Newsletter February 2018
Upcoming School Closures
In order to facilitate the introduction of the New Primary Language Curriculum, the Department of Education and Science has instructed the school to close on Thursday
March 8th as the staff will be attending in-service training in Limerick. In addition, the Department recently issued new guidelines in relation to Child Protection and has instructed all schools to close for two half days this school year, again to facilitate in-service training. The first of these half day closures will be next Wednesday, 21st February. The school will close at 12:15pm. Please collect Infants from prefab and all other children at school gate as usual.
Sacrament Classes
First Penance will take place on Wednesday 18th April in Kilruane Church at 7:30pm and the First Holy Communion ceremony will take place on Saturday 26th May at 11:30am. The Confirmation ceremony will take place on 12th May, in St Michael and St John’s Church, Cloughjordan at 11am. Class teachers will update you all in relation to the Sacraments nearer the time.
Midterm Break
The school closes today for the Midterm break and will re-open on Monday next, 19th February.
Vex IQ 2018
As you are aware, the children in 5th and 6th have been engaging with the Vex IQ Robotics programme since last October. Vex Robotics is a programme where Primary school children learn about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), in a relaxed, pupil-led environment which above all else promotes active, experiential and collaborative learning. In addition to STEM the students acquire and develop other skills for the future, in the areas of project management, teamwork, leadership, collaborative and creative problem solving, public relations and presentation skills. It has been proven that when students learn through hand on exploration such as this, it increases motivation and desire to succeed. The children have been designing, building and programming robots since October, culminating in their participation at the Semi Finals of the Dell VEX Robotics competition on Thursday 1st February. As you are all aware we were selected to go forward to the National Finals which will be held in Cork on 1st March. They also received a prestigious award on the day for “Outstanding Design and Project work”. All in all, a huge achievement for our small school! We wish everybody the very best of luck in Cork and we know you will all continue to do us proud!
Credit Union Quiz
Well done to all the children who recently represented our school in the annual Credit Union Table quiz held in the Gael Scoil, Nenagh last month. Despite putting in a fine performance on the night and answering some very challenging questions, we narrowly missed out on going forward to the next round. Our u11 team included Daniel Connolly, Hannah Dooley, Ava Gaynor and Cormac Gaynor and our u13 team consisted of Adam Carroll, Conal Daly, Órna Daly and Darragh O’Leary.
Handball Team
Our School Handball took part in the Primary School’s Handball County finals held in Kilcolman last month. Fearghal Doheny represented us in the u11 singles and William Jones and Cormac Gaynor represented us in the u11 doubles. Well done boys on playing some terrific handball on the day and we are sure ye must be looking forward to next year already! Meanwhile our u13 doubles girls team, Hannah Grace and Christine Percy sailed through the County Finals and represented our school in the Munster Finals last weekend in Limerick, making it all the way to the final, where they were narrowly defeated by a Cork team. Well done girls on making it so far in the competition!
Indoor Hurling Blitz
First and Second classes travelled to Cloughjordan for their first ever Hurling Blitz, which was held in the Indoor Complex at MacDonagh Park. They really enjoyed the experience, where the emphasis was on participation and having fun while developing their skill. They are already looking forward to the outdoor blitz which will be held next term hopefully, more details to follow.
Enrolment for September 2018
If your child is starting school in September, please call to the office to collect an enrolment form. Alternatively , please call the office and we can post one out to you. If you have extended family/friends who may be considering Kilruane NS for their child’s education please remind them to contact the school office at 067/34366 as soon as possible.