Latest news from St Mary’s…

Click on the pencil above to find the information and the form you need to enrol a child with us in Saint Mary’s.

This year of 2020 will remain in our hearts and minds for many a long day. So many significant events have been cancelled or postponed that our social and cultural environment is almost unrecognizable.

Not least among the events which have been postponed are our First Holy Communion and the Confirmation of our young people in the Faith. May 9th was planned as the big day for our two Second Classes and their teachers. Alas it wasn’t to be. However, we know that we will celebrate again in better times.

Saturday, May 16th was to be a big day for our two Sixth Classes and their teachers, Ms O’Connor and Ms Moroney.

The display of names of our pupils making their Confirmation this year. It is still up in the church.

As it is such a disappointing time for our pupils, both teachers wanted to mark the occasion in a special way.

To that end, all the pupils due to make their confirmation, sent a video message to remind us all that they stand ready and willing to step forward and be confirmed in their Faith, whenever the call comes.

Here they are …

We are so proud of you all, girls and boys!

(Videos not displaying? Click in the white space and you’re good!)

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Many of you watched the live-stream of the 11 a.m. Mass from our parish church, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Ashbourne, on Sunday May 17th.

At that Mass, both teachers read out the names of those who were to be confirmed this weekend.

To everyone who has worked so tirelessly to support our young people in these extraordinary times, we say, thank you!

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Do you like Stop-Motion Video?

Check this out from Séamus Brett in 3rd Class!

Congratulations to Johnny Logan on his wonderful appearance on Eurovision’s Special, Shine A Light Programme from Hilversum, The Netherlands, on Saturday Night.

Johnny, AKA, Seán Sherrard, a long-time resident of Ashbourne whose children attended St . Mary’s, has been a great supporter of our school and our Parish, especially at Christmas.

We wish you many more years of record-breaking music-making Johnny!!!

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Hello! Virtual school will continue until September 2020!

Your teachers will continue to be in touch with some fun activities for you to do every week.

Please keep up with your work, be good for your parents/guardians and try to have as much FUN as possible until we see you all again!

Classes using Seesaw can easily keep in touch with teacher!

We’d LOVE to hear from you!

Click below to go to the World of David Walliams

Ideas for Home Learning

Bímís ag ceiliúradh gach rud Gaelach an tseachtain seo, ach go háirithe, ár dteanga féin! 

Chuaigh na páisti ag siopadoireacht le haghaidh milseáin ar an Máirt.

Bhí an-spóirt acu…

Labhraimís Gaeilge

Le Chéile!

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Well done Julia!

“I started gymnastics 1.5 years ago. I’ve always been interested in how to do the splits or cartwheels. My first competition was from my whole school, Wave Gymnastics, where I took first place. Since then I have been motivated even more.

My mam enrolled me in a higher level at gymnastics: two times a week for two hours each day. On March 7^th, I took part in the National Series Woman’s Level 1 all around and Team Championships where I got 10th place out of 31 participants!”

Maith thú!

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Córfhéile na Scoileanna 2020

Well done to the two 4th Classes who represented  Saint Mary’s at the 2020 Córfhéile na Scoileanna, Music Festival in the National Basketball Arena, Tallaght this week. They played three songs on the Recorder and did really well. Thanks to Ms Dowling for all the hard work in preparing the music and of course, to all the boys and girls for their hard work too!

Maith Sibh!

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The Board of Management, Principal and Staff of Saint Mary’s National School sincerely thank the team of Department of Education and Skills Inspectors, who were with us recently.

Thank you for your courtesy, kindness and constructive advice!

Congratulations to the Peace Proms Choir 2020 for a wonderful night on SATURDAY, February 1st, in the RDS with 2,500 other children and a host of musicians & other musical stars!

On Saturday, 1^st February, the Peace Prom Choir went to the RDS to perform with other schools in front of an audience of 3,500 people.

First, we all came to the school to get a bus to the RDS. There was great excitement on the bus. When we arrived, we were shown to our seats. Once we sat down, we grabbed a bit of lunch before the conductor, Greg Beardsell, came out. Greg came on stage with the orchestra to practice a few songs before the show. Once we were finished, Greg and the orchestra went back to get ready for the performance.

All the children ate another small lunch before the show. The performance began at 8pm and finished at 10.30pm. A few months ago there was a competition for a solo in the Peace Proms show. The soloist who won sang “Into the Unknown”. During the show we sang songs such as “Friend, Like Me”, “We are the Champions” and “A Million Dreams”.

Near the end, there was a dance medley, where everybody including the audience danced along. The Peace Proms was a great experience.

Thank you to Ms Wylde, Mr O’Byrne, Ms Flaherty and Ms Moroney for taking the time to help us practice and prepare for the show.

Thanks to Lila Moran for the excellent report.

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Tá an t-Earrach linn!

Féach ar na Plúiríní Sneachta…

See the lovely display of snowdrops from Senior Infants. A beautiful sight, cheering everyone up after the Winter. Maith sibh a pháistí.

Well done to the two teams which represented Saint Mary’s so well in the local Credit Union Quiz, held on Friday, 31st January in the GAA Club!

The Junior Team came a close 2nd, missing out on the top spot by ONE point! The Senior Team came 4th in a hotly contested competition.

We are really proud of you all, boys and girls!!! Thanks to each and every one of you for giving up your time to train so well for this competition and to your mentors, Ms Kelly and Ms Moroney!

The happy actors who entertained us!

Meet the actors from the Reader’s Theatre Club who performed the humorous “Food Fight” short play for us at Assembly recently. It was very funny and really entertaining!

Well done 5th Class and Ms Ní Mhurchadha for organising it.

 Go raibh maith agaibh Mamó agus Daideó !!!

Thank you for coming to see us, granny and grandad!!!

Tea and coffee were provided in the Hall for the morning and we were thrilled to see so many visitors in the school.

What a memorable day!

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Look at this beautiful Geography-themed board from Ms Ivie’s 3rd Class. So informative and colourful!

Well done children!

Meet the winners and runners-up from the boys’ mini-leagues, held after school before Christmas. The pupils really enjoyed the experience of playing together on a team, (some for the first time) and the standard of play was very high indeed!

Well done boys!

Thanks to Ms Bennett, Mr Cawley and Mr Giblin!

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School Self-Evaluation 2020

We are  always striving to improve in St Mary’s and currently we are focusing on English.

In 3rd Class, Mr Dunne’s class have been working on procedural writing, displayed above.

Well worth a look, if you’ve ever wondered how to go about explaining something to someone else!

Well done boys and girls!

In our last school term the two 6^th classes took part in a programme called Zeeko. This programme covered online safety for young children. A speaker came into our class, this person was one of the founders of Zeeko. He explained to us that for the following 6 weeks we would be teaching 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th class about internet safety. He explained to us there would be three different roles that we would be assigned to. These roles were:  group leaders, this person would be in charge of a group of 4 children from younger classes, the other two roles were presenters, one being the person to stand up in the younger classes and teach the lesson and the other person would work Powerpoint on the whiteboard. Our class was split into 3 groups, each group had 2 presenters and 8 group leaders. The group leaders asked the children in their group questions about the topic that had been taught each week during the lesson.

Under the topic of Online Safety we covered areas of cyber bullying, self-esteem and digital footprint. I think this programme benefited the children very much because it made them aware online and will help them to stay safe online in the future.

I feel the idea of us as children presenting them with this safety information was effective. I also enjoyed participating in this programme.

Report by:  Zak Dennehy  6th Class.

(Thanks Zak!)

Zeeko Report 2

In 2019 a man from Zeeko came in to us to talk about online safety. Throughout the day he taught us about different topics of online safety such as; Digital footprint, Cyber-bullying, Self-esteem, Screen time and Friends online.    

Every Thursday we would have to go to teach the younger pupils one of the topics for 45 mins. This is called peer to peer internet safety education. We were all very excited but before we could go to the other classes, we were separated into 3 different classes: Mr Dunne’s 3^rd class, Ms Bennett’s 4^th class and Mr Cawley’s 5^th class.

It is great fun to be a peer leader and if you ask any of our classmates, they will definitely say the same.

Zeeko isn’t just fun and games, it is also hard work. Everyone got a turn to be a presenter. Presenter number 1 has the job of teaching the class about the topic chosen. Presenter number 2 has the job of controlling the Zeeko online game which we played with the class. On the game there were phones. Each phone had a number from 1 to 10 on it. Every phone had a different story or scenario to discuss with the class. Every few phones, there was a signal for the peer leaders to give each pupil a sheet and do an activity with them.

When we were leaving, we would give the class teacher the homework for that week and some posters to stick up on the wall. We continued to do this for the next 5 weeks.

Zeeko is a fun way for kids to learn about the importance of online safety and help with confidence and communication skills. We would strongly recommend doing this again.

By Leanne, Kyle, Maisie, Kayleigh and Jodi.

Zeeko creates a world where young people can safely benefit from technology and the internet. Zeeko visitors came into our class and told us some facts like how they have been to over 400 schools across Ireland per year delivering internet safety seminars to pupils, teachers and parents. Zeeko education reduces the negative consequences of cyber-bullying. He showed us some short stories and situations that come up for people when they are online.

 The facilitator taught us some simple steps to remember to keep us safe on the internet such as:

STOP, BLOCK and TELL

 He made sure that we were all set to go before sending us off to different classes.

OUR STEPS FOR THE OTHER CLASSES

• We were split into 3 different groups and then assigned to different classes.
• We planned out 5 weeks of lessons for all the different classes.
• We had somebody on the computer as well as somebody talking in front of the class and we would all switch jobs.
• We did lot of different activities with the class and they really enjoyed it and so did we!
• With this experience Zeeko has helped us learn so much about online safety and the internet.

  By : Niamh – Ava – Adam and Zach H

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Click the Manga High logo to see the winners of the recent online challenge!

Click the Peace Proms Logo Below to go to our official PP2020 page!

Click the Maths Week logo to see the winners of the art competition receiving their prizes.