Today Mrs Campbell's Year 6 pupils had a taster session in Equine Facilitated Learning (EFL).  EFL is an emerging field in which horses and humans work together as guides and facilitators to help people enhance their life skills, improve emotional fitness and increase self-awareness.  The pupils had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the very relaxing experience thanks to the expertise of Simone and her team at Tullynewbank Stables.  

On Wednesday we gathered together as a school community to celebrate the end of another successful month in school.  This week we are celebrating Catholic Schools Week 2023.  Today's assemblies provided our school community with an excellent opportunity to collectively mark this special week and show how we as a school are living out this year's theme of 'Walking Together in Faith and Love'.

Our Year 3 children led our Junior assembly and provided us with an opportunity to focus, celebrate and reflect on the immense contribution that grandparents make to the lives of their grandchildren.  Mrs Wray's Year 6 class developed upon this theme and got everyone in Years 4-7 thinking about how we devloped our faith and show love through the everyday and ordinary things we do in school.  There was great talent on show with reciting, singing, dramatising and instrument playing to reinforce these messages.

A key aspect of 'Walking Together in Faith and Love' is shaing in and celebrating the success of others and we used today to do this with the presentation of awards to include Pupil of the Month, Toe-By-Toe, Open Night Winners, Hurling and Camogie and Accelerated Reading.  Achievement in a variety of extra-curricular areas was also celebrated. Well done everyone - we are super proud of you all!

#catholicschoolsweek #walkingtogetherinfaithandlove

Mrs Wray's Year 6 class travelled to Crumlin Integrated College to take part in a series of Shared Education ice-breaker activities.  The children had an opportunity to meet with fellow pupils from the college along with children from Crumlin Integrated Primary and Gaelscoil Ghleann Darach.  The class look forward to continuing with the planned Shared Education activities which will take place over the reaminder of this school year 

Today we launched the 'Safer Schools' digital safeguarding app to the parents of our school at our Year 1 Curriculum Meeting.  All parents received information on how they can download the app for everyday use on their phone or other electronic device.  The app will provide parents with information on a range of digital issues, including safeguarding on social media platforms, bullying, sexting and emerging online trends.  The app has already been released to all governors and staff in our school and will be released to pupils over the coming weeks in an effort to support them with digital safeguarding and  to understand and respond appropriately to any potential risk online.

Our Primary 7 pupils have commenced their training on the Heartstart Programme under the guidance of Mr McCarthy.  The Heartstart UK Schools Programme is an initiative coordinated by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to teach members of the public what to do in a life-threatening emergency. It focuses on emergency life support (ELS) skills that can help to keep someone alive until professional help arrives.

The Heartstart UK Schools Programme delivers ELS training for pupils so they learn when and how to act in a life-threatening emergency. The programme allows maximum time for practice and hands-on learning using resuscitation training mannequins.

Pupils learn to:

• demonstrate safe approach and assessment
• make a 999/112 call
• open an airway
• check for breathing
• demonstrate the recovery position
• perform rescue breathing
• check for signs of circulation
• perform one-rescuer, adult, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
• demonstrate the management of choking for adults, infants and children
• know how to manage someone with a suspected heart attack
• know how to deal with serious bleeding.

The programme is delivered in a series of sessions tailored to reflect the recommended age at which children can learn specific ELS skills.  Year 7 look forward to successfully completing the programme.

Congratulations to our Year 7 pupils who celebrated their Service of Commitment during our school mass today - an excellent beginning to their Confirmation preparations.  Confirmation will be celebrated on Thursday 9th March in Mater Dei Church.

Today we launced our Paired Reading Programme.  Our Year 3 pupils have been paired with a Year 7 pupil for the duration of the programme and will engage in three half-hour paired reading sessions per week Year 3 children, with the support of their Year 7 partner, select their paired Reading books from a stock of books especially selected for the programme. 

Paired Reading which has two distinct parts - Reading Togther and Reading Alone - has been shown to have excellent results for helping children to read, enjoy reading and to develop a positive attitude to reading. 

We look forward to all children involved with the programme having an enjoyable and rewarding literacy experience.

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. 

Today it was the turn of Mrs Lawlor's Year 6 class to celebrate as deserving class winners from Term1.  There were rewarded with an icecream party and video for their efforts. 

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

#watchthisspace #lovetoread

Congratulations to our school hurlers who showcased great skill, commitment and teamwork at the South West Antrim Indoor Hurling Tournament.  The boys finished Runners-up and thoroughly deserved their silverware.  Congratulations to Mount St Michael's Randalstown who came through to win the ttournament.  Well done to all involved. 

Primary 6 took part in an Izak9 workshop joining a number of other schools to complete a series of IZak9 challenges. 

Excellent teamwork alongside superb mathematical problem-solving knowledge helped them come up with successful solutions on the day.

#mathsisfun