Summer Newsletter 2024

Welcome to the final newsletter of the year – and what a fantastic year it has been!
All classes have worked very hard and have had many wonderful experiences in school – you will read a snapshot below of these.
I want to thank our Board of Management and Parents’ Association for all their support and help this year – working together makes our school great.
We have had a great year with Music Generation and look forward to continuing next year. We have also been accepted into the “Say Yes to Languages” Programme again next year, so the girls will continue with their French lessons.
Our School Lotto has been a great success this year – we really appreciate your support. We purchased a mobile interactive panel for the school which is a fantastic addition. With your continued support, we hope to start replacing our iPads next year.
Have a read below of just some of the wonderful activities this term. Don’t forget to keep an eye on our Facebook, Instagram page and website (www.mercyprimaryschool.ie) to see lots of fabulous photos.
Junior Infants:
As Term 3 draws to a close, we reflect on a busy yet wonderful time in school. Here are some highlights from this term:
We had an exciting school tour to Playtown in Tullamore and the local playground. The bus ride was filled with singing and chatter from very excited children, setting the tone for a fun-filled day.
This term’s Aistear themes; ‘The Garden Centre’, ‘Jungle Animals’, and ‘The Seaside’, were a huge hit. The children became enthusiastic gardeners, planting seeds in our
school garden and cress seeds. They learned about different habitats, exploring the Camcor Park, Birr Castle, and the nearby river.
Our May Day celebration took place in the Garden of Tranquility, where the children presented flowers to Our Lady. It was a beautiful event that brought the school community together.
Sports Day was filled with great fun and friendly competition. The children participated in various activities, showcasing their athletic skills and sportsmanship.
We kicked off Outdoor Classroom Day with a hearty breakfast at school, followed by a day of outdoor learning through fun and games. The children thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
One of the most fascinating projects this term was learning about lifecycles. The children observed caterpillars metamorphose into beautiful butterflies, witnessing nature’s wonder first-hand.
As we wrap up all our work, I would like to wish you and your families a lovely, safe summer. Enjoy the well-earned rest and the break from the school routine.
Senior Infants:
We’ve had an exciting time in Senior Infants! We went on a minibeast hunt and learned about their habitats. In Gaeilge, we went ag siopadóireacht! We explored the zoo, studied animals and their body parts, read animal stories, and sang our zoo song—feel free to ask us to sing it! In science, we learned about the butterfly life cycle and are monitoring our classroom caterpillars as they transform. We’ll release them into the park soon. In maths, we covered money and telling time. We painted beautiful butterflies in art and are learning the poem “White Sheep.” We enjoyed a wonderful school tour to Playtown. We’re thrilled for summer holidays!
1st Class:
First Class have had a very busy final term! The girls have been working very hard. In May, we teamed up with Senior Infants to decorate the Green Schools Board for Marine Week. We learned about plastic pollution, how it affects sea creatures, and how we can help stop it. We also completed group projects on starfish, penguins, and seahorses, and we presented our work to Senior Infants. We made beautiful jellyfish in Art too! We have been working hard on our Narrative writing this term, and we made a class book of all the stories we have written. We learned all about Summer and went bird watching to spot summer birds. We read about how fossils are formed and we even made our own fossils! We also learned about materials this term, and how they are made. Did you know rubber comes from the sap of a tree? The girls made beautiful rainbows by weaving different coloured ribbons, and they also made colourful summer flowers to brighten up our classroom. We went on our school tour to Turoe Pet Farm with Second Class. It was such a fun day! We
played in the playground, petted rabbits, fed the animals, and even saw a real-life crocodile! A great day was had by all! We also went on trips to the playground and visits to the library. First Class have worked very hard and had an amazing year, and they are ready for their summer holidays! We hope everyone has a relaxing and safe summer break!
2nd Class
Term three was very egggsciting for the girls in Second Class. After returning to school after Easter, the children took part in a Hatchling Project. Each child was assigned a hen egg and these eggs were placed in an incubator. After 21 days of eagerly waiting and watching, the eggs hatched and the girls were soooo excited to see their little baby chicks. They looked after them really well, making sure they had plenty of water and food and heat.
Also in SESE, the girls learned about plants and about what they need to grow. They planted cress seeds and sunflower seeds and were amazed at how they grew. They learned about the life cycle of a bee and took part in a fantastic Heritage in Schools Pollination workshop. They explored the local park looking for different trees, wildflowers, birds and insects.
We were delighted to have student teacher Miss Kearns on Teaching Practice this term. She taught the girls interesting and engaging lessons. They learned all about France and The Olympics and they explored the stories of The Snail on the Whale and The Salmon of Knowledge.
In PE, the girls enjoyed learning the skills needed to play camogie. They are enjoying their walks in the local park and of course, we had to visit the playground too!
The girls took part in an Art workshop recently. They worked with artist Paul Bokslag and they created fabulous pieces based on nature by cutting paper. Their work will be displayed during Birr Vintage Week. Make sure to check out their creations in the exhibition in the Masonic Hall over the summer.
Well done to the girls who made their First Holy Communion. The girls knew all the prayers and sang beautifully in the church. It was a very special day for you all – one you will always remember.
Second class joined up with First class for their school tour and they had a wonderful, action-packed day in Turoe Pet Farm.
We took trips to the library and we had great fun at our school sports’ day.
We have been extremely busy and we have had a fabulous year, learning so much and making new friends. I hope you all have a lovely summer. Enjoy the holidays.
3rd Class
They say time flies when you’re having fun…well we had loads in 3rd class this year and we can’t believe it’s time for our Summer holidays!!
We had so many great experiences this year. We learned French with Gregory through the Say Yes to Languages scheme. All we need now is the trip to Paris for the Olympics.
Our class went swimming and every, single one of us dipped our toes and learned such a brilliant skill. Thanks to all the staff of Birr Leisure Centre for their time and care over the few weeks.
Our classroom is a busy one like all the classes here in Mercy so every day is different. We have loved all the learning and creativity during the year and we worked hard to develop our literacy and numeracy skills along with our Gaelige, SESE, SPHE, Religion and our Arts knowledge. We are ready for 4th class and looking forward to the summer break.
We travelled Shannon side for our school tour and explored the fabulous Bunratty Castle and got to go to Fossetts Circus which was nail-biting!!! We had a really fun day and even though the rain threatened, we didn’t get too wet.
In school we were soooo lucky to get a new, interactive board. It’s absolutely amazing and we are making amazing use out of it so far. This board was made possible because of you! We were able to afford to buy this from money raised in our school lotto. We are so grateful to everyone who supports this Lotto and encourage everyone to get involved.
Watch this space for an exciting video message!!!
Thank you all for your continued support and trust in us here in Mercy with your fabulous daughter!! It has been a pleasure teaching the girls this year. I hope the sun comes and we all have a cracking Summer 2024.
Slan agus beannacht,
Richelle.
4th Class
4th Class have had a really busy and exciting term 3. We finished our French classes with Gregory and our camogie skills sessions with Brendan. Some of the girls participated in Cumann na mBunscoil camogie matches too and enjoyed the experience. We really enjoyed swimming lessons each Friday morning in Birr Leisure Centre. We met Dean again for another Coding workshop in Birr library and participated in the Offaly Libraries bookmark competition. We went on trips also. We went to Athlone to Music Generation “Singfest concert”. Lots of other schools were there and we enjoyed the entertainment. We even got to go to a playground in Athlone also. On Thursday 13th June we headed off to Bunratty Castle in County Clare for our school tour. We had a great time at Fossetts Circus even though some of us had our eyes closed for parts of it!! We then walked around the medieval town and saw how people lived years ago. We were in the old schoolhouse, the doctor’s surgery, the pottery shop and met the very interesting postman and policeman! We participated in a heritage workshop in John’s Mall, May Procession in The Prayer Garden and Birr Tidy Towns Biodiversity project – well done to our two prizewinners. Well done to all the girls on their hard work and enthusiasm! Enjoy the holidays!
5th Class:
We had a very productive year in 5th class this year. We worked very hard and learned really difficult things. We enjoyed our lessons in the pool where we are growing in confidence in the water.
We did lots of reading both in Irish and in English and made a trip to the Library to get new books. We continued to enjoy our Music Generation lessons with Gregory and on 17th May we took a bus to Athlone to join him and other musicians to take part in Sing Fest, a fun day of singing, percussion and fun! We got to visit a playground and have an outdoor picnic that day also!
We did some lovely art this term also. We learned all about Henri Matisse, his love of collage and created our own gorgeous collages. We found out what radial symmetry is and made our own symmetrical art pieces and we did lots of painting too.
We continued camogie with Brendan and some of our girls represented Mercy Primary in 2 matches against another school and we were so proud of how well they played. We did a very interesting project on World Water Day and in Term 3 we were invited to present our project to Green MEP, Grace O Sullivan. She was very impressed with our work!
We are very talented writers and wrote Narratives in term 3…. some are still ongoing!
In SESE we travelled around the world and back in time as we learned about and did projects on Italy, The Aztecs, Macchu Picchu, Mount Everest, Tom Crean’s expedition to Antarctica and much much more. One of our favourite projects was Fashion through the Ages.
D’fhoghlaim muid go leor Gaeilge i mbliana. We learned a lot of Irish this year and this term we learned lots of words all about Summer.
May is Mary’s month and on the 15th May we had our May Procession in the Prayer Garden. How lucky are we to have such a gorgeous view from our classroom! We even made our own rosary beads.
On June 7th Birr Camogie Girls held a very successful Bake Sale in the PE hall. We tasted lots of delicious baking that day. There was even an enormous cake, which was won by a lucky person!! This year we worked very hard in class and we loved our Just Dance brain breaks between subjects.
Finally, we enjoyed a lovely visit to Birr Castle grounds, where we sketched some beautiful wild flowers. We look forward to our school tour on June 20th and our Summer holidays stretching out ahead of us.
6th Class:
WOW.. we can’t BELIEVE we are writing this but it’s time for us to say our final goodbye. 6th class in Mercy P – year 23/24 that is a WRAP!
We are a mix of emotions (as is Ms. Murphy), we know how much we are going to miss Mercy P, all the teachers, and most of all each other. We are equally excited and so ready for our next step in progressing to secondary school.
Term 3 highlights for us have been, reading back our memory booklets from 5th class that we made (sooo funny), our school tour we had the best laughs canoeing, rock climbing, abseiling and pier jumping together!
We worked really hard in Maths this year, with two class projects “Izak9” and a special shout out to Caroline Shiels for the second project where we created our own surveys and drew various graphs to practice for secondary school.
We have so much more to say…but we won’t keep you all summer. So it’s over and out from us, wish us luck.
Ms. Murphy & 6th Class Queens
Ms. Teehan’s Class
We have had a super busy term in Ms. Teehan’s Class. We learned all about the life cycle of a honey bee and did a beautiful craft based on their life cycle. We were lucky enough to have a bee keeper come to our class and explain what a bee keeper does. This amazing person was our very own Emma Ryan in 5th Class. Emma taught us lots and even brought in honey from her bees for us to taste.
We’ve been watching our caterpillars form cocoons and are excited to witness their transformation into butterflies.
The school held a bake sale for Birr Camogie’s Féile team and we got to work baking lots of brownies to support the girls. Best of luck.
We all had a ball on our school tours with our classes and we had a super day at Sports Day too.
We planted wild flowers and have been tracking trees in the local park through the seasons – we have been tracking willow, sycamore and beech trees. We’ve learned lots of facts about each tree.
In between all of this we have been continuing with our reading, writing, maths, art etc. It has been super busy. We also had two very important days this term when we had a student make her communion and another made her confirmation. Congratulations.
We have had a ball and we hope you all have a ball over the summer too!
Green Schools – Review of year
A lot of work was done on Green Schools this year. Every class took a theme/focus for a week, did lessons in class, displayed work on the Green Schools board in the hall and some even led assemblies which was fabulous.
J. Infants + 3rd Tree week – March
S. Infants + 1st Marine Week – April
2nd – Hatchling project, Heritage Tree Day in school’s pollination workshop
4th Biodiversity Week – May
5th World Water Day – March
6th Earth Day – April
These linked in very well with our visit from Grace O’Sullivan who told us all about her time working and travelling with Green Peace. It was a very interesting, inspiring and engaging presentation.
We will continue our theme next year and hope to apply for our next Green Flag.
We have come to the end of another fabulous year in Mercy Primary – a full and vibrant year in which we have learned lots and have grown greatly.
I want to wish our wonderful Sixth Class the very best of luck in their future – they have been a fantastic bunch of young ladies.
Thanks to our very hard-working staff for all that you do.
Enjoy the Summer and see everyone again on Thursday 29th August 2024.
Barbara Hanamy
School closes for summer holidays on Thursday27th June at 12.15