Second Class celebrated their First Penance in St. Peter & Paul’s Church, Portlaoise.

Sixth class received the Sacrament of Confirmation on Saturday the 21st March. What a beautiful day it was filled with plenty of spirit, smiles and sunshine!

Our school experienced all things Irish recently celebrating St. Patricks day with a Céilí Mór. Magnificent musicians filled the hall with fantastic Irish tunes, dazzling dancers entertained us with some Irish dancing, and we were serenaded by 6th class boys singing their version of ‘Ireland’s Call’! Plenty of ‘craic’ was had by all!

5th and 6th classes have started training twice a week for their Class to 3K programme. All pupils are taking part in short runs which they will build up to 3km in 6 weeks. All are agreed that it is already having a positive effect on their overall fitness.

Friday 13th March was our Green School Action Day. We had Paul Finch here doing his Peddle Power workshop. He demonstrated numerous devices using ‘muscle power’, explaining that in many parts of the world people do not have the luxury of electricity and have to come up with other ingenious ways to power their pumps, washing machines and even blenders. Paul had his own peddle powered blender and treated the children from 3rd up to 6th classes with a sample of muscle powered smoothie. Delicious and very interesting was the verdict all round! Thanks Paul.

Yesterday, we had a visit from Ann-Marie Kelly, Environment Awareness Officer in Laois County Council. She called in to meet with the Green School committee on behalf of An Taisce, who run the Green School programme. However, she wasn’t expecting to meet Guzzler and Nibbler aswell and got quite a surprise! After a chat about what we had been doing whilst working on the energy theme of the programme and a brief visit to 4th Class, she said she was delighted with the efforts of the committee and the energy awareness amongst the children. She even gave us some pencils made out of recycled money!

Our Green School Committee: Samantha, Daniel, Anna, Briony, Niamh, Óran, Colm and Jack

Ann-Marie with our committee – and of course Nibbler and Guzzler!

We celebrated World Book Day on March 5th. We listened to stories with a farm theme, we looked for words we know, we selected a book to bring home and we drew a picture of our favourite character. We love books!

Noel and Aishling from 4th Class take their turn to do a quick litter pick after break, but there’s not much to be found. Good job!

Meanwhile, in 1st Class, Robyn and Conor check out the classroom temperature and compare it with outside. Ideally the room should be around 18*C.