Wellbeing and Amber Flag

Ms. Killian (Wellbeing Co-ordinator) with the help of the  Wellbeing Team (staff) and Wellbeing Warriors (pupils) organised a fun packed Wellbeing Week at An Grianán NS in March from Mindful Monday (9th), Thoughful Tuesday (10th), Wellness Wednesday(11th),  Triumphant Thursday(12th) to Feel Good Friday(13th).

We are working on renewing our Amber Flag aims to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for all the children in the school. Positive wellbeing means feeling good in your body and your mind, getting on well with others, feeling grateful for everything you have, enjoying life and feeling proud of the special person that you are . In order to promote positive mental health and wellbeing at our school, we are all working together to create a safe, positive and healthy attitude towards our general physical and mental health and wellbeing.
 
Guest speakers and workshops included the Fire Brigade( Fire Safety),  Cookery  ( healthy eating), Board Games, Fiona Moran (illustrator),  Circle Time, Music,  Gardaí (road safety), Dana Cleary (active listening and intuitive writing), outdoor games led by 6th class, creative workshops ,PAWS (water safety), mindfulness, Lá Glas ( to include Crazy Hair Day)  and lots lots more. Pupils took part in an art competition. Our Amber Flag motto is ‘Leading the way for a Bright School Day’. Winners to be announced shortly ( See Gallery for photos)

We had  a very special Grandparents  Day at  our school on Wellness Wednesday also. They play a very important role in our pupils’ lives. Thank you to Carmel Browne (President INTO) for visiting out school on  Mindful Monday. (See Gallery for photos)Please send photos of wellbeing activities at home to angrianannsamberflag@gmail.com. Thank  you.

Blue Star Programme

Fine Gael MEP Nina Carberry paid a visit to Dolores Killian's third class at in Mount Temple on  Friday.

Mrs Killian's class is working towards achieving the flag for The Blue Star Programme. There are four core learning pillars of the programme: Historical, Geographical, Cultural & Creative, and Institutional

Every child in the class is studying a EU country, to include food, languages, famous people, famous landmarks, geographical and historical features.

As part of the programme, pupils are encouraged to invite MEPs to the school, and last December the class made a super-sized Christmas card and sent an invitation to Nina to come visit to showcase all their learning about Europe.

When Nina arrived on Friday, the classroom was set up like third class' very own European Parliament. She was met with all pupils holding a A3 size poster of individual letters which spelled out her name.

Following on from that there was a question and answer session from pupils on many topics from her experience on ‘Ireland's Fittest Family’ (giving fitness tips to the class), ‘Dancing with the Stars’ (she showed some dance moves), pupil-teacher ratio, to her experience as a jockey and an author of children's books. She gave some writing tips to the pupils.

The pupils had completed their very own portraits of Nina which she took home with her. Regan Kelly, a very talented artist in the class did some fantastic illustrations for Nina which the MEP is planning to put up in her office in the European Parliament.

Regan Kelly, Maeve Matthews and Kaylee McCormack got their books, written by Nina, signed. Nina Carberry looked at all of the children's artwork and projects, and was very impressed by their great work. Leni Tyrell did a fantastic presentation on diplomacy and had mini cakes in the shape of  snails to share with everyone.

Ms Killian has visited the European Parliament on two previous occasions.

Chess 

Since January the pupils in 5th & 6th Class have been learning how to play chess on Fridays with Mr. Coppinger. They put their new skills to good use on Tuesday 11th March when 16 pupils, Mr. Coppinger and Ms. Kearns travelled to a Féile Fichille Tournament, organised by Ficheall.ie and hosted by St. Etchen's Kinnegad. Each player got to play six games and our pupils gave very strong performances. We're very proud of them as many of their opponents had been playing chess in school for a few years!  

Credit Union Quiz Team

Our 4th class team ( James Ledwith, Michael Grady, Aidan Moran, Sophie Keating & Jack Flynn) are through to the All Ireland Final of the Credit Union Schools Quiz in the RDS, Dublin on Sunday April 6th. (please see photos in gallery)

Green Flag

This year we are working towards the Green Flag for Global Citizenship - The Marine Environment. There is a lot of work going on in various classes. We are learning about marine creatures; some have written reports and others are creating online books. We are learning about pollution of our oceans and how plastic is one of the main culprits. Children are becoming aware of how we can help keep our seas and oceans cleaner, and how we can protect all plants and animals living there. The senior classes have been learning about global goals and they engaged in some interesting online chats with other schools across the world during Global Goals Week. We are also taking part in a cleanup challenge, where each class does one cleanup per week and the waste collected is weighed. Well done to all and to our dedicated committee for their hard work.

Active School Flag

This year in An Grianán NS we are taking on the challenge of an Active School Flag.  The aim of the Active School Flag is to get our school more active and more often.

It is important that all children engage in 60 minutes of physical activity every day.  By doing this we hope to improve children's fitness and mental health.

To be rewarded the flag, we need to demonstate we are meeting the criteria across four areas:

1. Physical Education

2. Physical Activity

3. Partnerships

4. Active School Week

Throughout this year children will take part in various activities eg. 

• School Slogan Competition
• Active breaks for 4 weeks
• Learning on the move challenge for 4 weeks
• The Daily Mile
• What club are you in - survey
• Run Around Europe Challenge 

and many more activities.  There will also be an Active Schools Week with varied activities, guest speaker and a fun event.

Please encourage your child to take part in all  school flag activities.

Please contact Ms Aine Curran if you would like to be part of the Active School Week in our school.