Summer Newsletter
MERCY PRIMARY SCHOOL, BIRR.
Newsletter – Summer 2019
Welcome to the final Newsletter of 2018/2019. It is hard to believe that we are at the end of what has proven to be a very successful, enjoyable and busy term. Classes have had lots of great experiences since Easter – here’s a snapshot of what has been going on.
Ms Murray’s class: We have had an incredibly busy term. We have been watering and maintaining the school garden. We thoroughly enjoyed swimming and athletics, dance and PE – we are super fit now! We had a wonderful time at the Dance Show in the Marian Hall and we really enjoyed Sports Day and the Outdoor Classroom.We are ready for Summer now. Phew, what a year!
Junior/Senior Infants have had a very busy few weeks. Our Aistear theme for May was ‘The Farm’. We learned all about the busy life on a farm, farm safety and where lots of the food we eat every day comes from. We read the book ‘The Scarecrow’s Wedding’. We made the scarecrows and had great fun re-enacting the wedding ceremony in the Garden of Tranquillity. Our Aistear theme for June has been “The Seaside”. Children have had fun exploring and learning about the seaside, safety on the beach, games you can play and wildlife on the seashore. We visited the Library for story time and the church as part of our religion programme. We had fun at our end of year themed seaside party! Girls learned about habitats, plants that live in a bog and studied the life cycle of a butterfly. We had great fun on our school tour, sports day and outdoor classroom day, and were lucky that the sun shone!
First Class: Our last term of school has been packed full of activities. We loved our Sports Day games, all of the stations at the Outdoor Classroom Day! Got our certificates for “Write a Book” Projects and went on our School Tour to Lullymore. Our tour included a train journey around the area, a visit to their Fairy Village and a visit to two different play centres. Our term was filled with lots of fun, laughter and learning, and we are looking forward to our Summer Holidays and a new adventure in 2nd Class.
Second Class What a busy last term it has been! The highlight of our year was the day we made our First Holy Communion. We sang our little hearts out in a very special ceremony on Saturday 18th of May. We all looked gorgeous in our beautiful dresses and got a chance to wear them again when we took part in the Corpus Christi Procession on the 13th of June. We’re fitter than we’ve ever been with all the activities we’ve been doing this term! We ‘ve had swimming lessons, dance classes, fitness sessions, camogie training, sports day and a sponsored walk. We loved the outdoor classroom day, which incorporated so many subjects such as science, art, sport and maths. Our favourite station was the ice-cream station with the bubbles station coming in at a very close 2nd!
We travelled to Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Park on our school tour and had a fantastic day in a park that offers a mix of heritage, woodland walks, beautiful gardens, pet farm, fairy village, indoor and outdoor play areas and train trips. We loved every minute of our fun-filled day!
We say goodbye to Ms Ryan and Mrs Kennedy who are going to miss us so much and look forward to going into 3rd class after a nice long rest over the holidays! Happy Holidays Everyone!
Third Class enjoyed swimming and dance this term. They took part in Outdoor Classroom Day and Sports Day too and had a lot of fun. Congratulations to all the girls who took part in the “Write-a-Book” project recently. Well done to Katelyn who won a Merit Award. Each girl received a certificate for their fantastic books. The girls had a wonderful school tour at Victorian Escapades in Mullingar on 30th May.
3rd Class worked with local artist Caroline Conway for 7 weeks on a creative and decorative sewing project, entitled ‘Sewing Stories From the Past’ which they unveiled on Friday 14th June in Birr Library when they opened their exhibition. Inspiration for the project came from ‘The Schools’ Collection’ in the 1930s, available on www.duchas.ie. Their beautiful ‘Folklore Quilt’ will be on display in Birr Library until the end of June. Ms. De Chaumont and the girls are very proud of their work.
Fourth Class: Thanks to all the children in 4th Class for all their hard work over the past school year. We had a very busy last term with the Write-a-Book project, swimming, dance, sports day, outdoor classroom day, our school tour and standardised testing all taking place. The girls really enjoyed our school tour to Dublin where we visited the Dáil and went on the Viking Splash tour. This term in class we learned all about Irish history from 1916 upwards, rainforests, how to make butter and map reading to name but a few. Wishing the girls an enjoyable and safe summer.
Fifth Class have been having a ball over the last few weeks in school. One of the highlights being the ‘Make and Bake’ Pizza party we had over in Supermacs. We each got to make our very own pizza from scratch and enjoy it afterwards “Yum”. Well done to Anna Maria Florea for winning the art competition and making it all possible. We are still keeping very active in school too; we completed our Athletics Training and had our fitness tests, so we had lots of energy for Outdoor Classroom Day.
We also spent time learning about Philip Treacy and his hat designs – we even researched and designed our very own hats!
Sixth Class We have been very busy in 6th class recently. We are currently getting ready to say goodbye to Mercy after 8 wonderful years! In the run up to the end of the year we did dance with Lisa which we all loved. We learned some really cool dances to ‘Taki Taki’ and ‘I Am Woman’ which we performed at our fantastic dance show. We had a crime awareness talk from the community Garda Grace that was very informative. We followed this with an eye-opening trip to the Garda Station, where we witnessed the cells that prisoners are kept in and the interview room. Some of us even got handcuffed!!!
We went on our final tour of Primary School to the Outdoor Education Centre. We played lots of team building games, went rock climbing, did archery and found our way out of a very dark maze. We went gorge walking in Cadamstown even conquering a fear of heights. We had a brilliant day. We wish Rang 6 all the best as they move on to Secondary School.
Our end of year mass was beautiful! It was a special occasion as we say goodbye to 2 wonderful teachers – Ms. Cooney and Mrs. Kelly. They leave a great legacy behind them and we wish them health and happiness in their retirement.
We wish our lovely 6th Class well – you have been an asset to our school and we will miss you!
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Board of Management, Parents’ Association and Staff for their dedication to Mercy Primary School. The co-operation of all makes our school a great school!
School will finish on Friday June 28th at 12.00
School reopens on Thursday 29th August 2019
Have an enjoyable and safe summer.
Barbara Hanamy
Principal