To complete our Christmas concert in @Garrymore the pupils sang Daidí na Nollag, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Do You Hear What I Hear?, We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Merry Christmas Everyone. The children performed so well and we are all very proud of them.

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Gortskehy Drama: December 2019 Programme

Stable Manners is a musical packed with humour and great songs. It tells the traditional nativity story from the point of view of the animals in the stable.  Neddy, the horse, has sadly passed away and the animals in the stable are fighting over getting his stall for themselves.

The two angels, Luke and Gabriel, are planning the arrival of baby Jesus and become very unsure about the location with all the fighting. The shepherds and wise men are led by two stars to the wonderful sight in the stable.

The animals see sense after Jesus is born and apologise. They become friends again and decide to celebrate the Christmas spirit. The children performed so well and we were all very proud of them on Friday night. I hope they enjoy looking back on their great performance in the video below.

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First class (2019/20)

(F) Logan, Niamh, Daphny, Ciara, Caitlin, Mark, (B) Donnacha, Darragh, Shay, Frank, Mason

We had a very @ActiveFlag day for our Halloween holidays. The Halloween circuits were great fun and followed by a disco in our costumes. Happy Halloween!

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Halloween Circuits - Middle Room

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Halloween Circuits - Senior Room

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@BioDataCentre  @GreenSchoolsIre

Today we celebrate World Bee Day – 20th May 2019 

Did You Know?

• Irish Bumblebee populations are in decline.
• One third of our 99 bee species are threatened with extinction from Ireland. This is because we have drastically reduced the amount of food (flowers) and safe nesting sites in our landscapes.
• In response this decline and threat of extinction, the National Biodiversity Data Centre coordinated the implementation of the an All Ireland Pollinator Plan( 2015-2020) along with 68 other government and non-government organisations as partners to support the plan.

The All-Ireland Pollinator Plan is about all of us, from farmers to local authorities, to schools, gardeners and businesses, coming together to try to create an Ireland where pollinators can survive and thrive.  Here at Gortskehy, we are committed to playing our part and making our school bee-friendly.

The middle room studied the Junior Pollinator Plan with their teacher, Ms. Thomas. They learnt all about bees and their important role as pollinators.  They also learnt about the life cycle of the bumble bee & what we can do to help our bees survive and thrive.

  

Our school Pollinator & Green School Teams drew maps of the current school grounds.  This was done to identify areas where we can take action to help pollinators. Lots of good ideas that we hope to put into action were noted by our pupils on the walkabout:

• Plant bee-friendly plants in our garden beds.
• Leave narrow strips around our pitch for wildflowers
• Mow our lawn/pitch less frequently – to allow dandelions and clover to grow – food sources for our bees.
• Reduce pesticides – only use it for clearing slippery areas/paths.  Only weed by hand.
• Plant a herb bed – they are an excellent source of food for pollinators.

These maps will be updated to include all the pollinator areas we will develop around our school.  We will monitor and report on bee activity and update our plans annually.

Here are some photos of our pupils planting bee-friendly plants, flowers and herbs in our new Sensory & Biodiversity garden.

   

    

 

 

For more information on what you can do to help the bees – please visit http://pollinators.ie/

@creativeirl @artscouncil_ie  @mus_gen

We were delighted to welcome Zane Kazotniece-Joyce,  a tutor/facilitator working with Music Generation, to our school.  Zane provided a number of workshops on Recycled Music/Wild About Music to pupils in the Junior and Middle rooms.

Within these workshops, the pupils were actively involved in making musical instruments from recycled materials.  They explored sound and rhythms with different musical instruments and natural materials.

As you will see from the photos below, the pupils thoroughly enjoyed these workshops.  Thank you Zane!

Senior Infants (2018/19)

(F) Mark, Ciara, Niamh, Donnacha (B) Frank, Caitlin, Darragh, Daphny, Shay

Well done to everyone who kindly contributed to the Team Hope Shoebox Appeal. Such a kind and generous act, this will bring so much joy to the children who open their special delivery from the boys and girls of Gortskehy this Christmas. This appeal is such a worthy cause as Team Hope give your Christmas Shoebox gifts right into the hands of some of the world’s most vulnerable children – many of whom will receive no other gift this Christmas. For some it’s the first gift they’ve ever received. Thanks also to Veronica for distributing the pamphlets and collecting the shoeboxes from our school.

“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving” Mother Teresa

Here in Gortskehy N.S., we are delighted to announce our involvement with the Digital Schools Excellence programme. We are part of a three school cluster which includes St. Pats BNS, Castlebar and Meelickmore N.S.. We made an application to be involved in this project to the Department of Education and Skills last year and were successful. We will be working as a team over the next 3 years to enhance our teaching and your children’s learning using digital technologies. Each family will receive a copy of our first newsletter below. We are in the process of developing our own website where you will be able to view our ongoing progress throughout the year.

Our class tour for 2018 was to Graune Pet Farm. We all had such a great day out, meeting lots of different animals including Sammy the snake!! Once we finished saying hello and learning about the animals, we had lunch together and then some well deserved playtime. Please see the short video clip below of our day out.

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