WORMS! WORMS! WORMS!

Check out our wormery in a recycled 5 Litre water bottle. We are not sure where they went to after the weekend though!!

The Junior Room explored the Oak tree behind our poly tunnel today and planted acorns

Our Fresh Air Club is up and running for the Spring Term. Based on the principles of Forest School our children are learning all about our extensive school grounds and the flora and fauna that we share it with. All that and we are also having a lot of fun. 

We are so excited to have had the opportunity to create a better future for the generations of children who will attend Eglish NS. We have planted 100 trees for you. Though they are small now, they, like dreams, will grow and flourish. Sincerest thanks to each and every family who came to plant trees in this special event.

We are delighted to announce one of our Senior Infants as Head Gardener 2017. With tireless work, he weeded, planted, moved and made sure the sensory garden and the polytunnel were in ship shape for our end of year celebrations.  Well Done

The Middle and Senior Room Students are delighted to meet up with children from local schools in the Go Games Series. Thanks to Ger for organising.

Aoife, from Dog's Trust, visited with informative workshops on keeping our dogs healthy and caring for them.

We learned 

• Chocolate is like poison to Dogs
• Use the X Factor if a dog is jumping up on you and you don't like it
• Use 'Safe hands' when approaching a dog 

Thanks Aoife and Dog's Trust.

We visited Bannerton's Woods to see the carpet of bluebells last week. We sat in silence and heard the beautiful birdsong and buzzing insects.

Our Erasmus team have just returned from the final trip in this project. See how they got on on Poland's Baltic Coast. Follow the link here.

Eglish NS go to Poland

Ms Moore has been taking part in the Teachers in Residence with Curum at NUIG and together with the Senior Room pupils we have been learning all about Parkinsons' Disease and the medical devices that can be used to treat it. Check out the jelly brain and simple equipment we used to study how to make medical devices.

 Thank you Operation Transformation

https://twitter.com/EglishNs/status/839133181446144000/video/1

See the article Eglish NS features in, written by Katherine Donnelly entitled 'Power of positive leadership on schools'.

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/education/going-to-college/power-of-positive-leadership-on-schools-35451279.html

YES. Our principal Siobhan Keenan Fitzgerald won the IPPN Leadership Award for 2017. See her own words here.

 They even wrote a poem about it!

In January, we went on an Erasmus trip to Finland.  It was an amazing educational experience and we had a lot of fun.  Click on this link to see our adventure: Eglish NS visits Finland.

We received the "Discover Primary Science Award' again this year for excellence in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects.

Very proud of the demographic make-up of our school, we actively foster and create a safe, supportive environment in which ALL of our students feel cherished, stimulated and proud to be the best version of themselves. For us it's about mutual respect.

We see a huge opportunity, through nurturing all our students’ self-worth and self-confidence for us to challenge any existing prejudices in society and move beyond them.  We aim to empower our students to be ‘Changemakers’, role models for their brothers, sisters, cousins and neighbours.  Through encouraging creativity, we help every child find their passion and interest and develop it.  This year our students wrote, produced and acted in their own Irish play.  Making and selling their own crafts at our annual ‘Bring and Buy’ Sale, entrepreneurial skills are developed.

We frequently and actively celebrate diversity in all its forms, always reinforcing that ‘We are all, more alike than different’.  Erasmus projects give us a deepened sense of how small our world is.

Through School Self Evaluation, Oral Language was identified as most in need of focus and attention.  With one third of students assessed as having a Speech and Language Difficulty, another big dilemma was the apparent reticence of students from the Travelling Community to share information about their backgrounds.  Concerned also about how much time many students seemed to spend passively on Technology in their free time, to the apparent detriment of their communication skills, here lay the challenge and here lay the opportunity. 

We are a small school with a big vision, a vision of all our children communicating clearly and confidently, expressing coherently their thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams, listening empathically to one another, developing keen skills of evaluation and using technology as the tremendous tool that it is to enhance their presentations but not being mastered by technology. 

Using the ‘LET’s Stand’ (Listen, Evaluate, Talk, Stand) programme  we encourage, enable and empower students to stand and present in front of an audience a minimum of 10 times a year, in every year of their Primary School Education.  Each child speaks on topics relevant to their lives, all the while developing, step-by-step specific Public Speaking skills.  Peer and Teacher feedback and evaluation is positive and specific.  We get excited about topics that excite our students.  ‘LET’s Stand’ targets the development of children’s Oral Language, Confidence and Public Speaking skills at a time when they, themselves most want to talk. This also feeds into the development of positive mental health practises. 

History boasts plenty of examples of great orators who have changed the world by standing up and speaking out.  We are creating confident, communicatively competent orators for the future.  Positive, powerful and passionate advocates for themselves and their communities.

Encouraging our students to talk has been easy because they want to be heard.  Slightly more difficult is creating the safe, supportive environment in which this can happen.  By spending the time initially on clearly outlining and explaining the simple, respectful rules for ‘Listening’, ‘Evaluating’ and ‘Speaking’, the rest more easily falls into place. 

Discrete Oral Language time can be used for student presentations while many projects are easily linked to other curriculum subjects.  Assigning preparation of oral projects for homework is a great way of getting the parents and extended family involved, promoting further increased communication and sharing of stories and culture at home.  It’s homework that is not confined to being completed around the table.

Our staff conscientiously model the skills we aim to develop in our students.  We actively listen to them.  Working as a team, individual members of staff take the lead in their preferred areas of interest and create real opportunities for students to do the same.

We realise that not simply teaching, we are moulding the young minds of rural Ireland, cultivating confident, clearly communicating leaders who can and will change the world for the good of us all.

The children have been exploring the big field and the many wild flowers that grow there during the recent spell of hot weather here at Eglish.

This year we are working towards our Green Flag for Energy.  We are keeping a close eye on how much electricity we use and how we can help our school to be more energy efficient.  Will from St. Brigid's Garden presented some excellent, informative workshops in our school on February 01st.  We learned a lot from these interactive workshops.  Thanks Will and Guzzler.

The Middle and Senior Rooms are taking part in the Scoil Dramaíocht competition in early February. Our play was written by a number of students in 5th and 6th Class and commemerates the 1916 Rising with a modern twist. Well done. 

If anyone would like to help out with costumes (particularly soldier costumes) and painting the backgrounds please contact Ms Moore. We welcome everyone's participation to get the show on the road!

This year we went carol singing to save money for our school . It was great  fun and we raised over 400 euros !!

Check out all the cool activities and FREE workshops at Galway Science & Technology Festival Exhibition - Sunday 22nd November 2015. 

http://www.galwayscience.ie/