Christmas Newsletter

Mercy Primary School, Birr

Christmas Newsletter 2013

ith Christmas upon us, we bring you our final newsletter of 2013. As you have seen over the last 3 newsletters, Mercy Primary School is a busy and active school and the month of December has been even busier!

We started December with Confessions for 3^rd to 6^th classes.  It was a very important start to Advent for us all. Beautiful Advent Wreaths were placed around the school, as we started to prepare for Christmas.

Staff took part in a Maths workshop given by the PDST on Thursday December 5^th.

Ms. Enright’s 6^th class invited one of our parents – Anna Kavanagh,  in to the class to do Art with them. Anna came on 3 different occasions and they created wonderful, life-sized snowmen! They are amazing and are made completely from recyclable materials. Huge thanks to Anna for giving her time to the class.

 

ome children took part in the Tesco Christmas Card competition for the St. Vincent de Paul. It was great to see the lovely art work and also, good to support a very important local charity.

 

Mrs Murray came up with a great fundraising idea for the Philippines Disaster Fund. She encouraged the girls to bring in copper coins from home – the type of coins we all have lying around everywhere. Would you believe we collected €603!!! Thank you all so much. We invited Mrs. Geraldine Hanniffy to come and collect the cheque on behalf of GOAL and we hope our efforts help out those in dire straits.

On Monday, 9^th December, Mrs Treacy – Miss Treacy’s mother! – came and spent the day showing parents and children how to make Christmas centrepieces. It was great to see how easily and cheaply beautiful centrepieces can be made. Thanks to Mrs. Treacy for giving up her day to work with us and to Mrs Fitzgerald HSCL, for organising the day.

On Friday 13^th, Junior and Senior Infants went to the library for a Christmas story. Thanks to Martina in the library for organising it.

Junior and Senior Infants also went to the theatre on Monday 16^th to see “Rudolf”. They behaved excellently and had a great time.

On Tuesday 17^th our choir went to Birr Community Nursing Unit and Elm Grove Nursing home to Carol sing. It was beautiful and everyone enjoyed it thoroughly.

We have all made Christmas Cards in our classrooms and these will be given out on Thursday. It means that everyone, including the class teachers will get a card to put up over Christmas, no one will be left out.

We had some wonderful performances in the school this month.

Junior and Senior Infants performed “The Sleepy Shepherd”. As always they were very cute and did a great job. Well done to all involved in the performance.

1^st class performed “The Lonely Princess” and it was a beautiful story.

2^nd class performed “The First Christmas” and it told the story of the Nativity in a lovely way.

3^rd class also performed a play called “The First Christmas” . It had beautiful carols and told the story of the Birth of Jesus. It was lovely to hear them sing a verse of Silent Night in Spanish.

4^th class performed “2013-The Mercy Lock-In”! Very appropriate for the year that is in it.

5^TH and 6^th combined and performed a Christmas Variety Show.

All the performances were very enjoyable and gave us all a great start to Christmas

 

e are all practicing very hard for our School Mass which will take place on Wednesday 18^th December. We are looking forward to our Mass as Christmas will truly begin for us then.

Santa came to visit the school on Thursday 19^th December! We were all delighted to see him and encouraged him to head back to the North Pole and make sure all our presents are ready for Christmas Eve!!

We have our final assembly on Friday 20th December and we will give out certificates for Full Attendance and Almost Full Attendance.

At 12.15p.m. we will say GOODBYE and HAPPY CHRISTMAS and will close the doors of Mercy Primary until Monday January 6^th 2014!

Thanks to the Board of Management and the Parents’ Association for their commitment, dedication and hard work for the school.

e are looking forward to a well-earned rest over Christmas. A HUGE “thank you” to the very dedicated and hard-working staff of Mercy Primary School.

Dates to remember:

• School closes at 12.15 pm on Friday 20th December.
• School re-opens on Monday January 6th 2014.

We wish you a happy, holy and peaceful Christmas and New Year.

Le gach dea ghuí í gcomhair na Nollag agus na hAthbhliana.

Barbara Hanamy, Principal

 

Don’t forget to have a look at our school website www.mercyprimaryschool.ie to keep up to date with all the activities in our school.