Newsletter For St. Michaels School Limerick 2014

St. Michaels National School Newsletter 2014

Junior Infants on their field trip to Stonehall Farm

Trip to Stonehall Farm

Junior and Senior Infants went to Stonehall Farm for their school trip. They had a great time. They saw lots of animals – peacocks, emus, os-triches, deer and rabbits and many more. The spitting Llama was not very friendly! She spat at us, after that we all stood well back! We were lucky to have such a lovely day and it didn't even rain once!!

Craggaunowen First and second classes spent a wonderful day in Craggaunowen Heritage Park on Tuesday 27th May. Among the many Interesting sights were a tower house, a crannog, and a cooking pit called a fulacht fiadh. At the ring fort, everyone enjoyed descending the ladder into the souterrain(underground passage). After learning about the voyage of St Brendan, it was great to see Tim Severin’s replica boat which had travelled across the Atlantic. After seeing wild boars in the forest and enjoying our picnic, we set off for Cratloe Community Playground.

The Infants on their field trip to Stonehall Farm

St. Michaels Sport

Physiotherapists Three UL Physiotherapy students, Paul Bolger, Sinéad Flanagan and Kerri Frawley taught a series of five lessons to Infants and 1st Class during the sec-ond term of school. The children learned about the importance of exercise, posture and co-ordination in an active and fun way. Sports Day Junior – 2nd Classes had their own Sports Day in school. We had basketball, hot potato, bowling, soc-cer, running, hurdles and the trampoline. We also played fun parachute games. It was a great day and thanks to all the sen-ior boys for organising and helping. Swimming 1st to 3rd Classes have completed their swimming lessons. All children really enjoyed their swimming lessons with the school. All the children became a lot more confident in the pool.

FAI Soccer We have been very lucky to have Barbara Bermingham and her team from the FAI coming into school and teaching Infants - 4th classes soccer skills. 5 A-Side Soccer This year’s tournament, organised by the FAI, took place once again in Sean Choill Sports Facility. SMNS were well repre-sented sending 5 boys’ teams and 2 girls’ teams. Great displays of goalkeeping, fearless defending and fancy footwork were evident on the day. Our 5th Boys’ team qualified for the Finals, winning all their games convincingly. After Easter Ernest, Sean, Josh, Jordan, Mathew, Joey, Christopher and Ste-phen returned to Sean Choill to face the Limerick East win-ners. No joy this time! Overall it was a great experience and preparation for next year. UL Athletics “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” We all knew this year’s Limerick City Sports was going to be a challenge. The SMNS Boys had advanced to Category C and the SMNS Girls were in category E. Ms Stevenson’s parting words were, “Just do your best.” And that is exactly what happened. Even the rain couldn’t dampen the team spirit, the determination and the great sense of pride in being part of the SMNS team. No silverware this year, but a wonderful team effort from our 42 athletes.

St. Michaels Athletics Team

Great Limerick Run Keeping fit, improving our stamina and getting ready for the Great Limerick Run were high on the agenda this April. Classrooms were empty as all the pupils from junior infants to 6th class enjoyed the daily walks, jogs and sprints around the 1km circuit in the People’s Park. Congratulations to everyone who took part in The Great Limerick Run earning a medal, t-shirt and money for the school.

SMNS World Cup 2014 Excitement is building up as pupils from 3rd to 6th await their World Cup Team selection. 6th Class are busy making the final preparations for their tournament which kicks off next Wednesday. So ……… put your flags up in the sky, ole, ole, ole ……! Villiers Sports’ Day 14th May Despite very wet conditions we had a most en-joyable day at the Villiers Sports Day on Wednesday 13th May. The variety of fun activi-ties such as tug-of-war and three-legged races appealed to everyone. Many thanks to all the TY students who enabled us to have this fun Sports Day. It has now become one of our fa-vourite school outings in the summer term.

Junior Infants and students on their nature walks around Peoples Park.

Cake Sale - March 3rd and 4th Class would like to thank everybody for supporting their cake sale. We made €250. Some of this money was used to buy an arbutus tree for the People’s Park. Mike Sheahan, the Park Keeper, came into school to talk to 3rd and 4th about their kind donation to the Park and to talk a little bit about the importance of trees for our health and for the environment. 3rd and 4th Clas-ses went up to The People’s Park on 28th April to plant the tree. We were delighted that the Mayor of Limerick, Kathleen Leddin, was present for the event. Cake Sale – May We were delighted with our very successful fundraiser cake sale and raffle for the Mater Foundation and Ian’s Trust on Friday 9th May, which made 3000 euro. We handed over two BIG cheques to the two charities, and know that the money raised will be much needed by parents who have very ill children and who sadly need to stay in hospital for very long periods of time. Sincere thanks to all school parents and friends who helped us achieve this substantial amount of money. It is very much appreciated.

All the classes had fun during Seachtaine naGaeilgeper-forming for each other. JI and SI performed “Skip to my Lou”, SI and 1st performed “A Bird Flew into the Wood”, 2nd and 3rd performed “Come to Me”, 3rd and 4th performed an Damhsa Mór and 6th Class sang Amhrán na gCupán.

Mobile library The mobile library continues to bring in-teresting books for all the children to read.

Limerick Pipe Band Some members of the Limerick Pipe Band came into school on Thursday 1st May to give a little demonstration of their instru-ments. We heard music being played on the bagpipes and the drum. The members of the Pipe Band would like to encourage oth-ers to join them.

Fire Service Visit Members of the Fire Service came into school to talk to 3rd and 4th classes about fire safety in the home. It was a very in-teresting and informative talk. 3rd and 4th class were let off their usual homework as they had some fire safety checks to do in their homes instead!

Tomasz planting Onions with Jimmy

School Self Evaluation St Michael’s NS has completed its self evaluation of numeracy. Many thanks for all your input

into the evaluation. Next year there will be an evaluation of literacy. Student Teachers

5th and 6th welcomed Ms Casey and Ms O’Connor, 2nd year B.Ed students from Mary I, to their classroom. A big thank you for all the hard work.

Our sympathies are with Mr Jimmy Lynch, our caretaker, whose sister died re-

cently. Thank you from Ms Stevenson

Thank you for all the kind wishes, thoughts and prayer as well as the cards, for my operation and subsequent recovery earlier this year. I greatly appreciated it.

E-mail Correspondence Unfortunately we cannot enter into correspondence regarding children via e-mail due to confi-

dentiality issues.

Nature Walks

Infants and 1st Class have been busy observing changes in nature around the school and The Peo-ple’s Park.

Garden Infants have being busy over the last few months. We planted some tulips in the autumn term and they are now looking beautiful in our garden. We also planted onions that are growing quickly and will be ready to eat soon!

Important School Dates

School closes on Friday 27th June 2014 and re-opens on Thursday 28th August. Please notify the School if your child is not returning in August 2014 as there is a lengthy waiting list for all