We had our final assembly of this school year on Thursday morning last. This was an opportunity for us all to reflect on the school year gone by and give thanks for so many positive learning experiences.

We began by congratulating our Senior Girls team on a fantastic victory in their Cumann na mBunscol Final. What an achievement this was. As a school community, it was lovely to recognise this special event in this way.

This was also the final assembly for our 6th Class students, an opportunity for us all to say thank you and well done to Ms.Tierney’s Class. We wish each of our graduating students well always as they depart for Secondary School.

Thank you also to our departing staff members for their hard work, interest and support throughout the past year. We are most grateful to Mc. Nicholas, Ms.Mulligan, Joanna and Sarah for all they have done for us all.

Our teachers then gave a short review of their school year, thanking their students for great work and recognising the many improvements and progression that were in evidence throughout the year before awarding their final Students of the Week. We thank all our students for their hard work in the most trying of circumstances throughout this school year.

Following Assembly, all classes visited Mace for a lovely and well-deserved treat- Icecream for all!! We are so grateful to Conor, Emer, Joe and all the team for their kindness to young and old. As always this was very much appreciated.

This morning we said goodbye to Mrs.Eileen Vesey. Eileen worked in our school from 1981 to 2014, giving a lifetime of service as our School Cleaner and Traffic Warden.

Eileen was central to school life in St.Attracta’s, looking after our pupils and school with great care and attention. She ensured all our students arrived to school and departed safely each day and often went above and beyond the call of her duties. Eileen was always held in the highest regard by her colleagues, our school’s parent body and above all our students for whom she had a kind word to each day.

We offer our deepest sympathies to the Vesey and O’Connell families at this very sad time.

May Eileen rest in peace. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam.

What an afternoon we had at the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence, where our Girl’s team contested the County Final!

It was a great achievement for our school to have a team featuring at this final stage, highlighting also, the great work that is ongoing in Charlestown in the juvenile section of our local G.A.A. Club.

Our opponents Behy NS, Ballina, proved to be very talented and competitive opponents. Despite starting well, our girls were rocked by three excellent goals which saw us level at the midway point of the second half. However, the response was amazing, each player playing their part in a fantastic team performance which ensured we were victorious. It was a performance full of heart, determination and a ‘never say die’ attitude from all. We really were put to the pin of our collars to succeed!

The girls have each put in a huge effort into their training and preparation throughout this year with each panelist contributing so much. It was a wonderful experience to compete on County Final Day and a memory we hope will last with the girls forever.

Finally, a very special word of thanks to our coaches, Ms.Tierney and Gemma Higgins. Thank you also to the many parents, friends, family members, teachers and schoolmates who gave us such great support from the sidelines. We really appreciated this.

Huge congrats to our past pupils Amy Mahon and Jessica Casey, who both are playing starring roles in recent weeks in the Women’s National League for Sligo Rovers.

We are all so proud of the girl’s achievements and have enjoyed following their progress.

We wish Amy and Jessica every success for the season ahead.

Maith sibh a chailiní!

We were delighted on Wednesday, to welcome Simon O’Malley, Mayo Development Officer, Connacht Rugby to school as part of our Active School Celebrations.

Simon carried out workshops with all classes. His sense of fun and energy ensured this was a very enjoyable day, despite the changeable weather conditions.

A special word of thanks to Mr.Rushe who organised Simon’s visit. We look forward to exciting events in the coming weeks as part of the Active Schools Programme.

This year, 5^th Class entered the RDS Science Blast programme with an interesting question:

“Does the colour of food affect it’s taste?… And, do all Skittles taste the same?”

The class came up with this question during class as we undertook the beginning of our study on major systems of the body. The addition of the Skittles part was probably a little bit less science-based and more sweet tooth based…but that’s acceptable too!

The completion of the Science Blast involves many steps. The children learned so much from this seemingly simple question than you could start to imagine. For example, they are all competent and confident in drawing, identifying and explaining the tongue and taste buds, the olfactory system, the digestive system and the nervous system and brain. This is knowledge in line with Secondary school students. Not only do they know this, but they were genuinely eager and enthusiastic in their learning!

The next phase of the process involved investigating our question. The children came up with a taste experiment to test their prediction that colour should not affect the taste. They used apple juice and food colouring to conduct this test. Food colouring does not affect flavour. They then administered individual taste tests with 44 students from 1^st and 2^nd classes and the results were very surprising! Only 4 children identified that all three juices tasted the same. The vast majority described the juices as having different fruit flavours.

We then researched previous scientific studies in the area of the psychology of taste perception. One American study had coloured steak and chips and conducted the test in a darkened room. When the lights were lifted, some of the participants got sick when they saw green steak and blue chips! The children were amazed by the impact colour can have on our perception of taste. We have come to the conclusion that colour has a major effect on taste and taste is an experience which is impacted on by all of our senses.

The children created displays to showcase all of their hard work and they had a virtual judge assessment on Wednesday, April 5th. The culmination of all of their effort was evident to see as they confidently displayed their presentation and knowledgeably answered all of the judge’s questions. Mrs McDonagh could not be prouder of all of their individual and collective input. They were a credit to themselves and showed maturity and knowledge far above 5^th class standard, as you will see from the judge’s feedback.

It is so positive to see the children involved in initiatives such as this as they have learned so much both in scientific knowledge and vital life presentation skills. The children enjoyed the programme so much and almost learned by osmosis through their immersion in the topic in question. The promise of Skittles as the final experiment definitely was the icing on the cake. We can now conclusively state that the colour of food does affect its taste and all Skittles definitely do not taste the same!

Please note our judge’s feedback:

“Wow, what an impressive class of young boys and girls! I really enjoyed listening to them explain in great detail the different stages involved in their project, “Does the colour of food determine its taste?”. The children were so articulate and confident in delivering their presentations.

From their interesting research methods; investigating the olfactory system and specific taste areas of the mouth; fair testing with their experiments by having 44 people taste test both normally and some blindfolded and their surprising conclusion – every aspect of this project was well thought out and explained. 

I love the fact that one of the children in the class, Adam actually came up with the project title and his classmates all contributed to finding out the answer! Well done, a great example of collaboration which is so important.

The information that was presented was explained clearly and understood well by the children. In particular, I was really impressed by the recall of facts on the tongue and what different parts of the tongue detect and identify different flavours. The details recalled on the senses and the body were that of Leaving Cert Biology students – a real credit to the teacher, Ms McDonagh, and the class for taking it all in!

The PowerPoint presentation was wonderfully colourful and clearly laid out. The results were easy to follow and made for an interesting read. Taste really is an experience and that is why different people have different taste preferences.

Well done to all of the boys and girls in 5^th Class, thank you for inviting me into your lovely classroom, I hope you enjoyed your skittles in the afternoon!

Well done again!”

Annaliese McConnell

We were delighted to participate in the Hurling for Hope Jersey Day on Friday March 4th. This, to support two charities close to our heart’s here in school, the Irish Motor Neuron Disease Association and Mayo Roscommon Hospice.

Thank you to all our students, teachers and family members who supported this fundraiser. It was a great sucess raising €500 for a very worthy cause.

Should you still wish to contribute, you can do so using the link below:

https://www.idonate.ie/fundraiser/11423049_hurling-for-hope.html

We wish all involved well.

What an exciting day we’ve had in school as we opened our School Library to our students for the first time to coincide with our World Book Day celebrations.

Each of the children received a precious library card before choosing a book to borrow from Gemma our very efficient librarian! We’re certain this will a great resource here in school and a visit the children will look forward to each week!

A special word of thanks to Paul, for his vision and hard work in preparing our library. Ms.Horkan and all our wonderful staff for their help and guidance as we prepared for today’s celebrations.

Finally, a very special word of thanks to Gemma who has brought this project together. We really appreciate all her effort and hard work.

Third and Fourth Class this afternoon were very fortunate to visit the Arts Centre in Charlestown and go behind the scenes to enjoy a fantastic project ‘The Light Brigade’ by Tom Meskell.

Tom and his equally talented colleague Tommy Casby, have been working extremely hard sculpting paper lanterns in the shape of life-size horses. This work, will be part of a large exhibition of paper lanterns which will be exhibited in Connolly Barracks, Longford, on February 25th-27th (5 pm -8 pm).

The children of 3rd and 4th class loved learning about the process of how these beautiful pieces of art were created.

A very special word of thanks to Tom (facilitator for our Creative Schools Cluster) for inviting us to see how his wonderful work is progressing.

It was a lovely treat for our students to enjoy.