Team Hope’s Christmas Shoebox Appeal is an annual campaign that delivers gifts straight into the hands of children affected by poverty. Often these shoebox gifts are the only gift that a child will receive at Christmas and the joy that they bring is incredible. Thanks so much to everyone for your support of this very worthy cause.

Our Junior room school tour 2023 was such fun! We started our day at the Galway Atlantaquaria in Salthill where we were given a guided tour of the National Aquarium of Ireland. Firstly we met the baby Sea Bream in the big splash tank. We counted how many seconds were between each splash which we now know is 45!

Upstairs we learnt all about Jellyfish and some freshwater fish. We saw a manmade weir for the trout. We also got to feed the Carp and Koi. In the Tropical fish section, we saw beautiful colourful fish and Piranhas. We fed lots of Mullet fish who splashed us all. We saw spider crabs and starfish in the rockpools. Lastly but not least the children got to meet our friends from ‘Sharing a Shell’ story the hermit crab and the sea anemone.

Back downstairs we learnt about some flat fish by the submarine! We saw the adult Sea Bream and some Rays and Sharks!!! This lead us onto the lovely Sea horses and Clown fish (We found Nemo and Dory!), Conger eels and large lobsters. The children also saw some larger sea creatures in the seawater tank, lots of Cod and then Mr. Octopus.

As the day was lovely we spent some time in the playground and had a walk on the Prom before going for lunch in Supermacs. Then thanks to Pádraig our bus driver we were all transported back home. We thoroughly enjoyed our day out, looking forward to the next trip already!! Please take a few minutes to watch a video of our day out, thanks.

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What a fabulous day we had on our school tour 2022. ” This is awesome” was what some of the pupils were saying even before we got to Graune Pet Farm as this was the first time some pupils were ever on a bus! We had lots of singing on the way and the excitement was palpable. Then when we arrived at Graune, the pupils went straight into the indoor play area where they had great fun on the slides. From here we spent some time outside in the sand arena and on the zip lines. Then we stopped for lunch and after that we went on a tour of the farm where we meet the various animals that live there. The pupils got to feed and pet lots of the animals which they all thoroughly enjoyed. Some pupils even exclaimed they could now “talk rooster!”.  After this we had fun and laughs in the outside playground until it was home time. We had one last cuddle with our rabbit friends and then made the journey home. I bet everyone will sleep well tonight after such a brilliant day out together. Here are some pics from our day out!

Following the completion of our 3G pitch last week we’re delighted to welcome David Hughes @garrymoregaa for training on Tuesdays. All pupils will benefit from a GAA training programme in the coming weeks with inter-school competitions expected to resume in March.

Our infant class have surpassed themselves again this year with their participation in the Run up to Christmas Schools Challenge in conjunction with Mayo Sports Partnership. Last year we partook as part of the “Keep Well” campaign and it was a huge success so we decided to join the challenge again this year. The children really enjoy these walks. It is important to keep active even during the winter to help our physical and mental health and wellbeing. So well done boys and girls! I would like to say a big thank to Deirdre Donnelly for helping us run this event. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and all your families a wonderful and safe Christmas!

#mayosportspartnership