School Calendar September 2018 – June 2019

Please click here to view school calendar September 2018 – June 2019.

New All-Weather Pitch

After a lot of anticipation, our pupils finally began using our brand new all-weather pitch this week. We have been looking forward to this all year long and are now finally getting to enjoy this wonderful new facility which will benefit the children of our school for many years to come. Thanks to everyone for being so patient!

Scríobh Leabhar

Well done to the children from first, second and third class who recently took part in the Scríobh Leabhar competition. They all created fantastic books and all received a certificate and a pencil case from Foras na Gaeilge. There were five winners chosen from our school who were then invited to an awards ceremony in the Watershed. The children were presented with medals and got to see the band Seo Linn perform. A great day was had by all.

New Resources for Our School

A huge thank you to our fantastic Parent’s Council and Board of Management who provided funds for the purchase of some much needed P.E., Science, Literacy and Aistear Resources. Have a look at the pictures below to see a selection of just some of the magnificent resources which have been purchased. Thank you to everyone who continues to support our Parent’s Council and Board of Management in their fundraising efforts in aid of these beneficial teaching and learning resources.

Internet Safety Talk

An internet safety workshop will take place in the school on Thursday 12th of April @ 8pm. It is important that at least one parent from each family tries to attend as this is an increasingly challenging area for parents and teachers. Thanks to Peter Levins who has organised this very worthwhile event for the school.

Coder Dojo

We recently invited Karen from Coder Dojo Kilkenny group to come and speak to students and teachers about the work they do in their coding club. Our school prides itself on our capabilities in ICT and we have been coding in our school for the past number of years. Karen showed us new approaches to delivering coding lessons and demonstrated new coding software. She provided the school with a huge amount of new coding resources and ideas. We all really enjoyed it. Thanks to Karen for giving up her morning to deliver this workshop. There are some big coding events taking place this year. Please see the links below for further information on these events.

www.facebook.com/dojocon

www.twitter.com/dojocon

www.dojocon.coderdojo.com

www.coolestprojects.org

Art & Handwriting Community Games Medalists

Well done to all of our students who won medals in the Lisdowney Community Games Art and Handwriting competitions. They will now go forward to represent Lisdowney in the county Community Games Competition in the coming weeks. Good luck to everyone. Thanks to Collette Bergin for organising the competitions.

Child Safeguarding Statement

Scoil Naomh Fiachra has recently ratified its Child Safeguarding Statement.  For a copy of this statement and relevant notification please check the policies section of this website.

Community Games Quiz

Well done to our six pupils who travelled to the Rower to take part in the under 14 Kilkenny Community Games Quiz to represent the parish of Lisdowney. They ended up coming third after a tie breaker and sudden death. Well done to them on holding their nerve under pressure. Thanks to all the parents who travelled such a long distance to get them there.

NCBI Clothing Collection

The school is delighted to inform everyone that it raised 750 euro in association with the National Council for the Blind Ireland in it’s recent Clothing Collection. We collected 159 bags of clothes and textiles. Well done to all of our parents, staff and wider community members who contributed to our collection.

Standardised School Year

Standardised School Year – please see the following link for standardised closures and school holidays for 2017, 2018 and 2019 school years.  Click here for dates.

RDS Primary Science Fair

On Friday 19th of January, our 3rd to 6th class students travelled to Limerick to attend the RDS Primary Science Fair. We had a brilliant day and learned lots of new things about chemistry, physics and even slime! We plan on going back next year to exhibit in the projects section. Thanks to our parents Karena, Sabrina and Anne who volunteered to help us with the day.

Food Dudes

Over the next three weeks, our classes from Junior to Sixth will participate in the Food Dudes Healthy Eating Programme. Please encourage your child to participate fully and to keep the good eating habits up after the programme finishes. For more information see www.fooddudes.ie

Christmas Plays 2017 

On Tuesday 19th of December, the school held the annual Christmas Plays. This year the Junior Room performed “Midwife Crisis”, the Middle Room performed “A Star Was Born” and the Senior Room performed “Cinderella”. Everyone was brilliant on the day. Thanks to all of our staff, parents and of course our fantastic actors and actresses for their work in getting ready for the big performances. 

The Late Late Toy Show

Best wishes to our senior infant Tádhg who will be on The Toy Show this Friday. We all wish Tádhg the very best of luck and hope that he enjoys his special night. Everyone in Scoil Naomh Fiachra is looking forward to the big night!

Friendship Week 2017

This week in Scoil Naomh Fiachra we celebrated “Friendship Week”. We carried our lots of activities such as “Buddy Time”, “Random Acts of Kindness”, “Compliment Boxes” and writing poems about friendship. We also promoted the use of our “Worry Box” and our “Friendship Bench”. All of our classes took part in SPHE lessons based on friendship and bullying prevention. This proved to be a very worthwhile week in the school and we thank all who worked so hard to make it such a success.

Team Hope Christmas Shoebox Appeal

Well done and thank you to all of our parents and students who took part in our Christmas Shoebox Appeal. This is the school’s fourth year to participate in this very worthy cause and we are very proud to say that we donated 63 shoeboxes this year. These donations will no doubt make it a very special Christmas for the children who receive them.

Halloween Monster Mile

On Friday before Halloween, we all dressed up in our costumes and walked a mile as part of our Active School’s flag. We had great fun and a few scares along the way!! Thanks to all our parents for helping with the brilliant costumes.

School Calendar 2017-2018
Click here to down load the school Calendar September 2017 – June 2018

 

Standardisation of School Year

Click here for further details regarding Primary Schools for the years 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20.

New Primary Language Curriculum

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has developed a new language curriculum which will be phased in next year.  For more information and support for parents please click on the following links:  www.curriculumonline.ie, www.helpmykidlearn.ie and www.cogg.ie.

Field Trip to Kildangan Stud

On the 22nd of September, the senior room went on a Field Trip to Kildangan Stud Farm in Kildare. We learned a lot about how a top class stud farm is ran. We got to explore all of the facilities, learn how to shoe a horse, meet some world class stallions and as part of our Green School’s project we looked into how the farm handles all of its waste water. We would like to thank Aimee who is a parent in our school for arranging this fantastic field trip for us.

End of Year Awards 2017

Camogie Medals: Well done to our victorious camogie team who were presented with their medals by Senior Kilkenny player and All Ireland winner Aoife O’Carroll. Thanks to the Lisdowney camogie club who sent the ice-cream van as part of our celebration. Well done to Ms. Brennan, Ms. Fennelly and the players on their fantastic achievement this year. 

Swimming Gala: Well done to our team of 26 swimmers who represented the school in this year’s Gala. Congratulations to Orla who came second in the under 10 front crawl and Corey who came first in the under 12 front crawl. Thanks to Deirdre Dunne, Fiona Perry and Rita Phelan for all their help on the day. 

Hurling Blitz Winners: Well done to our 2017 hurling blitz winners.

Sport’s Day Winners: Congratulations to the orange team who came in 1st place on Sport’s Day.

Attendance Awards: Well done to our pupils who received certificates for their high levels of attendance this year (first picture) and also our twelve pupils in the second picture who didn’t miss a single day this year.

Active Week  2017  Monday: Sports Day Tuesday: Core, balance and agility exercises with Theresa Dunphy Wednesday: Orienteering Day in Jenkinstown Woods Thursday: School Tours to ‘Fota Wildlife Park’ & ‘Rancho Reillys’ Graduation Class and 6th Class Parents 2017  Camogie Congratulations to our school camogie team who won the Roinn D County Final on Wednesday 07th June. The girls had a fantastic win over Bennettsbridge in Nowlan Park on Wednesday evening. Thanks to the coaches Ms. Brennan and Ms. Fennelly for a great year. Well done girls! Scríobh Leabhar 2017 Congratulations to all of our students who took part in the Scríobh Leabhar competition this year, particularly our three winners who attended the awards ceremony in the Watershed on the 31st May. They were presented with medals and certificates and got to meet the band ‘Seo Linn’. A fantastic day was had by all. First Holy Communion Congratulations to our students that received their First Holy Communion on Saturday 13th May.  Thank you to Ms Fennelly for all her hard work in preparing the students. Third Green Flag – Water Conservation Congratulations to all at Scoil Naomh Fiachra on receiving their third Green Flag for Water conservation. Leinster Schools Swimming Gala Congratulations to Corey Bowden who represented Scoil Naomh Fiachra and came first in the Leinster Primary School Swimming Gala. Field Trip to Seskin Lisdowney Ballinaslee Group Water Scheme On Thursday 6th of April, the Senior Room and Green School’s Committee went on a field trip to see how the SLB Group Water Scheme works. This group water scheme provides clean running water to many houses and farms in our local community. Roisín and Joe from the National Federation of Group Water Schemes guided us through the day. Paddy and Angela Mullally came along and explained how they maintain the scheme on a daily basis. We were blown away by what we learned and we have already begun our projects on the local scheme. Thanks to all involved in making the day such a great success, especially to Angela for organising the trip. Kilkenny Community Games Quiz Champions 2017 Congratulations to the students from Scoil Naomh Fiachra on winning the Kilkenny Community Games Quiz.  The team below will go on to represent us in the All Ireland Community Games Quiz 2017.  We wish them the very best of luck.   Engineering Week – Lego Mindstorms To celebrate ‘Engineering Week’ this week, we started a new type of coding/programming called ‘Mindstorms’. We have been using ‘Scratch’ coding for the past few weeks and this has been a great help in preparing us to use ‘Mindstorms’. The children built their own robots as part of the project and came up with there own codes which they used to control their robots. This was great fun and we aim to spend time every week improving our coding skills and building our robots.  “Water Wise Workshops” As part of our campaign for the Water Flag, we invited Úna from Global Action Ireland to the school to give three one and a half hour workshops to the classes on Water Conservation. Together, we did an in depth exploration of the Water Cycle, the story of a water droplet, water saving tips, water usage in our daily lives and in the processing of everyday food and clothing items, and much more. We had a great time with Úna and we hope she will visit us again soon.

Enrolment for September 2018

Parents wishing to enroll pupils for the school year 2017- 2018 may do so by contacting the school for Enrolment Application Form and copy of the school’s Enrolment Policy.

Tel.: 056 8832417.
Contact us by email.