St. Kilian’s Junior School Easter Newsletter 2018

Coding and Scratch

Second classes are busy during their computer times

developing their coding skills. All second classes have

engaged in coding workshops and they are really enjoy-

ing their work. Coding workshops have been extended

to First class children also and we encourage children

who have access to a laptop at home to practice their

skills. The school coding team has been selected and

twelve children from second class have produced and

entered their school projects for the annual scratch

competition. Good luck to all of them.

Coding Team:

Room 9 Mark Widel Mark Prior

Room 10 Brian Bradley Marcin Pirog

Jessica O’Leary Matthew Anderson

Cameron Roche Byrne

Room 11 Lucie Byrne Isabelle Corcoran

Ella Burke Jamie Byrne

Eryk Sawicki

Easter Raffle

Tickets are still available for our Easter Raffle from

Ms. Timmin’s Office, one strip for €2 or three strips

for €5. The raffle will take place on Friday the 23rd of

March at 10.30 am. Hampers must be collected by

winners on the day.

Easter Cake Sale

The Easter Cake Sale will be held on Friday the 23rd

of March in the Junior School Hall and we are looking

for your wonderful cake donations. Cakes can be do-

nated on Thursday, 22nd of March at 2.30 pm and on

the morning of the 23rd of March in the Junior School.

Junior and Senior Infants can visit the cake sale ac-

companied by a parent/guardian from 8.50 am until

9.30 am. First and Second Class can visit from 9.30 am

until 10.30 am.

The Conall Byrne Memorial Art Competition

The 2018 competition took place in the school on Tuesday

20th March, and the theme this year was “Going Places”.

We were overwhelmed by the variety and creativity of all

the projects, very well done to all who participated. A spe-

cial thank you to Conall’s parents, Mary and Brian for judg-

ing the competition for us every year.

Class Winners

Many congratulations to our overall infant winner Ava

Mitchell from room 2 and to our first/second class over-

all winner Lilly Nicholson Reilly from room 15. Both chil-

dren will have their names inscribed on the competition

plaque.

Engineering Week 24

th February – 2

nd March

During engineering week, our visiting engineer Tom

Murray worked with our second class children, rooms

9, 10 and 11. Tom brought engineering kits and

worked with the children in small groups. It was a

very enjoyable and informative session for all the chil-

dren.

We ran a class based engineering competition during

the week and the children had great fun building

bridges, castles, skyscrapers, lego features and fa-

mous landmarks.

Congratulations to room 9, Ms. McKenna’s class, who

won the competition with their fabulous construc-

tions. Many thanks to Tom Murray and his assistant

Rian, for all their help during the week.

Room 1 Senan Cooper Edgeworh

Room 9 Daniel Byrne

Room 2 Ava Mitchell Room 10 Isabelle Carroll

Room 5 Aoibheann Wright Room 11 Aaron Sweeney

Room 6 Ava Meehan Room 15 Lilly Nicholson Reilly

Room 7 Jack Conroy Dunne

Room 16 Sí ofra Cooper Edgeworth

GAA Coaching

All first class and second class children engaged in

GAA training with Pat Devoy for one session each

week during the months of January, February and

March. Their GAA skills are developing nicely and we

say a big THANK YOU to Pat for his great coaching.

The children had lots of fun whiile learning new

skills.

Friendship week: 5th – 9th February

Children from every class made their friendship tags

and hung them on our Tree of Thankfulness in the hall.

All children made their friendship books during the

week and made lots of new friends in the process. All

classes were engaged with The Friendship game which

encouraged great interactions between children. We re-

minded the children about using the Buddy Bench in

the big yard and Our Friendship Stop in the Junior yard.

Walk in my shoes

St. Kilian’s JNS have entered the Mission Possible

competition run by St. Patrick’s Mental Health foun-

dation. A copy of our entry is available to view in the

school secretary’s office. It includes details of all the

work that the school has undertaken in the past two/

three years to support the mental, physical and emo-

tional health of all our pupils.

STEM Application

St. Kilian’s Junior School have applied for their fourth

STEM Award, a vast amount of STEM work is taking

place in the school and all our classes are actively in-

volved.

Green Schools’ News

We are continuing to work towards our sixth Green Flag

on the Global Citizenship – Litter and Waste Theme.

Karen Moore from An Taisce visited our school on

Thursday 18th January. She spoke to all classes about cli-

mate change. She returned on Tuesday 23rd January to

do a W.O.W. (Walk On Wednesday) Workshop with The

Green Committee.

We are continuing in our efforts to reduce or recycle our

waste, and conserve as much energy and water as we

can. We are also continuing in our efforts to reduce our

carbon footprint and to nurture our native Irish plants,

animals and habitats.

The Green Committee would like to take this opportuni-

ty to wish you all a Happy Easter! Don't forget to recy-

cle all those empty Easter egg boxes!

Seachtain na Gaeilge

The children of St. Kilian’s Junior School enjoyed

another fun-filled, Seachtain na Gaeilge. We thank

Elaine Byrne’s School of Irish Dancing who provid-

ed very enjoyable Irish dancing sessions for all clas-

ses from Junior Infants to Second Class.

We were also delighted to welcome Niall De Burca

who entertained with stories for all in the school

hall. There was plenty of laughter, clapping and

cheering.

Of course, one of the highlights of the week was the

siopa milsea in, where the children used their cu pla

focail to buy sweets and all things nice. They had

great fun ‘ag ithe’ afterwards.

Well done to all those children and adults who

dressed up in patriotic green on the last day of

Seachtain na Gaeilge. They looked fantastic and had

great fun doing the ‘haka sa halla’. Photos will be

on our school website soon.

The School around the Corner

The Echo featured St. Kilian’s JNS in their School

around the Corner feature on February . They photo-

graphed the children involved in An Bhialann, our res-

taurant where second class were learning their irish

and the boys and girls watering our spring daffodils

and tulips. They featured our school coding team, some

ipad work and our Super Troopers activities. They

showed the children with their friendship books and al-

so a group of children hanging their friendship tags on

our Tree of Thankfulness.

Super Troopers

St. Kilian’s Junior School joined the Super Troopers

programme in January and all the children are engag-

ing in the programme and filling in their charts daily.

Super Troopers focuses on overall health, activity, nu-

trition and wellbeing and can involve the whole family.

For further inspiration, parents can visit

www.supertroopers.ie and get lots of additional ideas

and tips for the whole family. Remind the children

that the most important thing for a Super Trooper is to

try your best and have FUN!

Sacrament of Reconciliation

Congratulations to the children from second class,

rooms 9, 10 and 11 who made their First Penance dur-

ing the week beginning 11th March.

The children are now looking forward to making their

First Holy Communion on Saturday May 19th.

Maths Eyes

St. Kilian’s JNS have done exceptionally well in the an-

nual Maths Eyes competition this year. Congratulations

to Evie O’Connor from room 1 who photographed

shapes in her supper and to Aoibheann Wright, room 5,

who photographed a goat surrounded by rectangles, on

her school tour last June. Both these photos won in the

under 7 category.

Glenn Keogh, from room 16, also won in the age 7 to 11

category with his photo showing the height of a tower

in Merrion Square playground. Glenn took the photo

while on a tour to the Natural History Museum with his

class, during science week last November. Well done to

all three children, they will attend the award ceremony

shortly.

Ready Set Maths

As our Ready, Steady Maths programme draws to a

close for this year, we would like to extend a big

THANK YOU to all those who gave so generously of

their time in assisting with the programme. It really is

most beneficial for the boys and girls to develop and

consolidate their maths skills in such an enjoyable

way.

Active Schools

Active Week will take place this year in St. Kilian ’s

JS from the 16th—20th April. In addition to our ever

popular activities such as Wake Up and Shake Up, Yo-

ga, GAA and Soccer Skills, the children will complete a

marathon in teams. Further details to follow. No

doubt it will be fun filled week with lots of exercise for

the boys and girls and staff alike.

Dates for Your Diary

Easter Break Friday 23rd March 2018. School closes at 12 noon. Re-opening Monday 9th April. Staff Training Day 13th April 2018 School closed to pupils. First Holy Communion 19th May 2018

We would like to take this opportunity to

wish you all a peaceful and happy Easter.

We hope the Easter Bunny is good to all the

boys and girls!

School Calendar 2018 –2019

www.stkiliansjns.ie The school calendar for the coming school year, 2018-

19 has been published on our school website

www.stkiliansjns.ie in order to assist parents and fam-

ilies with forward planning.

School will re-open on Thursday 30th August 2018.

School Closure

School will be closed to pupils on Friday 13th April to

allow staff to familiarise themselves with the new

Child Safeguarding Protection Procedures. This clo-

sure has been directed by the DES.

The school have devised their new Child Safeguard-

ing Statement and Risk Assessment, and both of

these documents are available to view on the school

policies page of our website www.stkiliansjns.ie .