Dear families and friends of the school,

As you will read below, March has been a busy month here in Good Counsel. Firstly, well done and congratulations to the 6th class girls and to the boys in St. Marys B.N.S. who celebrated their Confirmation Day on Thursday, March 13th. The girls were a credit to the school and their families on their special day. Many thanks to Bishop Coll and to Fr. Whearty for a beautiful mass. It was lovely to hear some wise words from the Bishop regarding the modern world that we live in and the challenges that we all face on a daily basis – young and old. Thank you also to Mrs. Clare Burke for all her work with 6th class and for having them so well prepared on the day. We hope you all had a lovely day.

We have been busy dressing up and celebrating different events here in Good Counsel over the last few weeks. We celebrated World Book Day and Seachtaine na Gaeilge/Intercultural Week /National Colours Day during March. Well done to all of the girls and parents for the effort that you all put in to the costumes! It was great to see so many of you reusing and recycling items for your costumes too!

St Patrick’s Day/National Colours Day
There was plenty of excitement around the school for St. Patricks’ Day and National Colours Day. The girls, as is the tradition, went on their annual parade to the Little Sisters of the Poor and to Madonna house here beside our school. There was plenty of singing, playing of instruments and poems being recited by all of the classes!
The girls then returned to the school for a céili and some Irish music on the yard. Thankfully the rain stayed off…..just about! We even had some experienced Irish dancers do a reel or two! Thank you to Mrs. Kelly, Mrs Burke and Mrs. Hall for their work in organising events. It’s a day that we always look forward to here and thankfully this year was no different!

Intercultural Week and Seachtaine na Gaeilge
We are always very proud to celebrate our diversity here in Good Counsel. We have almost 200 girls here in the school, some of whom have come from different countries or have international family roots. Intercultural Week always provides a great opportunity for us to celebrate this diversity in an extra special way while giving all of the girls a taste of different cultures, languages and ways of life. Mrs. Kelly was busy throughout the week with many activities including storytelling and daily news updates in different languages such as Portuguese, Polish, Latvian, Hungarian Ukrainian, Spanish and Malayalam.

We also celebrated Seachtaine na Gaeilge during March. Some of the activities during the week included Nuacht an Lae from a different girl in 6th class everyday over the school intercom, Tráth na gCeist (Quiz) for 3rd to 6th class in the GP room and a St. Patrick’s Day Art Workshop. These celebrations fall hand in hand with the Irish Dancing and St. Patricks’s Day Parade mentioned above. Thanks to Mrs. Kelly and Mrs. Burke for arranging all of the activities for Intercultural Week and Seachtaine na Gaeilge. Well done everyone!

FAI Soccer
We entered the FAI 5 a-side soccer tournament for the first time in February. This tournament took place in SETU Carriganore. We played three games, winning two and were knocked out in a three way penalty shootout where the winners progressed to the next round. All of the girls were excellent and represented our school so well. Thanks to Mrs. Foley for her work with the team and for looking after them throughout.

Camogie
Congratulations to our Mini Sevens camogie team who were crowned the Eastern Waterford champions in division 1 of the Cumann na Mbunscol in De la Salle GAA grounds last week. The girls demonstrated some excellent camogie skills and won an epic final against the Ursuline. We will face Ballyduff Upper National School in the county final on April 9th. The venue is yet to be confirmed. The girls’ success is down to their dedication to the sport and the support of their families and Ferrybank club. We are very proud of the girls and we wish them good luck in the final.

A special mention to Sinéad who has been chosen to represent our school on The Primary Game Camogie 2025 panel. She will be playing at half time in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday May 25th.

Mrs. Shanahan

Wellbeing Warriors
We introduced ketchup to the hot lunches on Friday. It went down a treat to the girls who like ketchup. Well done to the Wellbeing Warriors who campaigned for the introduction of ketchup. We will be having our Wellbeing and Friendship Week April 7th – 11th so we are getting organised for that. The highlight of the week will be our “Wear Your Bright Colours Dress Up Day” which will be on April 11th. We encourage you not to buy anything new and simply wear some bright clothing from the wardrobe. We will send more details closer to the time.
Mrs. Shanahan

Parents’ Association Easter Raffle
The members of the Parent’s Association are busy organising their Annual Easter Raffle. Raffle tickets will go out early next week to all families and we will send further information via Aladdin. The Easter Raffle will take place on Thursday April 10th. We are lucky to have a very active Parents’ Association and as ever, all monies raised will go towards positively impacting the education that all of the girls receive in Good Counsel.

Basketball
Best of luck to the Basketball Team who play in the Annual Basketball blitz this Friday which takes place in the Mercy Primary School. Thanks to Mrs. Burke and Ms. White for looking after the team.

Dates for your diary
Half Day today, Wednesday March 26th – Staff In-Service
Junior and Senior infants finish @ 12.10pm
1st to 6th Class finish @ 12.15pm.

Easter Holidays
Half Day on Friday April 11th (finishing times are the same as above)
School reopens after the Easter Holidays on Monday, April 28th @ 9.00am.

As you can see, the school is a very busy place with all of the activities that are on going. Needless to say, there is great work being done in all classes. You can keep up to date with some of these activities by having a look through the class blogs on this website.

I will be in touch again before Easter.

Yours sincerely,

J.Nagle

Principal