The girls had great fun on world book day. They dressed up as characters from their favourite stories. Our buddies in 6th class then read stories to us in the hall. Well done to all the girls!

Safer Internet Poster Competition

The results are in!  Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to everyone who made a poster. There were some fantastic entries again this year. 

Leah -Junior Infants

Úna – Senior Infants

Vanessa – 1st Class

Mariia – 2nd Class

Sonia – 3rd Class

Mariia – 2nd Class

Sonia – 3rd Class

Zoey – 4th Class

Diana – 5th Class

Kristyna – 6th Class

World Book Day

Next Thursday March 6th is World Book Day, we will be celebrating it here at the school with lots of activities, storytelling and dressing up.  The girls can dress up as a character from a book but please do not go to any expense.

By using their imagination and being inventive the girls can wear something warm and comfortable that they already have at home. We look forward to seeing all the wonderful creations and ideas as always.

 Collection

We are making a slight change to the collection procedure for 1st – 6th class at the end of the school day. This is to ensure that everyone is as safe as possible when leaving school and to avoid congestion on the footpath outside the school at busy times.

From Monday coming March 3rd, at collection time (2.45pm/2.50pm depending on the class), girls who are waiting to be collected will stay inside the fence on the playground.
If girls are walking home themselves, they can leave as they usually do.

If girls are being collected, they will wait on the playground with their class/teacher. When they see who is collecting them, they will inform the teacher who will give them permission to leave safely.

Hot Meals
Our Wellbeing Warriors have been working as hard as ever in making the school a better place for everyone. At a recent meeting, they suggested that ketchup is made available to classes on Friday only. Having considered their proposal and how it will work, we will introduce ketchup on Fridays which will start sometime during March. If you would rather your daughter not have ketchup with her hot meal on Friday, please message the class teacher/Tracey on Aladdin. 

Dear families and friends of the school,

I hope this newsletter finds you all well. Please see some updates below regarding the happenings in Good Counsel and some upcoming activities and events.

Parent-Teacher Meetings
Our staff were delighted to meet all of the parents who came to the school for Parent-Teacher meetings at the start of the month. Thanks to parents for taking the time to book the meetings via Aladdin for the first time. We were especially delighted that all girls had a parent/parents attend their meetings which is hugely positive in ensuring the best possible education for all of the girls here in Good Counsel.

Internet Safety Week
We marked Internet Safety Week in the school last week. Given the increasing role of electronic devices such as phones and tablets in many of our lives, Internet Safety Week is vital in educating all children as to how to use these devices properly and more importantly, how to protect themselves and stay safe online. Thanks to Mrs. Ryan for leading Internet Safety Week in our school. As part of our lessons, Mrs. Ryan has run an Internet Safety Art Competition with the winners to be announced at this weeks assembly.

Irish Dancing
We are delighted to have Dawn McGrath back this term for Irish dancing for Junior Infants to 2nd class. Dawn will work weekly with the classes up to St. Patrick’s Day.

Sacraments

2nd and 6th class are busy preparing for both the Ceremony of Light and First Confession. The 6th class girls will celebrate the Ceremony of Light tomorrow, Wednesday @ 7pm in the Sacred Heart Church Ferrybank. 2nd class will celebrate their First Confession, next Wednesday, March 5th @ 7pm. Best wishes to the class teachers, Mrs. Power and Mrs. Burke and all of the girls.

Fire Brigade Visit
Junior Infants, Senior Infants and 3rd class were treated to a talk and tour from some of the members of the local Fire Brigade last week. The 3rd class girls also received an in depth talk on fire safety which in itself is a practical life skill applicable to us all. A big thanks to the firemen who came to our school – they were great with all of the girls and so generous with their time.

Little Red Kettle
Little Red Kettle made their annual visit to the school in early February. Their visit is always eagerly anticipated by everyone here and as ever their show ‘How to Steal the World’ didn’t disappoint! We look forward to welcoming them back again next year!

Upcoming Sporting Events
FAI 5 a-side
This week we enter our first soccer competition! The FAI 5 a-side schools competition takes place in SETU Carriganore on Thursday February 27th, starting at 12.30pm. Thanks to Mrs. Foley for looking after the team. Best of luck to all of the girls involved.

Camogie Mini 7’s
Next Thursday March 6th, our camogie players will be playing in the Mini 7’s in Ballygunner GAA grounds which is due to start at 11am. We have been training at break times over the last few weeks and the girls are all looking forward to getting started. Thanks to Mrs. Shanahan for looking after the team.

We always encourage parents along to the games and all support is very much appreciated!

World Book Day

World Book Day takes place on Thursday, March 6th. The girls are welcome to dress in a character of their choice from their favourite book. We strongly encourage all children to be as inventive as possible with their outfits and to reuse and recycle materials as much as possible.

Say Yes to the Languages Programme
The girls in 5th and 6th class started their first of 10 Spanish lessons as part of the Say Yes to the Language Programme. We are delighted to have Ms. Grace from the Abbey C.C. to deliver the lessons which will take place every Monday.

Dates for your diary
Monday and Tuesday March 17th and 18th – School closed (St. Patrick’s day plus one extra day)

Wednesday March 26th – Half day (Junior and Senior Infants 12.10pm) (1st to 6th class 12.15pm).
Note; This additional half day has been added to the school calendar to facilitate staff in-service training.

Yours sincerely,

J.Nagle

Principal

It’s been a busy term so far in Maths. The girls were learning more about place value – Hundreds, Tens and Units. The were enjoying using various estimation strategies during this activity. When learning about 3D shapes, we used solid 3D shapes to help us discover the properties of them – faces, sides, corners, curved surfaces. They used mini marshmallows and cocktail sticks to recreate these shapes. However the marshmallows went missing after this activity!!! We then went outdoors on a 3D maths trail where we discovered that there are a lot of 3D shaped items in the world around us – Builders cones, sphere cctv cameras, cuboid peers, cube jigsaw seat, cylinder poles!

When learning about sound in Science, the girls were given the freedom of the classroom to create a new instrument that would produce various sounds. Great team work during this activity. The girls presented their items and explained how they created them. While learning about the force of Water and Air, the girls did a lot of experimenting to show the pushing and pulling forces that air and water can do. The girls used balloons, straws and paper plates to show the force of air in action. And they showed how moving water can move their tinfoil created boats!

The girls became very good with their hands in Art class by creating pinch pots, a form of transport and fossils using clay. The final creations were beautiful. With Spring in the air, the girls designed bright and cheery dreamcatchers to hang in their rooms.

All the girls look forward to Little Red Kettle coming every year. It was a really fun play this year entitled ‘How to steal the world’, with a few fun characters from 2nd class added in!!