A celebration mass was held in Craggagh Community Centre in honour of Mrs Macken’s retirement on Friday 4th October. It was a full house on the night. Pupils, past and present, parents and members of the Craggagh community all gathered together to celebrate with Aingeal.

Fr Michael, Fr Pat and Fr Paddy led us in saying mass on the night. The school choir accompanied by Mrs Clarke played some of Mrs Macken’s favourite hymns and tunes. Mrs Macken even joined in with the choir! The children prayed for Mrs Macken and brought forward some symbols of her teaching career.

After mass, Mrs Macken spoke very fondly of her years in Craggagh and the wonderful relationship that she had with the children, parents and the community. She thanked the Boards of Management, Parent’s Associations and Staff that she had worked with over the years in Craggagh NS.

After mass the celebrations continued with a cup of tea and a chat. A group of Mrs Macken’s past pupils came together to play a selection of tunes that Mrs Macken had taught them over the years.

A huge thank you to all who attended and took part on the night. Your presence was greatly appreciated by Aingeal and her family. We were delighted to be able to give her the send off she deserves! A special thank you to the Parent’s Association who organised parking, set up the hall for mass and served tea, coffee and refreshments on the night. Thanks also to Seán Dwyer for these fabulous photographs.

We had a fantastic night at our Christmas Concert on Wednesday night. The children performed to our biggest audience yet! A huge thank you to all who supported the children on the night.

Thanks again to Seán Dwyer for filming all of the performances on the night. You can find a link to each video below.

Junior Room ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’

Middle Room ‘A Midwife Crisis’

Senior Room ‘Bethlehem – The Musical’

Our Parent Association are holding their annual Easter Bake Sale on April 1st, Easter Sunday. The Bake Sale will take place in the school after 9:30am Mass.

Members of the PA will be available to collect baking from 6pm to 6:30pm on Saturday evening, or before Mass on Sunday morning.

All proceeds raised by the PA are raised in aid of Craggagh National School.

Thank you for your help as always!

As part of the St Patrick’s Day Festivities in Kiltimagh, we participated in a lovely evening of poetry and song with our friends from St Aidan’s NS.

The event was hosted and facilitated by local poet, Terry McDonnagh.

In the weeks leading up to this evening, Terry visited the school a number of times and conducted poetry workshops. Using the theme “Journeys” the children explored the life of Raifteirí through poem and song.

The children composed their own works, some of which were performed on the evening.

Thanks to Terry, Poetry Ireland and the Tourism Association in Kiltimagh.

You can find out more about Terry’s work here.

(Thanks to Mags Hession for the video)

Anthony Broderick, author of The Adventures Jack and Adam series of children books, visited us this week to talk about his work as an author and as an entrepreneur.

So far, Anthony has published 3 books in the Jack and Adam series.

Anthony spoke at length about the writing process, what inspires him and what drives him. He had lots of great tips for the children to help them with their own story writing.

Anthony also spoke about the business side of writing. There’s a lot of work behind the scenes, dealing with publishers, retailers and customers. This part of Anthony’s visit was especially interesting for us as we embark on our Junior Entrepreneur Project.

You can find out more about The Adventures of Jack and Adam here.

Junior Entrepreneur Workshop

We have embarked on another Junior Entrepreneur Adventure!

Our company is still in its infancy, and is as yet unnamed. However we had a very productive workshop last week with “Heritage Expert” Mark Wilson. We began production of our recycled copper key-rings and wooden key-ring holders.

We had a very busy assembly line with children hammering, filing, cleaning, and shaping our products.

We are absolutely delighted with our finished product. They will go on sale after the Easter holidays, with pricing yet to be determined!

Have a look at the pictures and videos below.

(If you are viewing this in your email, you may not be able to view the videos, please follow the link at the bottom of the email or go directly to our blog to view the original post.)

Heritage Workshop with Mark Wilson

We had a brilliant day with “Heritage Expert” Mark Wilson last week. Children from all classes learned about the many uses of the willow tree (sally) as well as a range of other traditional wood crafts.

As you can see form the images below, we had great fun making bunny faces, just in time for Easter!

We are very thankful to our Parent Association for funding this workshop. The workshop is also part funded by the Heritage In Schools Scheme.

Half-day closure on February 14th

Publication of Child Safeguarding Statement and Risk Assessment

Dear Parents,

The school will close at the earlier time of 12pm on Wednesday, February 14^th. This is also the day that the mid-term break begins. We will reopen again on Monday, February 19^th.

This half day closure, in accordance with Circular 0081/17, is to facilitate staff training in the new Child Protection procedures which came into law on December 11^th, 2017.

The Board of Management has recently ratified a new Child Safeguarding Statement (policy) for the school. This is available to view and download on our blog. The staff and Board of Management have also conducted a “Child Safeguarding Risk Assessment”. This too is available to view at the same link. Both of these important documents will be reviewed annually by the Board in the first term of each year.

The full Child Protection Procedures for Primary & Post Primary document may be viewed on the Department’s website at this link.

Yours Sincerely,

Danny Charlton

What a great day we had yesterday! Thanks to all who helped out in any way.

Click on the links below to watch the videos. You should be able to expand to full screen. Thanks again to Seán for videoing the concerts.

Infants

Middle Room

Senior Room

Parent/Teacher Meetings 2017

Parent/Teacher meetings take place next week. This year we are using an online booking system. You can access this here: https://goo.gl/yvn983

All teachers will be available until 5pm on Tuesday evening.  For your convenience however, there are also a number of other time slots available throughout the week with all teachers.

Please let us know if you have any difficulty making an appointment!

Click here to create an appointment: https://goo.gl/yvn983

Mini 7s Success!

“An rud is annamh is iontach!”

The Area 8 Mini 7s trophy will spend (some of) the winter in Craggagh for the first time ever following today’s blitz in Swinford.

A combined team of Craggagh and Straide emerged victorious from a pulsating day’s sport. Victories in the early rounds against Meelick and Midfield/Culmore saw Craggagh/Straide coming up against Foxford NS in the final. Foxford had come through two epic encounters themselves having edged out Kiltimagh in their opening game and being brought to extra time by Bohola.

Extra time was needed again in the final thanks to a great comeback in the second half by Craggagh/Straide who were trailing by 4 points at half time.

In the end, Craggagh/Straide prevailed by 3 points in a hugely entertaining game. Credit must go to both teams for such a great contest.

Meanwhile, our girls were unlucky to miss out on completing a double, going down in the final to an excellent Bohola team.

Our girls’ path to the final was similar to that of the boys, defeating Meelick in the first round and edging out Midfield/Culmore in the semi-final.

The final saw Bohola win out by 3 points in a very keenly contested game.

Many thanks to those who organised today’s events, teachers, referees and all who helped out.

We await confirmation of who the boys will play next.

Our Parent Association AGM will take place in the Community Centre on Monday, October 9th at 9pm.

Notice from our PA is posted below:

After 7 weeks of rehearsals, we finally got the chance to share our performances with you!

Well done to the children in all classes who worked so hard on their routines and to Nikki herself.

Thanks again to our brilliant Parent Association who fund these dance lessons.

All three rooms are in the YouTube playlist below (or scroll down to see videos separately)

**If you are viewing this blogpost in an email you won’t be able to see the videos. Click on the blue link at the top of this message to view this message in your web browser or here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnbY_kJ1eWiB7Asbq_jDTrM8-I-jER9cA to view the playlist directly on YouTube

Senior Room

Middle Room

Junior Room

End of Year Update – Dates For Your Diary

Friday June 16^th

Dance Off! (Modern and Traditional dancing from all classes) 1pm – 2pm

Monday June 19^th

School Sports Day (weather permitting)

Friday June 23^rd     Sponsored Walk, Balla Woods 10am

Monday June 26^th

End of Year Mass and Graduation 7:30pm

Tuesday June 27^th

Last Day of Term

We are setting up an After School Childminding Facility in Craggagh NS from September 1^st 2017.

The facility will be located in the school building (downstairs classrooms) and grounds and will operate from 3pm to 6pm, Monday to Friday. Infants availing of the facility will be supervised from 2pm to 3pm.

Parents availing of the After School Childminding Facility will be able to apply for grant assistance to partially meet payments under the Government’s new “Affordable Childcare Scheme”, which commences in September 2017. Nevertheless, we will be keeping costs as low as possible. This is not a profit making endeavour.

Before we fully establish this facility and outline the cost to parents, we need to ensure that it is viable. Please complete the survey below to help us gauge the level of interest in this facility.

This survey will close on June 9th and we will confirm details of the facility by mid-June.

Please do no hesitate to contact us with any queries.

Further links:

Dept of Children and Youth Affairs Press Release on Affordable Child Care Scheme

Questions and Answers on Affordable Childcare Scheme

Further FAQs on Affordable Childcare Scheme