We wish all our pupils and their families safe and happy summer holidays. We wish well to our 6th class pupils who will begin their secondary education in September. We look forward to welcoming all our other pupils back to Scoil Mhuire, along with our new Junior Infants.
School re-opens on Friday, 1st September 2017 at 9.15am.
On Thursday June 15th the pupils, staff and Board of Management of Scoil Mhuire Knockavilla came together to honour Ms Maria O’ Donoghue, who retired in January, having taught in Knockavilla for more than thirty years.
Proceedings began with the celebration of the Mass by Fr. Jim Egan P.P. in the school hall. This lovely ceremony was attended by Maria and her husband Tom, as well as members of her family, many former members of staff, representatives of the B.O.M. and of the parents, all the school pupils and current members of the school staff. The beautiful Irish hymns, which have been firm favourites in Scoil Mhuire for many generations, were sung very movingly and tunefully by the school choir, adding greatly to the poignancy of the ceremony.
Following the Mass, the School Principal, Ms Eleanor O’ Dwyer, thanked Maria for sharing her professional expertise and kindness with the pupils of the Knockavilla community throughout her teaching career. During her time in Scoil Mhuire Ms O’ Donoghue taught all age groups. She always taught with great dedication, thoroughness and kindness. Her classroom was a happy, busy place, where her pupils received an excellent education. Maria, like generations of National teachers before her, brought the message of Christianity into her pupils’ lives in a practical, concrete manner. She encouraged them to do the best that they can do and to use and develop the talents they have been given. In her many years in Knockavilla NS she was always willing to do the best for her pupils – always willing to investigate new and innovative teaching methods and programmes, while retaining the best of tried and tested and more traditional teaching methods. Throughout her career Maria engaged whole-heartedly in continuing professional development and devoted great time to extending her skills and knowledge for the benefit of her pupils.
Whatever role Maria undertook in Knockavilla she carried out to the best of her ability. School tours, school sports days, school book fairs were planned in great detail with many hours of organisation and work making each event seem effortless on the day. But her colleagues know how much work behind the scenes goes into these events. Also, when the Parents’ Association was established in Knockavilla, Maria’s support and help did much to help its development. The members of the Parents’ Association are very grateful to Ms O Donoghue for the many evenings she gave up her free time to journey out to the meetings in the school.
Ms O’ Dwyer spoke of Maria’s love of literature and language and of her great expertise in these areas. Her pupils have benefitted from this knowledge as have her colleagues. Her use of language and her ability to sum up an individual or indeed a situation has often caused great merriment amongst her fellow staff.
On a personal note, Eleanor O’ Dwyer paid tribute to Maria for her great support to her as school principal. “You always took your role as Special Duties Teacher and Acting Deputy Principal very seriously. You devoted great energy and time to these positions and helped me greatly. As a teaching Principal I appreciate all that support enormously.”
“We will miss your good company, your kindness and dedication here in Scoil Mhuire. You will always be welcome here. I and everyone here would like to wish you a very happy, long and healthy retirement with your husband Tom.
Ta súil againne go léir anseo go mbeidh saol fada buan agat as seo amach a Mháire. Go raibh míle maith agat as ucht an méid oibre iontach atá déanta agat anseo i gCnoc a’ Bhile.Go néirí an t-adh leat i gconaí.
Tributes were paid to Maria by Kay Beardmore, Cathaoirleach BOM and Fr. Jim Egan P.P Knockavilla-Donaskeigh. These speeches also emphasised Ms O Donoghue’s professionalism and kindness throughout her career.
Following the speeches and tributes Ms. Kay Beardmore presented Maria with a beautiful painting on behalf of the BOM of Scoil Mhuire. Pupils, Aoibheann, Shiva and Darragh presented Ms O’ Donoghue with some beautiful pottery and a card signed by all the pupils.
Maria thanked everyone for their great kindness to her. She complimented the pupils on their harmonious singing throughout the Mass. She spoke of her time in Scoil Mhuire fondly, but now is ready to enjoy the next part of her life with her husband Tom.
Mrs Tierney and Mrs Dalton teamed up for a third time this year to conduct a series of lessons with 3rd and 4th class based on the book Henry’s Freedom Box. The story is based around Henry, an African American slave working on a plantation in Virginia in the 1800’s and charts the course of his ups and downs as a slave and his eventual escape to freedom in Pennsylvania. He travelled in a small wooden crate for 27 hours to achieve this which is how he earned his nickname Henry ‘Box’ Brown. We explored a little of the history of slavery in America, and listened to Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.
The children created their own Freedom Tree.
We did a set of station activities on the theme and content of the story.
Finally, the pupils each wrote a Freedom acrostic.
Following on from the success of our senior pupils linking with our junior pupils for the Playground Games Initiative, Mrs Tierney’s class got together with Ms Gleeson’s class for a very enjoyable paired reading activity where the pupils read together a book chosen from the Infant library. It was wonderful to see the older and younger pupils enjoying reading together, and spending time with each other in an informal atmosphere.
We continued with our very popular playground games initiative this summer, with Mrs Tierney’s class pairing up with Mrs Flynn’s class on this occasion. The pupils in 3rd and 4th learned and practised a total of 10 playground games, which they then taught to Mrs Flynn’s class and played the games with them one afternoon per week over a 5 week period. The top 5 games were voted on by the junior pupils and were repeated on the last week. The most popular games were The Troll’s Road, Sheep sheep come home, Red light green light, What time is it Mr Wolf? and Spies. We hope the children will continue to enjoy playing these games in the yard at school, and at home during the summer holidays.
Written by Amy Breen, 3rd class
Written by Sofia Bondarenko, 3rd class
Written by Lucy Kate Abbott, 4th class
Drawn by Abbie Shanahan, 3rd class
Written by Tom O’ Driscoll, 4th class
Written by Aoibhe Guilfoyle, 3rd class
Written by Ruby Murphy, 3rd class
Written by Becky Farrell, 3rd class
Drawn by Aaron Horgan, 4th class
Friday, 16th June 2017 was the day for our much anticipated Sports Day 2017. The colour teams were ready to take on whatever fun activities lay in store.
With running races, relay races, potato and spoon races, wheelbarrow races and three legged races, the morning was action packed.
After a well earned break the teams returned to the field to take on the obstacle course, tug of war and to test their ball throwing skills in the specially prepared throwing board.
Even the staff couldn’t resist having a turn at this specially prepared activity, with Mr Moran scoring a perfect 3 out of 3!
The Parents Association arrived with the traditional ice cream treat which was most welcome. Many thanks to the parents and past pupils who popped in to prepare the yummy treat, and to John Ryan and Templetuohy Foods for sponsoring the ice cream again this year.
After lunch, it was time for the much anticipated school hurling league final between Dublin and Waterford. It was a thrilling encounter which saw Waterford well in the lead at half time. However, the Dublin team, under captain Corey McGrath, gave their all in the second half to emerge victorious with the final score: Dublin 4-2 to Waterford 2-4. Medals were presented to both Waterford and Dublin on this super school occasion.
The awards for Girl and Boy Player of the Tournament were also presented to Róisín Astwood and Corey McGrath.
Medals were also presented to the U13 Ladies Football team who won their blitz in Monroe on 9th June.
All agreed it was a fantastic day, and much appreciation is due to Mr Moran and his back room team on organising Sports Day 2017.
Mr Moran’s class have been reproducing their very own Claude Monet inspired masterpieces. We have alot of budding young artists in our midst.
Our U 13 ladies football team were winners on the day at the blitz in Monroe on June 9th. The team is pictured below and were presented with their medals at the prize giving on Sports Day.
