Today Baby Nora made her first visit of 2025 to Mrs. Campbell's Primary 5 children.  This was Nora's fourth visit this year and the girls and boys noticed a number of changes in Nora since her last visit. 

Under the guidance of Mrs. McDonnell, our Roots of Empathy instructor, the boys and girls explored the theme of 'Relationships'.  They also had the opportunity to observe, ask questions, discuss and draw conclusions.  Baby Nora was a little tired at the end of visit and the children finished off by singing a lullaby and saying goodbye.  We look forward to welcoming Baby Nora and her mum back to St. Joseph's in February!  

Today the children in Miss Walsh's Year 4 class took part in their first Shared Education lesson with children from our partner schools in Crumlin Integrated Primary and Gaelscoil Ghleann Darach. 

The Ice-Breaker activities led by our Year 7 pupils provided a wonderful opportunity for the girls and boys from each of the schools to get to know each other in a fun and interactive way. 

New friendship were definitely made and the children are looking forward to meeting up again when they will be taking part in a series of lessons which will focus on the coding programme Scratch.

#WorkingTogetherForABrighterFuture

Congratulations to our Year 7 pupils who celebrated their Service of Commitment today during the first school mass of 2025. This is an excellent beginning to their Confirmation preparations. 

Confirmation will be celebrated on Thursday 6th March in Mater Dei Church.

Dr Bike (aka Johnny from Sustrans) was in school today to inspect and check all the bikes in the bike stands to ensure that they were safe to cycle. 

It was great to see so many bikes and thankfully they’re mostly all in working order – some needed a bit of air in their tyres, some needed the brakes tightened – but it was lovely to see everyone collecting their bike at the end of the day knowing that it was safe and ready to use.

Johnny worked all morning checking the bikes and was delighted to see so many bikes in school today!

Here’s to lots of safe cycling over the next few months!

Well done to our pupils who represented St. Joseph's at the SW Antrim Allianz Cumann na mBunscol Quiz 2025 hosted today by St. Brigid's Ballymena.  The children performed very well and showed a wonderful knowledge in Irish culture, politics, history, geography and Gaelic games. 

Our attendance at the quiz does indeed show the commitment of St. Joseph's to supporting the ethos and events of Cumann na mBunscol both on and of the pitch.

We were delighted today to be presented with a cheque for £3,600 from the Friends of St. Joseph's.  This money will be used to purchase two new interactive whiteboards for our Year 7 classrooms.  

Many thanks to our PTA for all their efforts and to our school community for supporting all the various activities!

#TogetherEveryoneAchievesMore

Today we gathered together for our Year 1-3 and Year 4-7 assemblies to mark the beginning of a new Term in school.  By gathering together we had an opportunity to say Happy New Year to each other and pray that 2025 would be a year filled with lots of blessings for ourselves and our families.  

We also had an opportunity to reinforce the message 'Be Bright, Be Seen'.  Indeed as part of the Education Authority Campaign we will be encouraging all children to wear reflective clothing and high visibility items especially during the dark mornings and evenings.  

At our assemblies we also celebrated our Christmas and New Year birthdays and collected our Pebble Points from each Year Group as part of our whole school reward system.  Mr. Traynor spoke about our character trait for January which is 'Honesty'.  We will develop this further in our classrooms and will discuss the following points in class:

• Compare and contrast the words ‘honest’ and ‘dishonest’
• The consequences of taking other people’s belongings.
• Telling tales - why some are important to discuss and others not.
• Cheating in games - how this leads to children not wanting to play

There was lots to celebrate with many of our Year Groups achieved their first Year Group targets and will therefore have the opportunity to choose a Year Group reward.  We look forward to collecting lots more points towards our Year Group targets throughout January.   Well done girls and boys!

Here's wishing everyone a New Year filled with health, happiness, and new adventures!

There have been lots of amazing individual and class achievements with our Accelerated Reading Programme during Term 1.  The word count continues to rise along with the number of Word Millionaires. 

It was the turn of Mrs. Wray's Year 6 class to celebrate as deserving class winners from Term1.  They were rewarded with a class party for their efforts. 

Keep up the excellent reading ...... who will be our class winners in Term 2?

#watchthisspace #lovetoread

As we begin Term 2 we were reminded today of the importance of the charity work we do in St. Joseph's and the immense impact it has on the lives of those who we help and support. 

Today we received our certificate from Team Hope, who help vulnerable children overseas.  By being part of the 2024 Shoebox Appeal the St. Joseph's school community has ensured that children in Kosovo will not only be receiving essentials like toiletries, clothes and school supplies but the joy of toys, sweets and other creative wows!  What a lovely thought as we begin a new year to know that we as a school community have had such a meaningful impact on those less fortunate than ourselves.  Many thanks to our school community for your generosity and continued support!