We were delighted to celebrate the First Holy Communion with our very patient Third Classes and Gliondar Mara yesterday!  Mr Duffy and Ms Smith were disappointed when the planned ceremony could not go ahead last year. But they were delighted to join the boys and their Third Class teachers and welcome the families into Mornington Church for this very important Mass.

It was a different ceremony from previous years as the congregation had to adhere to public health guidelines, but it was, if anything, all the more emotional and reverent because of that. The First Holy communicants sat with their families and prayed together and Joanne Kierans delighted, as always, with her wonderful music.

Fr Joseph encouraged parents to continue to hand on their faith to their children and reminded the congregation of Mass times in the parish.
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Our Junior Infant classes have settled in wonderfully. They-and their Mams, Dads and carers-are adapting well to the school routines. Our photos show them engaging in free play and story time. They have also enjoyed playing in the Infant yard, PE in the big yard. And they have also had two fire drills this week! 

The sun beamed down on our June Assembly yesterday as we gathered to celebrate great work and great improvement in our school.

Over the course of the day we held three assemblies. We encouraged them to keep up their fitness, praised them for their excellent co operation and play in the yard, and urged them to continue reading and playing outside over the summer holidays.

The Student of the Year awards were presented to pupils in every class, along with awards for Most Improved Student and for Best Effort.

It's been a challenging year for all. But this is always time to appreciate everyone else. The boys thanked their teachers, and special needs assistants, they gave themselves a rousing applause and promised to thank their families on their return home.

Here's hoping they remembered!

A lot of you know Joe's story already. He's committed to running 10km every day for a year in aid of Crumlin Children's Hospital.

Joe's goal is ever closer. He started out on this mission on July 1st 2020 and now, over 3,500km later he's on the countdown to the end.

He was the perfect inspiration for Ms McBride's Sixth classes when they arrived in the Lourdes Stadium Drogheda to try out their running on the track there.

Our other inspiring guest was Mrs Olivia Bennett. Member of our Board of Management, founder member of Colmcille's Athletic Club and a familiar face at marathon meets, Olivia spoke to the boys about her athletic club and presented them with medals.

The medals acknowledged the boys own interest in running. Our Run Around Ireland initiative, organized by Mrs Byrne, saw Ms McBride's class win the coveted trip to the Lourdes Stadium.

They had lots of questions for Joe after he spoke to him about his year of adventures. Spinach and salmon and strength work are the secrets of his running success. After completing a warm up led my Olivia, he and the boys set out on a nice easy trot around the track.

Best of luck over the last few days of your running challenge Joe!

Oh what a talented bunch we have in our parent body! And generous too!

Arlene Smyth, Mum to Noah, came to our school to lead our four infant classes in four free dance sessions. Socially distanced in our huge hall, they had the perfect venue-and a truly inspiring teacher!

Arlene has been dancing since she was six years old. She's a qualified dance teacher and runs the Theatre Learning Centre in Artane. 

​We're really keen on dance and performance for our boys. It builds fitness and confidence, along with developing new interests.  Our Junior and Senior Infants certainly had lots of fun! Definitely something we'd love to see in our school when after school activities resume!

Click on the file below for more information on Arlene and her classes.

Thank you Anne Marie Nulty for gifting our two sixth classes with complimentary Drama lessons today! They both thoroughly enjoyed the fun of performing and working together, under your direction.

Some of our boys have been students of Anne-Marie for a few years and all have missed out this year on this enjoyable and beneficial after school activity. So Friday's session was a good chance for our students to tune back in to these drama sessions albeit for a shorter period than they would previously have enjoyed.

Anne-Marie Nulty has been teaching speech and drama for 20 years and she has been teaching at Réalt Na Mara for the past 9 years. Her classes are designed to give each child confidence, not only on the stage but in life. This is taught through plays, poetry, mime, movement to music, improvisation, speech exercises and drama games. 

Each term consists of 8 weeks, with 4 terms throughout the school year. Classes will resume when it is safe to do so.  And we really hope that her after school drama schedule will run again from September.

You can contact Anne-Marie on 0876071856.

Check our “Anne-Marie’s school of speech and drama” on Facebook. 

            

Mrs Hudson and Mrs Moore have been very busy working with their pupils in our garden. They have planted poppies, potatoes, courgettes, and onions. In addition we have two honeysuckle plants climbing up our pergola and Dominka and Hubert planted pumpkins today! The bees are in heaven with our wild roses and blackthorn in full bloom. We are also leaving wild patches for the bees to enjoy all around our school. 

Getting back into the swing of things has been tough on everybody. Sticking with the routines and habits which help our bodies and minds needs lots of praise and encouragement. Today in our assemblies we encouraged this with our Mr Motivator awards.

We met outdoors and in three separate sessions. Remembering Cristiano Ronaldo's words: "Talent is nothing without hard work" the Senior end of the school displayed the fruits of their hard work with a rap from Fourth Class, Oisín's phenomenal hurling skills and Owen's wonderful accompaniment to his classmates singing.

Joshua from Junior Infants displayed his reading skills in the Junior Assembly and all of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd classes joined together in reading about kindness.

It's good to be out in the sunshine, celebrating hard work and encouraging one another. Looking forward to our June assembly already!

The boys in Ms Mullen and Ms Carragher's class had great fun making Puppets last week.

This lesson came all the way from Holice in the Czech Republic. Both classes joined other pupils from Lithuania, Poland, Italy and the Czech school in the lesson as part of our work on the Erasmus project on our shared Heritage.

​As you can see from the photos here, great fun was had by all!