The theme of this year’s Children’s Mental Health Week is Growing Together.

Growing Together is about growing emotionally and finding ways to help each other grow. Challenges and setbacks can help us to grow and adapt and trying new things can help us to move beyond our comfort zone into a new realm of possibility and potential. However, emotional growth is often a gradual process that happens over time, and sometimes we might feel a bit ‘stuck’.

As parents and carers, you play an important role in your child’s mental health. Check out free resources for families on the links below:

https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/parents-and-carers/

https://parentingsmart.place2be.org.uk

Our Eco-Council monitor our solar panel readings throughout the year.  Today they were delighted to announce that our solar panels have generated £1250.72 over the course of the last year.  Monies will be allocated to our school's  LMS Electricity code and should result in a reduction in overall costs. #stjosephssaving energy #everypennyhelps

Today we welcomed back to school our friend and former teacher Miss McAuley.  During Catholic Schools Week Miss McAuley has visited our school each year since her retirement to work with groups of Year 6 children making St. Brigid's Crosses.  Today she also gifted each child in Year 6 a beautiful medal medal and prayer.  The children had a very enjoyable time and learned a very traditional Irish weaving skill.  Many thanks for your time Miss McAuley!   

Today Fr Colm offered up Mass for Cathoic Schools Week.  All children in Year 4-7 attended Mass virtually, with Mrs Downey's Year 5 chilldren attending Mass in Mater Dei Church to participate in the liturgy.

Today we had our virtual assembly to mark the end of another month in school.  Today's assemsbly also allowed us to come together virtually to mark Catholic Schools Week. 

Mrs Campbell's Year 6 classes prepared a beautiful assembly entitled 'Living Life to the Full' which we were able to share with all of the children.  It helped reinforce the importance of kindness and friendship, how unique we all are with our own gifts and talents and the importance of keeping our beautiful world clean and safe - all key themes of Catholic Schools Week.  Our assembsly also enabled us to mark special celebrations such as birthdays and the presentation of our monthly awards.  It's hard to believe we are almost half way through this school year!

After their very successful Christmas performance the school orchestra have recommenced their weekly practices with Mrs McDonnell ..... we look forward to another very succesful collective performance from these very talented boys and girls later this term.

NI Water came today to deliver one of their water butts for us to use in school.  The Eco team welcomed Pat from NI Water, who showed us how it works and explained how important the nutrients in the rainwater are for helping the plants to grow.

The Eco team will be able to monitor how much rainfall it can hold and all classes in the school will be able to use the water gathered for a variety of activities for our outdoor learning and in helping to reuse the water for our outdoor environment.

Thank you to NI Water for supplying this. 

AND GUESS WHAT ......... Our Cash For Clobber Scheme has just earned us another £50!  We'll be running another few collection schemes this term.  Keep your eyes peeled!