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The School Bell 21.03.2024

Dear Parents, Pupils, Guardians and Friends of the school,

Our school has been a busy place since our last School Bell update especially with the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Please see the update below for more information.

Seachtain na Gaeilge and Intercultural Week  

The last two weeks we have celebrated Seachtain na Gaeilge and Intercultural Week in our school. The girls really enjoyed all the activities from Seanfhocail an lae to Tráth na gCeist sa halla. Bhí mórán imeachtaí ar siúl.  During Intercultural week, the girls loved having the responsibility of sharing their languages and reading skills with all the classes. We listened to different national anthems from around the world and listened to greetings and conversations in different languages. Junior Infants and Miss Hall treated us to a beautiful assembly about the life of St. Patrick, Our Patron Saint.  Our annual St. Patrick’s day parade was lively and full of colour as our school community visited the residents in The Little Sisters of the Poor and the Sisters in Madonna House. There was music, song and dance on display. On return to school we had our Céile Mora, where everyone danced with delight to Shoe the donkey, the Siege of Ennis and the Walls of Limerick. Thank you to Miss Kelly and Mrs. Burke for organising events. 

Happy Ramadan 

Ramadan Mubarak to all families who are celebrating this Holy month. May your special month bring peace, happiness and infinite blessings. 

Parents Association Fundraisers

The Parents Association have been very busy organising fundraisers to help our school. As you know, we had an Easter Raffle today. Thank you to the everyone who sold and bought tickets and congratulations to all of the prize winners. The prizes were given out today with the winners announced over the school intercom. Thank you also to the members of the Parents Association who put all of the excellent prizes together.

Clothes Collection

The Parents Association have arranged for another fund raiser in April. We will have a clothes collection on Wednesday, April 17th. If you are doing a spring clean over the Easter break or have clothes, curtains, shoes and handbags that you would like to get rid of, please pop them into a black bag and send them into us here in Good Counsel between Monday April 8th and Wednesday April 17th (after we return from the Easter break). We have some recycling bags here for anyone who wants them. We will happily recycle your items while raising some funds for our school. See poster below for further information. Please note that all money raised will be used towards activities and resources for the girls.

Basketball

The girls in 6th class represented our school in the Interschool Basketball yesterday in the Mercy Secondary school yesterday. They played great and managed to win silver medals as they got to the final where they were just pipped by Butlerstown N.S. Well done and congratulations to everyone!! Thank you to Mrs. Burke and Mrs. Morrissey who looked after the team on the day.

Irish Dancing

We completed our 10 weeks of Irish Dancing with Dawn McGrath last week. I know the girls really enjoyed it and learned some new steps as well. Mrs. Power’s 2nd class showed some of their new dancing skills to the residents in the Little Sisters of the Poor last week which was well received. Thanks to Dawn for all of her work over the 10 weeks. If any parents are interested in further information regarding Irish Dancing with Dawn, please see the note that went out this week or you can contact Tracey here in the office.

School Closures

Easter Holidays – The school will close tomorrow (half day) Friday, March 22nd(Half Day) and reopen on Monday, April 8th at 9.00am.

Collection Times tomorrow;

Junior and Senior Infants – 12.10pm
1st and 2nd Class – 12.15pm
3rd to 6th Class – 12.20pm

Dates for your diary

First Holy Communion – Saturday April 27th

Ceremony of Light in preparation for Confirmation – Wednesday evening, May 1st

Confirmation – Saturday May 18th.

Wishing you all a very happy Easter!

Yours sincerely,

J.Nagle
Principal

March News

Dear Parents, Guardians, Pupils and Friends of the school,

I hope this message finds you all well and looking forward to some better weather (hopefully!). We sent out a short survey regarding school tours recently via text. Many thanks to those who completed the survey, We will use the information to help us plan for school tours, all going well before the summer holidays.

Peace Proms

On Sunday evening last, the girls in 5th and 6th class represented our school at this year’s Peace Proms in the SETU Area. The classes have been busy practicing all of the songs and the dances for Peace Proms over the last few months and were excellent on the night. It was great to see so many parents there also! Thanks to all for their hard work in preparing the girls and going on the night. We hope you all had an enjoyable evening.

First Confession
Mrs. Power’s 2nd class celebrated their First Confession last night, Wednesday. Well done to all of the girls, we hope you all had a lovely evening. Thank you to Mrs. Power for having everyone so well prepared. We now look forward to the Communion on Saturday, April 27th.

Seachtaine na Gaeilge and Intercultural Week

This week marked the beginning of Seachtaine na Gaeilge and we have lots of activities planned to promote Gaeilge in the classes and in our school over the next two weeks. Some of the activities include Seanfhocail an Lae, Tráth na gCeist, Nuacht an Lae agus Ceilí Mór.

We will be also celebrating Intercultural week next week – celebrating all of the different cultures and languages that we have in our school! Thank you to Mrs. Burke and Ms. Kelly for putting all of the activites together!

World Book Day

Today is World Book Day. The girls and their parents have been busy preparing costumes and outfits based on characters from their favourite books and they all looked amazing coming to school this morning! Well done everyone!

St. Patrick’s Day
St.Patrick’s day will be celebrated in our school on Thursday and Friday of next week. On Thursday, we will have a Special Assembly about St. Patrick. We will celebrate National Colours Day on Friday where the girls can dress in green for St. Patricks day or in their own National Colours. We will also have a Ceilí Mór and a St. Patrick’s Day parade where we will visit the Little Sisters of the Poor located here beside the school!

School Closures
Tomorrow Friday, March 8th – School Closed (Polling Station)

Monday, March 18th – School Closed (Bank Holiday)

Friday, March 22nd – Half Day (Easter Holidays)

Junior and Senior Infants – 12.10pm
1st and 2nd Class – 12.15pm
3rd to 6th Class – 12.20pm


Easter Holidays – The school will close on Friday, March 22nd(Half Day) and reopen on Monday, April 8th at 9.00am.

Getting to and from school safely

The area around the school continues to be very busy due to the North Quays Development. Traffic is moving a little better as the slip lane onto Fountain Street has been reopened but delays continue to be experienced. Please be as patient as possible and allow yourself plenty of extra time.

In the Drop Off and Collect Area outside of the school, you are asked to drive your car in as far as possible before dropping/collecting your daughter – please avoid stopping at the gate. This will help keep everything moving. Thank you for your continued support.

Easter Raffle

Thanks to the Parents Association for organising an Easter Raffle again this year. Tickets in an envelope with information will go home to each family on Monday coming, March 11th and all sold tickets and money are due to be returned to the school by Tuesday March 19th. There are plenty of extra tickets available in the office for any of you who would like more. The raffle will take place before the Easter holidays and there are some lovely prizes to be won thanks to the hard work of the Parents Association. All money raised will go towards the education of the girls in the school and your support as always is appreciated!

Your sincerely,
J. Nagle
Principal

February News

Dear Parents, Guardians, Pupils and Friends of the school,
It was great to see so many of you at the Parents-Teacher meetings during February. Thank you for taking the time out to come to meet your daughter’s teacher. We hope you enjoyed your visit. If you have yet to meet your daughter’s teacher, please contact Tracey in the office.


Little Red Kettle
We were delighted to have Little Red Kettle here in January. They performed two shows on the day and the girls had great fun – some even had the chance to play a part in the show! We look forward to welcoming Little Red Kettle back next year!!


Safer Internet Day
Many thanks to Mrs. Ryan who organised lessons and a competition for Safer Internet Day which took place last week. The girls took part in different activities to show them how to be safe when using technology and the internet. Today at assembly, Mrs. Ryan announced the winners of the Safer Internet Day Poster Competition run in each class. The winners are in the picture below! Well done everyone!

Lent and Ash Wednesday
We celebrated the start of Lent today with a Special Assembly from Senior Infants who showed everyone what Lent is all about and even shared some of their ideas as to what they are going to give up/improve on during Lent.

The girls from 2nd and 6th class also went to the Church for 10am Mass to receive ashes for Ash Wednesday.

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year was celebrated on Saturday February 10th. Languages United Committee set up a lovely display to highlight Chinese New Year.  It is the year of the dragon.  Billions of people in China and around the world celebrate, often wearing red clothes, decorating their homes with red lanterns and taking part in traditional dragon dances. At New Year, families give presents of money in red envelopes.  They are called hong bow.

Happy Chinese New Year.

Important upcoming dates
Midterm Break – Thursday and Friday February 15th and 16th

School Closure – Wednesday February 28th (Teacher in-service training)

Traffic
Traffic and construction continues to be a hot topic in and around the school at the moment. Please continue to take your time, stay safe and to keep your patience!

Wishing you all have a lovely Midterm break. See you all back on Monday coming, February 19th @ 9.00am.

Yours sincerely,
J. Nagle
Principal

Welcome back!

Dear Parents, Guardians, Pupils and Friends of the school,

Firstly, Happy New Year to you all. I hope you enjoyed a nice break over Christmas and that you are looking forward to 2024. Please find below an update of what is happening in our school and some dates for you to put into your diary.

Parent Teacher Meetings

We are looking forward to meeting all of the parent(s)/guardian(s) at our parent teacher meetings. Parent Teacher meetings will be held on the week of Monday, January 29th to Friday February 2nd. You will receive an invitation to meet with your daughter’s teacher on Monday January 22nd (Monday coming).  If you don’t receive your invitation, please contact the school office. To be fair to other parents, and to staff, please let the teachers know in advance if for some reason you cannot attend. While we try to accommodate everyone, we would like, as far as possible to keep the meetings to the times on your invitation.

Please note that the girls will go home a little earlier on Thursday, February 1st to facilitate the Parent Teacher meetings.

The closing times will be as follows:


Junior/ Senior Infants    1.45pm (usual time)

1st/2nd class                      2.20pm

3rd and 4th class               2.25pm

5th and 6th                          2.30pm

School Closures

We have updated the school calendar recently which can be accessed here  – School Calendar | Our Lady of Good Counsel GNS.

Upcoming closures:

Monday February 5th                                   Bank holiday – St. Brigid’s Day

Thursday/Friday February 15th/16th        Mid-Term Break

Wednesday February 28th:                      School closed due to In-Service training for teachers

Irish Dancing

The girls from Juniors to 2nd class are having a great time in Dawn’s Irish dancing class every Tuesday. They have their first two weeks done with eight more to go. If you are yet to pay for dancing please contact Tracey our secretary or the class teacher to arrange payment.

Little Red Kettle

We look forward to our annual visit from Little Red Kettle on Friday February 2nd. Little Red Kettle is a drama company who come into many schools every year and perform a show for and with the children! We will send out a note closer to the time to keep you up to date.

Hot School Meals

We are pleased to inform you all that our school has been allocated funding to provide a hot meal at lunch time for each girl in our school. We are in the process of preparing to provide the service and hope to have everything in place for the new school year in September 2024.

Traffic

As you can see on a daily basis, the traffic in Ferrybank continues to pose a challenge to all road users. Please continue to exercise patience during both school drop off and collection. I must also thank the many parents and children who are making the effort to walk to school daily. It is a huge help in keeping traffic congestion down outside our school. Whether you drive, walk, cycle or scoot to school, please continue to be as safe as possible during this busy time.

That’s all for now. We look forward to meeting you all in the coming weeks for the Parent Teacher meetings.

Yours sincerely,

J. Nagle

Principal

December News

Dear Parents, Guardians, Pupils and Friends of the school,
I hope you are all well and looking forward to Christmas. This time of year is very busy for everyone and
it’s no different here in Good Counsel. The girls and staff here are busy preparing for the Christmas
Activities before we break for Christmas on December 22nd.

Christmas Activities
We have plenty planned for all of the classes for Christmas! We look forward to Christmas plays, Carol
Singing, the Carol Service, Christmas Jumper Day and we might even fit in a movie and a treat for the
girls too! Please see relevant dates below regarding some of the activities. Thank you also to the Parents
Association for their help in providing some treats for the girls.

Tuesday December 19th – Junior Infants Christmas play for junior infant parents @1pm.

Junior Infants may be collected at the usual time of 1.45p.m.

Wednesday December 20th – Carol Service @ 2pm for the school in the Sacred Heart Church Ferrybank. We hope to see you all there!

Please note that all of the classes will be going to the Carol Service including Junior and Senior Infants.
After the Carol Service, the classes will return to the school with their teacher. Parents can collect their daughters from the school at the following times:

Junior and Senior Infants: 2.50pm

1st and 2nd class: 2.55pm

3rd to 6th class: 3.00pm

Apologies for this later finish but it is a special occasion for the school.
Note that this is a school celebration for Christmas but if you would rather your daughter not
attend the church please let her teacher know so alternative arrangements can be made.

Friday December 22nd – Christmas Jumper Day.

There will be a half day also and classes will finish at:
Junior and Senior Infants – 12.10pm
1st and 2nd Class – 12.15pm
3rd to 6th Class – 12.20pm

Christmas Cards
As we are a Green School and in order to avoid waste, the girls are asked not to bring in Christmas
Cards for one another. Instead, girls in each class will make a special card here in school for one other
member of their class which they can exchange and bring home.


Cold Weather
The weather has gotten progressively colder over the last few weeks. Please ensure that your daughter
wears warm clothing coming to school including a coat, hat and gloves. The girls are welcome to wear
extra base layers if needed while ensuring that they are wearing the appropriate uniform.

Reusable Uniforms
We are always happy to receive uniforms that can be reused. If you have any clean uniforms – shirts,
polo shirts, ties, pinafores, skirts, tracksuits, jumpers that are no longer of use to you we are happy to
accept them here. These may be dropped into Tracey in the office. Many thanks.

Camogie
The girls enjoyed their last day of camogie today with John Doxer Burns. A big thanks to Doxer and the
SETU students who gave him a hand over the last 6 weeks. The girls thoroughly enjoyed it and hopefully
learned a few tricks along the way!

Irish Dancing in the New Year
We are delighted to welcome Irish dancing back to our school in January with Dawn McGrath. The girls
in Junior Infants to 2nd class will take part every Tuesday for 10 weeks. The school will subsidise the lessons and the cost will be €10 per child (€1 per lesson) which will be collected in January. A note will go
out in January to remind parents.

Traffic Restrictions in January
There will be some changes to the road layout outside of the school starting on January 8th. This has been included in our latest news – please see the update here https://goodcounselgns.ie/category/latest/

Upcoming dates
School will close (half day see above) on Friday, December 22nd and reopen at 9.00am on Monday, January 8th.

Christmas at Our Lady of Good Counsel GNS

Our Jesse Tree

Finally, just a short note to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Many thanks to everyone who helps make our
school a better place for all of the girls. Thank you to all our staff for their hard work, parents, Board of
Management, Parents Association, members of the wider community and to the girls themselves who are
pleasure to work with every day. Have a lovely Christmas and we will see everyone here in school again
in January!

Your sincerely,
J. Nagle
Principal

November News

Dear Parents, Guardians, Pupils and Friends of the school,
I hope this newsletter find you all well. Please find below some useful information and updates regarding
our school.
Admission Notice
In line with our Admission Notice, we commenced accepting applications last week for incoming Junior
infants for the coming school year 2024 – 2025. If you are looking to enrol your daughter for the coming
school year, you will find the information on our school website by clicking this link –Admission information OLGC, by contacting Tracey our secretary on 051-832984 or via email
secretary.ferrybankgns@gmail.com.
E-payments
We are in the process of finalising e-payments for our school which will mean that you will be able to
make payments online for school related activities/expenses. I will update you regarding this when we
have it ready for use.
Uniforms
Please ensure that your daughter is wearing the appropriate full uniform when coming to school.
Generally speaking the girls are excellent to wear the correct attire and are very well presented but it is
important that every girl is neat and tidy, wearing her full uniform which includes the correct shirt, tie, dark tights/leggings and appropriate footwear.
Peace Proms
The girls in 4th and 5th class had a lovely day out in SETU Area for their Peace Proms Practice on Wednesday last. The Peace Prom will take place on Saturday March 3rd @ 7pm. Tickets are currently
sold out but more may come on stream. You can keep an eye out for them here – Peace Prom Tickets
Christmas Activities
As usual, Christmas is a busy time for everyone and we look forward to the activities in our school which
will include a Carol service in the Church. We will be in touch more details in the coming weeks.
Camogie
We were delighted to receive some great news a couple of Sundays ago to say that the Ferrybank U-13
camogie team had won the county final in the SETU area. Some of the girls from 6th class have written a
little report on the game which you can see below. Everyone here is so delighted for the girls – Well Done
and Congratulations to you all!! On Friday last, the girls brought the shield from the county final into the
school to show during assembly which was well received by all!

U13 County Champions!

Two weeks ago on Sunday we played a county final against Dungarvan in SETU. We won the match, the score was 5:4 to 1:7. We were so happy and excited. Our coaches arranged for pizza and chips for us as a celebration! Here’s to many more years of hard training and hard work to maintain our win!


Important upcoming dates
Wednesday coming, November 29th – the school will close early to facilitate a staff meeting.

The girls will go home at; Junior and Senior Infants: 1.45pm (usual time)
1st – 2nd class: 1.50pm
3rd – 6th class: 1.55pm.

The calendar has been updated on the school website and can be accessed form the menu button on
this page or by clicking here Good Counsel Calendar

We will be in touch again before Christmas.
Your sincerely,
J. Nagle
Principal

Happy Hallowe’en!!

Dear Parents, Guardians, Pupils and Friends of the school,

I hope you are all looking forward to the Hallowe’en break. Things have been extra busy here since I last updated the School Bell. You will find out about some of our activities below as well as some information that you may need for when we return to school on Monday, November 6th.

Mission Week

We have had a very busy and hugely enjoyable Mission Week this week in our school.  The work put in by everyone is so appreciated – whether it was baking a cake or some buns, dipping apples in chocolate or collecting up old books and other items to sell in order to raise some money for a worthy cause – thank you! We have a Talent Show in school today which promises to be a great finish to the week. We are delighted to say that at total amount of €1120 was raised and the money will be donated to the Opportunity Knox Charity. Well done everyone!

Mayors Visit

We were delighted to welcome the Metropolitan Mayor, Jody Power on Friday of last week. During his visit, the Mayor provided some wise words to the girls and presented certificates for attendance and the Amber Flag that everyone, especially the Wellbeing Warriors and Mrs. Shanahan worked so hard towards last year. Thank you to the Mayor for taking the time out to visit our school – we wish him well in his role for the rest of his term!

Climate Action Week

Sarah Keane a past pupil of Good Counsel working on behalf of SLI provided a Climate Action exhibit and workshops in the entrance hall of our school last week. The girls in juniors, 1st, 2nd and 3rd received the workshops which were very well received by all. Climate Action is a very current and hugely important topic and we were delighted to get an insight from Sarah throughout the week.

Swimming

A reminder to the parents of girls in 2nd and 3rd class that swimming will take place every Monday, starting November 6th for six weeks when we return to school after Hallowe’en. Tracey in the office is taking payment for swimming so if you have yet to do this please email or call the office.

Camogie

The girls in 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th will have camogie after Hallowe’en every Wednesday for 6 weeks in the hurling alley in Ferrybank GAA club. The sessions will be with Doxer Burns who did camogie with the girls last year. He will be assisted by two students from SETU. The teachers in the relevant classes will let the girls know what they need to bring on camogie days. 

Communion and Confirmation Dates

We have dates for the Communion and Confirmation.

Communion; Saturday April 27th @ 11am in Sacred Heart Church Ferrybank.

Confirmation; Saturday May 18th @ 11am in Sacred Heart Church Ferrybank.

We will inform parents of any other relevant information regarding the sacraments in due course.

Important upcoming dates

Halloween Break – finish today Friday October 27th and return to school on Monday November 6th.

Wishing you all a very Happy Hallowe’en.

Your sincerely,

J. Nagle

Principal