darragh Reen (iar-dhalta). Shúil siad ár ‘Hall of Fame’ agus fuair siad bualadh bos mór ónár ndaltaí agus múinteoirí! Mr Paul ,the eldest on the team and Darragh, the youngest, gave the whole school a night off homework. All the players spoke to the children and we are very grateful that they spent time with us! Well done, to all the panel and the whole club! All-Ireland Junior Football Club Champions 2020.
Congratulations to all the entrepreneurs in Fifth Class! Our Twitter account tracked the four wonderful teams, who progressed to the D.Day: Dragon’s Den, yesterday. The winning product was announced today: Multi-Bands👏👏. Well done to all on this team! We are immensely proud of how all the teams congratulated the winners, commiserated with each other, hugged and held the odd tear back. The world would be a better place if we had more people like the children in Fifth class. They will now all rally behind our 2020 JEP product, as will parents, staff, pupils and fans/sponsors. Best class, by a Dragon’s mile!
The children had a lot of questions when they saw this banner, today. We don’t want the kids to miss out…..so we MIGHT hold a Junior Spring Grill here at school! (Just need a couple of gazebos, a chef, sausages and burgers, fruit and balloons etc) Easy peasy? YES, especially if we can get three parents to join our 4 Staff/5 parents, who are on the HH/Caherleaheen NS Sub-Committee. It would be great! This whole fundraiser is a 50/50 affair! All donations will be split 50/50. So that’s a win/win for both Hugh’s House, Caherleaheen NS. However, we need four more parents to link with the teachers & parents who are now committing to this dual fundraiser. Its’ a small tight sub-committee, but we need a few more pairs of legs!We also need and welcome all your suggestions, your support, your creativity and any help or time which you can give. ALL STAFF met with P.Assoc Grill group and have committed to displaying posters, approaching specific potential sponsors and bringing home donations to this 50/50 Fundraiser. It’s all very exciting and uplifting!
Ms Sinéad’s class were slightly bananas……so are the staff perhaps🤣. Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile, b’fhéidir!
Many thanks are due to Louise L and Aisling F for attending a planning meeting with our Students Council. They explored many ideas on how best to claim our prize and get best use of our 10 sessions in the Kerry Sport Academy. Everyone listened to all the various suggestions, and hopefully our schedule will please all the children between now and June. We also agreed to defer some sessions until Autumn.
Dear Parents, please be aware that the DoES requires all national schools to attend PLC ( new Primary Language Curriculum) courses throughout the year. Therefore, our school was closed on Monday January 13th 2020, for PLC training. We are also required to take a half day to train (PLC) as a staff in Term 2 and another half day in Term 3. Our Term 3 date has yet to be confirmed. These dates are not related to termly staff meetings. Therefore please download this updated calendar of important holidays/training days/graduation and confirmation dates. (Please keep an eye on the live calendar ‘ Upcoming Events’, which you will find on this website’s home page). We will also do our best to keep you abreast of any important upcoming events/meetings/fundraisers as they arise during the year via emailed newsletters and reminders on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. You will note, that due to a leap year, there is an extra vacation day on Friday 27th March (the day after Sixth Class are confirmed). Some of you have asked for the return date in August. Staff return on Thursday 27th. Pupils return on Friday, 28th August. Many thanks. Mary C.
Primary school teachers are required to attend in-service training, on various days, this academic year. Caherleaheen staff will attend their training day, next Monday in the Tralee Education Centre, with two other local schools. Apologies to our parents for any inconvenience. No doubt, our pupils will find it a great pleasure, to curl up in bed for an extra snooze, on a typically, dark Mon morning!
We wish all our families in Caherleaheen NS a very happy and peaceful Christmas. It has been a busy and enjoyable few weeks! Christmas has finally arrived and we hope that everyone will enjoy the break.
Liam arrived (all the way from South Africa, no less!) to investigate our wee school. He told us he was feeling cold in Ireland but was traveling around the country to acknowledge the schools which had sparkled while engaging with our national Maths Week Challenge (10 days actually). We are really proud of all our pupils and we tracked their effort and individual progress as they engaged with all the various digital challenges posed by Mangahigh.com. Well done to our Top Five and our Top Others! Bua Tré Iarracht agus Obair, arís! He spent time with Sixth Class, Mr Paul and |Ms Claire this morning demonstrating deeper engagement and learning objectives/outcomes with Mangahigh.
The goodwill and generosity of our parents and pupils shone yet again! Thank you all for your effort, your enthusiasm and the most delicious spread of cakes and savoury foods. Thank you all for taking the time to leave work and arrive with friends and spend some time with children, staff and parents. The children really enjoyed ‘taking the stage’ and giving festive songs yet another blast. Send pics to Ms Mary……she was too busy hovering around the International food table, ‘sampling’ or swinging with the Carolers.
Congratulations to the new members of our CSC: Izzy Scannell (Chairperson), Will Leahy (Joint-Chairperson), Tadhg Falvey (Secretary), Shane Crossan (Joint-Secretary), Luke Hanafin (Treasurer), Niamh Fitzgibbon (Joint Treasurer), Fionán Brosnan & Igor Hanzel (Health and Wellbeing,) Daisy O’ Sullivan (Advertising), Niamh O’ Regan & Aaron Crean (Entertainment).
Our super-duper Parent Association held yet another great Book Fair. We had huge interest from parents and pupils. The selection of books was most impressive and competitively priced. It was great seeing so many parents, at such an early hour each morning, browsing and handling books as they bargained….. with their offspring! But it was most heartening to see how keen our young readers are to read, buy, swop, share with friends and bargain with their parents 🙂 Many thanks are due to the morning and afternoon ‘parent-pairs’ who managed the Fair effortlessly: A. Foley, M Flemming, L. Lovett, P. Corkery, L Wade, S. O’Mahony, M. Crusson, M. Constable, C. Buckley. and more!
Mr Damien mentored Third and Fourth Class soccer players as they competed in friendlies with six Kerry schools. They had a ‘ball’! He reported that it was a really well-run event, where our girls played 5 matches and enjoyed every single minute…..winning three but most importantly actively engaged for three hours. Again, parents stepped in by driving the girls to and from….thank you all.
We were also busy with our usual curricular activities and our annual participation in the national Science Week is always a ‘given’. Science (and SESE linkage ) is not a once-off ‘event’. These activities are regular and hugely rewarding for teachers and pupils alike eg. Ms Sinéad and the LS team linked Science activities with this month’s Aistear theme, which is Good Food. Classes also managed to avoid the hail showers this week, as they jogged their daily kms with energy. This is a really important area where teachers partner with parents. Dig out your runners and join in/ encourage your kids on weekends! The Junior Park Run is an excellent weekly opportunity to meet other kids and parents from our local schools. You can register on their website quite easily as a member of ‘Caherleaheen NS Club’, and run a fun 2km every Sunday morning at 9.25am in the town park. Jogging is better than ‘racing’! Chat as you jog! Our daily school runs are a vital fundraiser for our literacy resouces- another Win-Win!
Our Dance Fridays are amazing! The feelgood factor of moving to great songs gets everyone in a positive mood at lunchtime and it’s really lovely to see the various age-groups doing their ‘moves’ and laughing together. Also, all our votes on Connect Kerry COUNTED and are mutually appreciated by staff, parents and our friends. We all deserve a prize for true, sincere and honest engagement.
Children in Senior classes have elected our Student Council and we hope that they will enjoy engaging with the P Assoc., their peers and their teachers. Parents are meeting teachers for their annual P/T meetings this month too. It’s all go! Visit our Twitter account, Teachers Facebook Page and the P.Association Facebook Page to keep abreast! However, remember Parent Newsletters will always arrive by email. They are important notifications for you, staff and of course our young and wonderful VIPs
We had super fun today. Bhí gach páiste gléasta suas, nuair a shroich siad an scoil ar maidin. Most children brought €2 or more! (Thank you!). We raised €443! We intend rounding this off to a neat and tidy sum of €500. Well done, everyone! It would not have been possible without the talented face-painters from Art and Hobby : Parent Michelle O’ Connor and her assistant Shannon. The kids absolutely loved the wax wounds: oozing blood, pus, sores! Most of us opted for delicate thorny roses, unicorns, butterflies and all things less gory! Michelle and Shannon did not let up for a solid 5 hours, no break.( It’s hard on the back !)They were helped by girls from Sixth Class: Sophie, Rachel and Lila, along with Shauna from Fifth. So, thank you parents for your time spent dressing the kids in such creative costumes, as well as your support of Jigsaw Kerry.
Well done to all the children for sharing their Math Games with their partner classes! It meant that children had to show younger children how to play the games! They had fantastic fun and even though some of the challenges were tough, they enjoyed every minute of it! On Tuesday Junior Math Fair was hosted by Sixth Class. I cannot recommend Sixth enough! Such great organisers they are! Then on the following day, Fifth Class hosted the Senior Math Fair. The games, challenges and puzzles were intriguing. Both Fairs were a huge success. Tomorrow the Math Quizzes in the hall will have multi-class teams going head to head with their peers. This is always a hotly contested activity. Mangahigh took precedence over all other homework this week. Children logged on at school and at home. Each child had his/her own special Avatar and Code. Thanks to the parents for facilitating this worldwide Math activity for homework. Special thanks to Ms Claire for coordinating yet another busy Math Week.
These fantastic young hurlers won the South Kerry Hurling Perpetual Shield u 11, (Division 1 League). The U 10s won the Donie Brosnan Tournament, which was played in the Fitzgerald Stadium! They are all great friends and they LOVE playing with the Parnells. Training will start again in early spring. Bigí ann!
There was huge excitement when some infants actually HEARD fairy sounds coming from our Fairy School! Many thanks to Mike Ross for his creative use of tree stumps and for ‘securing planning permission’! This will be an excellent resource for developing creativity, imagination, expressive language. The children found a school key hidden nearby, on the ground, in a magic container and now they ‘know for certain’ that little fairies can visit our classrooms when all the pupils are gone home! This was such an incredible discovery. We think the fairies are in fairy school from early morning until all the children go home. Then, they ‘tiptoe into our classrooms in the evening’. Ms Mary was shocked when she saw a tiny fairy disappear behind the magic red door , early this morning. She had never seen a real fairy before. Ms Eva thinks she saw one, but she’s not sure…..We will have to keep a very close eye (and ear) on our new little school.
Our lovely Junior Infants arrived on Thursday. They were super! ALL the children had a smile when they arrived for the first day back…. teachers too 🙂 Photographers arrived on Day 2 and marvelled at how everyone had worn their Kerry colours. Our little Junior Infants filed quietly into the hall and arranged themselves effortlessly for their special photo. They have settled in so well, so quickly. Well done! Let’s hope Kerry settles in to the game on All-Ireland Sunday as quickly as our Infants. CIARRAÍ ABÚ!
Our Sports Day turned out even better than we had hoped. We moved it from Mitchel’s to school, as the weather forecast was poor. Teachers set up 12 fantastic game stations: Tug of War, Turbo Javelin, Penalty Shots, 3legged races, Egg and Spoon, Wellie Throwing and lots of team challenges, to name but a few. Cathy Williams and Cliona Caplis organised the Fruit Chopping Marathon. They prepared a wonderful feast of fruit for all the children and staff/parents. This would not have been possible without Aldi’s kind sponsorship. Many thanks to Tony Talbot for helping Mary get it organised. Bhí dá fhoireann ar comhscór faoi deireadh an lae : An Fhoireann Oráiste agus an Fhoireann Dearg. Bhuaigh an fhoireann dearg an corn! The Mum’s team beat the dads, staff and Sixth Class on the planks. It was nail bitting! We got great feedback from children and parents alike. Well done all!
Delighted and honoured, that Seán Kelly MEP, Seán Ryan CEO Aspen Grove Solutions, BoM and P.Assoc members attended our Awards ceremony. This year was v special: Fifth Green Flag (biodiversity), Health Promoting Schools Flag, Active Flag, Science Foundation Ireland Plaque, JEP Flag, Caherleaheen Community Award for Paul Griffin (Harriers Athletics), A brand new , top of the range CR2 defibrillator, (courtesy of a great local /global tech company, A.G.S👍👍) . What a great acknowledgement of all the fantastic work invested in our kids by the incredibly hard working staff and huge support from parents these last two years. Fantastic! More pics will follow, but right now we are glowing, savouring a great year. Best part is that each award has bestowed a night off homework to all of our classes for Mon, Tues, Wed, Thursday!! Well deserved!!
Congratulations to all our young athletes who participated in the Tralee Primary Schools event which was hosted by Tralee Harriers, last Thursday evening. Every single child competed whole-heartedly and many won medals in their individual races. We secured some stunning wins, overcame disappointment, celebrated each other and ultimately never gave up. As you can see in photo above, we won 6 medals in the 6 relay events () : 3 golds, 1 silver and 2 bronze. All the subs were on standby and we needed them on the night due to injuries. What a fantastic result, when one considers the various challenges which they faced on the night! Here are some pics, with more to follow when the children return to school with their treasure-trove of silverware. This is our 3rd successive year winning the trophy, since its inception three years ago. We won by 6 points…..a very tight, fist-clenching battle! Our school has participated for over 14 years and the children never fail to give it 110%. Sincere thanks to Tralee Harriers for hosting this annual event. It has become a really important fixture in our sporting calendar. Thank you all for being so supportive of each other and let’s hope our medal winners will keep the momentum going as they prepare to represent Caherleaheen at the upcoming Kerry Schools Finals in An Ríocht, Castleisland (Date to be confirmed). Many thanks to Brian Sargent for the video above.
Lila Galway from Fifth Class received her Commendation Prize last week. Here is a photo of her beautiful painting. Isn’t it stunning? It’s now part of the Texaco Art Exhibition which will travel to various venues around Ireland in the coming year. Well done, Lila!! (These photos have been published with her parent’s permission).
Active Week had something for everyone: Gymnastics courtesy of Active Kingdom; Line Dancing with Cassie and Ms Adrienne; Athletics with Paul Griffin from Tralee Harriers; Obstacle Courses in the hall and yard; Handball with Alan and Basketball with Sinéad from IT Tralee. Many thanks to Ms Ann and Ms Caroline for organising the events. It was a great week with fine weather and whole school engagement.
We could not commend these young children enough. They fully appreciated and understood the meaning behind their third sacrament: First Holy Communion. They were responsive, reverent and attentive during their very special mass. Their teachers, Ms Claire and Ms Gemma agreed that all the preparation and attention to detail made for a very special ceremony. The choir of 27 and 4 musicians from Fourth, Fifth and Sixth were superb, having practised early every morning in recent weeks. Fr Sean Jones also celebrated his very First Holy Communion Mass as a priest and he attended to all the school work in the preceding months with great enthusiasm and infectious good humour. Carmel Foran kept a watchful and supportive eye over all the prep and proceedings in the church. The P.Assoc and First Class parents and children prepared a wonderful reception in the school hall after the church ceremony: savoury and sweet delights, coffee and teas, flower arrangements, decorations and they even arranged incredible sunbeams to shine through the newly decorated hall! The art work on display in both the Mary Immaculate Church and the school hall, from all the children in Second was truly beautiful and everyone had the opportunity to chat and meet up before every family went their separate ways. Thank you all for making this special day such a memorable one. God bless all our children. Of course, there were great celebrations when we all returned to our normal routine on Monday, which happened to coincide with the first day of our Active Week. That didn’t stop Ms Gemma from treating Second Class to ice cream wafers, or Ms Mary from treating the singers and musicians to icepops, or Ms Claire from treating teachers and assistants to warm scones!
Well done to Lila Galway from Fifth Class. We were delighted that she received a coveted commendation in the national Texaco Art Competition! Lila has always been creative and her ‘Variations of a Sky’, really impressed the judges. Unfortunately, her painting will remain in Dublin until she receives her prize, but I will post a photo of it in June. We are thrilled for her. Also Mr Paul was delighted when his footballers from Fifth and Sixth comfortably won their match against Ardfert NS recently. The Spa NS got the better of them this week, but they must be commended for fantastic skill and heart! Well done, all!
Many thanks to the 9 parents and young helpers who arrived to school on a sunny Saturday morning: Paudie, Samantha and Kayden Sugrue, Cathy and Ken Fitzgerald, Tom and Adam O Brien, Ger Breen, Mike Ross, Ciara, Eric and Colin Buckley, Cliona Caplis, Tara, Ben and David Cullinan. We cleared hedgerows, pruned bushes, swept the HUGE yards, cleared drains, tidied organic garden and wrapped it all up with tea and coffee after a satisfying few hours. Paudie filled a trailer and took it all away. Thank you all! We are also very proud of the great work done by gardeners from Fifth and Sixth during the week, led by Niamh Ní Dhúill.
Thanks for keeping an eye on our website! Here are some photo-reports of our IT Tralee Sport activities, gardening, art etc. Unfortunately photos and reports work best on a laptop, due to an in’egg’splicable wordpress blip. You all received your Newsletter by email today, detailing all that’s going on here. But please dig deeper and take a look at our Science/STEM log too. It’s a Weebly link and you can access it here, under the ‘Initiatives’ menu above. It’s nearly complete. Míle buíochas do na daltaí agus múinteoirí. Obair ionatach ar fad!
No words can credit the incredible duo from our Tralee I T. Sinead and Conchuair led 8 weeks of fantastic PE lessons, for each class! They were the most ‘egg’citing , most anticipated coaches every week.Karen Weekes, their lecturer and leader should be so proud of the quality and calibre which her dept. showcases each year. We love them and truely appreciate the training, enthusiasm, professionalism and positivity which such students bring to our school every year, Thank you so much Sinéad and Conchuair. Ar fheabhas ar fad!
Reconstructed beds, ready for Spring planting….and our lunchtime gardening club ready to dig….
And dig…
….and dig….
….and dig….
We can’t wait for all our parents to arrive on Bank Holiday Saturday, 4th May to help with gardening and tidying our grounds, hedges (hint, hint)…..:)
D’egg’orating.
Chirp, chirp, from Fifth…..
Chirpitty-chirp from our Junior Infants
Many thanks to our hugely talented third level students from IT: David Clifford, DJ Hanafin and Oran Murphy. They co-ordinated and taught ‘invasion strategies’ and we can’t wait for them to return next term to Fifth and Sixth for three more weeks….
The P.Assoc Book Fair really grabbed everyone’s attention. Huge thanks to all you parents who helped on site, or visited the display.
Rang a 4 ‘egg’joyed textile crafts
They have moved on to clay this week and their magical, original baskets of eggs are almost ready……just waiting for them to dry, so that spring painting can begin!
The Easter message from Fifth
Graffiti art from Fifth.
Senior Infants are so ‘egg’centric! I just love these festive garlands….
Senior Infants are looking forward to Summer! What lovely 3D poppies and look at the Slieve Mish mountains 🙂
I happened to bump in to these Community Games winners today on the corridor. Some of the silverware is from Gneevgullia Open Athletics. We LOVE Tralee Harriers, in Caherleaheen. Make sure you support and join our local Harriers Athletic club because everyone wins/gains from being active with friends and GREAT coaches!
The Green Committee have sprinkled love and care on the soil of these tulips. There hasn’t been a day that someone hasn’t commented on how huge they are. They have bloomed for more than 5 weeks and Ms Brid H says that many hands, back in November, ‘egg’riched the soil!
How cute are these ‘egg’static festive pictures from Ms Gemma’s Rang a hAon agus Rang a Dó?
Spring Cleaning? We have it nailed! Here is another hero whom I met in the corridor…..doing his bit. ‘Egg’cellent!
THANK YOU FOR CHECKING IN….WE ARE SO PROUD OF ALL THE BIG AND SMALL ACHIEVEMENTS IN CAHERLEAHEEN. HAVE A’ CRACKING’ GOOD EASTER .
Sonia ran with all the Tralee primary school children, this morning in the town park! What a super atmosphere and the weather was just perfect! She is a fantastic athlete and ambassador for Park Runs all over the country. Well done to all the boys and girls: Ar fheabhas ar fad!! Sonia greeted every runner (150+) as they passed the 2km line. Fabulous lady- sharing her Mother’s Day with all our young Tralee runners. Let’s hope her magic dust blows towards Croke Park this afternoon! Beir Bua !
Sonia cycles too….and posed with one of our families at the Stephen Roche Charity cycle!
