St. Cronan's School
SUMMER 1996 NEWSLETTER
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Au Revoir!
This is the last Newsletter of the 1995/96 year. If you have any comments, suggestions or
complaints we'd be delighted to hear from you. All replies to the Principal, please. We'd like to wish a special 'au revoir' to our 6th Class pupils. We hope they have enjoyed their time in St. Cronan's and we hope they will keep in contact. Finally, have a great Summer and don't despair, there are only 66 days holidays.
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New School Plans Arrive
The plans for the new school were received last month from the building section of the
Department of Education. It is hoped that they will be ready shortly to be submitted for planning permission following the inclusion of a number of alterations proposed by the Board of Management, the parents committee and staff. Should our project be granted permission to proceed we will then be told by the Department if and when the necessary finance will be made available to us as promised.
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A WOMAN'S WORK IS NEVER DONE!!!
June 9th - time to sit back, relax and get into the Summer mood. Not quite, if you are one of the brave ones who have entered the Evening Herald / Dunnes Stores Women's Mini Marathon. And we are very lucky that 34 of these 'masochists' have decided to run for St. Cronan's School. After months of training and practising the day of reckoning has arrived and the runners have our good wishes, admiration and gratitude to keep them company in the big event.
The volunteers are:- Hoon Kelly, Siobhan Overson, Michelle Talbot, Fiona Molloy, Margaret Shelley, Anne Ivory, Clare Dornan, Mairead Nolan, Melissa Connaughton, Barbara Lynch, Irene Banahan, Anne Longwill, Roisin Flynn, Anne Scully, Adrienne Hannon, Mary Lewis, Carmel Devlin, Mary Harris, Geraldine Dunne, Clare Benson, Celine O'Toole, Linda Dunne, Felicity Walsh, Brenda Enright, Mary Brandon, Marie Megannety, Margaret O'Brien, Kathleen Quinn, Marian Byrne, Adrienne White, Madeline O'Hanrahan, Geraldine Byrne, Geraldine Phelan and Caroline McGraynor.
All sponsorship money from these runners will be donated to our Building Fund. You can help the fund raising without going through the pain barrier! We still need people to collect sponsors on their behalf. Sponsor cards are available from the Office or from Felicity Walsh. We urge you to ask your friends, relative, enemies, neighbours and pets to sponsor any of our runners.
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Camánaíocht
At the time of going to print, the school hurling team is taking part in the North-East Wicklow Schools Hurling Competition. We have had 3 matches to date, winning one, drawing one and losing one. Our latest result was a victory over Kilcoole. It was a keenly contested match with some lovely hurling form both sides. Our boys gave a great display of ground hurling, of which they should be proud. Well done to all concerned. Training will continue, as usual, during big break. The panel is: Colm Bradley, Alan Higgins, Charles Robinson, Christopher Doyle, Barry Edward Byrne, Fionnan Beirne, Glenn Phelan, Andrew Brennan, Alan Groarke, Stephen Nangle, Aaron Horan, Myles Muldowney, Darragh O'Hanrahan, Darrell Campbell, Patrick Lee, Daire Meehan, Mark Teehan, Mark O'Reilly, Brian Purcell and Barry Hanna.
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Confirmation
Congratulations to the pupils of 6th Class who celebrated their confirmation on Friday 26th and Saturday 27th, April. Those from Queen of Peace parish were confirmed by Archbishop Desmond Connell, who again did the honours in Holy Redeemer confirming pupils from Mr. Barry's class. Bishop Donal Lamont confirmed the pupils from Ms. O'Sullivan's class.
This was the culmination of a lot of meetings involving teachers and parents, and visits from Fr. Gerry and Fr. Pat. A special Faith Friend Programme for pupils was run over five weeks prior to the ceremony with the help of a group of 12 parent volunteers. Thanks to all who assisted in making the days special for the boys and in particular to Anne Daly who co-ordinated the programme, Mrs. Doherty, Mrs. Conway, Mrs. Teehan and the parish teams from the respective parishes.
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First Holy Communion
Congratulations to all the boys who made their First Communion recently. Our special thanks goes to the many people who helped the boys in their preparation, Mrs. Fay and Mrs. Nolan (Teachers), Mrs. Felicity Walsh and Mrs. Dunleavy (Prayer Friends), all the Faith Friends and the co-ordinator for Queen of Peace, Catherine Kennedy and for Holy Redeemer, Liz Reynolds.
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Clann Lir
Twenty seven pupils from 5th and 6th class have spent a weekend at the Clann Lir Irish College in Coole, Co. Westmeath. They all had a range of activities organised for them including soccer, basketball, hockey, athletics and Irish dancing. All conversation during the weekend was through the medium of Irish. Thanks to Bríd Meehan for organising the weekend.
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Photography
A group of 6th class pupils participated in a photographic project recently organised by the Star Child Festival Committee. They were given instruction on how to take photos and then were taken to the Signal Art Gallery to develop their films. The prints were displayed at 4 locations in the town during the Star Child Festival weekend. Well done to all who participated.
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Camcorder Classes
A camcorder course for pupils and parents under the guidance of Ian Roller has just finished. The budding directors learnt not only how to use the camcorder but also how to interview and dub on soundtrack. They set up and made a 'commercial' as part of the course. We hope to run another course in September and to use the camcorder to make mini projects on local history and local geography.
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Art Week
An Art Week will be held in the school from June 10th to 13th. This is being organised by Ms. Patricia O'Farrell who has a wealth of teaching experience, having been head of the Art Department in St. Kilians Community School and teaches from her studio at Dunville, Upper Dargle Road.
Incidentally we had a request recently on the Internet from the Museum of Living Art in Los
Angeles who were impressed with our art syllabus, requesting samples of our pupils' art to be scanned to them as part of a global children's art display.
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Sailing and Canoeing
We had hoped to organise sailing and canoeing lessons for the boys before we break up for holidays. Unfortunately Bray Sailing Club have told us that their insurers have insisted that participants in any of their courses must belong to member families. However, they are investigating ways around the problem and promised to contact us again.
The problem with the canoeing is have a fully qualified person to give instruction. The instructor who was willing to give the lessons is now unfortunately unavailable so we are seeking another qualified person.
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Substance Abuse Talk
Peter Somers from the IDEAS group conducted an excellent discussion with the 6th Class pupils and their parents on substance abuse recently. His realistic approach and in-depth knowledge of youth culture helped parents in particular to appreciate the reality of what pressures young people face today.
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E-Mail
The boys in the Computer Club have been attracting E-Mail from all over the world recently. As one of very few Irish schools on the Internet, our home page has generated a lot of interest from pupils and teachers in Canada, USA and Australia. Some of our classes are now sending off regular E-Mail. We feel this whole exercise not only motivates the boys to write but also introduces them to people from other countries. Indeed we have has past pupils writing to us from different countries through the Internet, only this week we have had contact with a teacher in Malaysia. If television was credited with establishing the global village, the Internet has helped set up the global classroom.
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Move over Einstein!
St. Cronan's boys are on the scientific trail! The scientific subjects are recognised as being of significant importance in St. Cronan's. Environmental Studies, Biology, Space Sciences etc. etc. are some of the areas of science that are covered. The emphasis is on "hands on" experience through simple experiments. Primary Science teaching calls for a guided discovery approach. The process is just as important as the content! The programme in St. Cronan's follows a line of development, spiral approach as such topics as Air & Gases, Water & Liquids, Light, Colour, Electricity etc. etc. are touched on at every class level but graded to the level of the students. We are again leading the way here as the teaching of Science is not yet compulsory in Irish schools.
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A First for St. Cronan's
JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT PROGRAMME
St. Cronan's has this year introduced a new dimension to the curriculum - a Junior Achievement Programme. Junior Achievement is the largest and oldest not-for-profit organisation dedicated to helping young people understand and experience the world of business while at school. Its mission is "To educate and inspire young people to value free enterprise, understand business and economics and the role of business in a global economy, and to be "work-force-ready" ". At the heart of this partnership between Business and Education is a range of high quality practical programmes delivered in the classroom by a professional business volunteer assisted by the class teacher. The programme is in operation in 85 countries world-wide but this year sees its launch
in Irish Primary Schools. In fact St. Cronan's is the first Irish Primary school to have completed a module of the programme as one of the 6th Classes "graduated" with Certs having successfully completed the K-6 module this week. As it is still in its pilot stage, only 4 classes are involved, but next year the number of classes able to avail of this programme will be increased. We are very grateful to our four business volunteers for giving of their time so generously - Mr. Tim Healy of Healy Hosiery Bray; Mr. Michael Dempsey of Baxter Healthcare, who resides in Bray; Ms. Monica Vikander of Campbell Bewley Group and Mr. Liam Hogan of Deloitte & Touche.
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