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.
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.) 
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.
Dear Parents,
The school will close at the earlier time of 12pm on Wednesday, February 14th. This is also the day that the mid-term break begins. We will reopen again on Monday, February 19th.
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 11th, 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
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 16th
Dance Off! (Modern and Traditional dancing from all classes) 1pm – 2pm
Monday June 19th
School Sports Day (weather permitting)
Friday June 23rd Sponsored Walk, Balla Woods 10am
Monday June 26th
End of Year Mass and Graduation 7:30pm
Tuesday June 27th
Last Day of Term
We are setting up an After School Childminding Facility in Craggagh NS from September 1st 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
We had a brilliant morning following the St Patrick’s weekend festivities welcoming Jim, Jim and Patrick to our school. They are members of the Quaker City String Band.
The Jims played alto saxaphone and banjo while Patrick played the double bass (or “bass fiddle” as he calls it!).
We listened to them playing a few tunes and we also played our tin whistles, accordions, guitars and ukuleles.
It was a very enjoyable morning. Thanks to the three gentlemen for visiting and thanks to our wonderful Tourism Association in Kiltimagh for all their hard work preparing for the festival.
Below is a video from the full band’s amazing performance in the New Year’s Day Parade in Philadelphia:
