We are delighted to welcome Niamh Fahey, Ireland and Liverpool footballer,
to St Mary’s tomorrow, Monday 15th March @2 pm for a virtual Q+A session with KS2 pupils.
Niamh has won over 25 caps for Ireland and was named FAI Women’s Senior International Player of the Year. She is currently Liverpool Ladies Captain having previously played for Arsenal and Chelsea.
Niamh has represented her county playing for Galway Ladies. She helped them win their first All-Ireland Senior title in 2004. Niamh also has an All Ireland club medal playing for Parnells in London in 2012.
Thanks to Miss Niamh Murphy for organising this very special event and to Niamh Fahey for taking time from her very busy training schedule to meet our boys and girls. During the session pupils will have the opportunity to ask Niamh questions.
The session will start at 2 pm, a Collaborate link and details will be posted into Google Classrooms tomorrow morning.
A very special Monday afternoon treat for everyone – parents and grandparents are welcome to join.
A BIG congratulations to our very own Miss Murphy who became an All Ireland Rowing Champion at the weekend. Miss Murphy missing her gaelic training, joined St Pat’s Tug of War and Rowing Club, last November.
On Saturday, she took part in the “Irish Indoor Rowing Championships”, an event which usually takes place in Limerick but due to Covid this year was completed virtually. She competed in the ladies 1,000k race and came 1st, not only in her own group but across all age groups in the woman’s category.
An amazing result Miss Murphy, everyone at St. Mary’s is super proud of your achievement, but none more so than the boys and girls of P1 🥇
Please see message from Healthy Kidz below about their “Healthy Kidz Virtual Buddy App” and “Lockdown Activity Packs” free for all Classes P1-P7
Message From Healthy Kidz,
The links below contain Health and Wellbeing activities for each of the different primary age groups. *There is something for every child*. Packs include Exercise videos, Daily Mile targets, Emotional well-being audio, plus Educational worksheets (covering a number of subjects), and Sports challenges. If unable to print worksheets, screen shot for children and allow editing as a photo.
As well as this, every child will have access to Healthy Kidz’s unique and updated Virtual Buddy App. Through this incentive, all involved are encouraged to continue to lead a healthy lifestyle for the remainder of the week. Any activity can be recorded, with trophies and certificates to be achieved. All is explained in the booklet and will run for the next number of weeks. For app registration visit https://healthy-kidz.com/crush-60-minutes-every-day/
Well done to all the P7 students who participated in the Irish Proverb competition in conjunction with Mullaghbawn CLG. Particular congratulations to the winners of first, second & third place. Thanks to Tomás Óg Ó Ceallaigh for organising the competition and providing the great prizes. Tomás Óg was very professional in his approach and his hard work ensured that the children had lots of fun.
Good morning everyone and welcome to St Mary’s Sports Day 2020!
As explained at the start of the week, some members of our P7 class will demonstrate 8 activities for you in the video below. Written instructions are also available through the link at the bottom of the post. You can do as many or as few of these as you please and at a time that suits your family’s schedule. The video will be available all day. You may even wish to create your own programme of events instead. There is no pressure to run a big event at home, do what you can. Today is all about having fun, whatever you get up to. Hopefully, pupils in the older classes will help their younger siblings out if they need. If you do any physical activity today, please capture it and upload photos to your online classroom. Your teacher would love to see them.
To get Sports Day underway, the teachers have come together for a relay race. Check it out in the video. Enjoy the day off school work everyone and have fun whatever you get up to!
As mentioned at the beginning of the week, 79 pupils registered for the Healthy Kidz Virtual Sports Day which is due to take place tomorrow (Saturday) @2pm live on the Healthy Kidz facebook page. We wish anyone taking part in the live event good luck for tomorrow. As of 3pm on Thursday, 15665 points had been registered on the app from 1644 activities by pupils in our school. 23 of our pupils have achieved certificates for logging their activities since the app was launched. Well done to all of these children. Your teachers will upload your certificates to your online classroom for you to download.
A special mention must go to Anya Gartland, Una Kilkenny, Danny Murchan & Canlaoch McNulty who have each recorded a 20-day streak for logging activities on the app. As was outlined in the information shared at the beginning of May, these pupils will be entered into a prize draw for a £20 SPAR voucher. More details for this draw will be available next week. Indeed Anya & Una are the pupils who logged the most points in the entire school (over 2,200 points each). There will be a special prize waiting for the two girls when school re-opens.
In normal times, as we would approach the middle of June our attention would duly shift towards Sports Day. Despite the school building being currently closed, we hope this can still be the case this week.
Since we launched the Healthy Kidz / SPAR Virtual Sports Day on May 11th, 79 St Mary’s pupils registered on the app to take part. Well done to all of these pupils and we wish them luck. As explained at the beginning of May, any pupils who log activities for twenty consecutive days on the app will be entered into a special draw for a £20 SPAR voucher. More details on this will be announced on Friday. The Healthy Kidz Virtual Sports Day will be streamed live on the Healthy Kidz facebook page this Saturday, June 13th @2pm. It will consist of the 8 activities which the children were given the opportunity to practise over the past month (Sprint, Long Jump, High Jump, Egg and Spoon Race, Welly Boot Toss, Superstrong Challenge, Marathon Challenge & Create your own Obstacle Course). As we explained at the time, entering this event was entirely optional and parents / guardians did not have to register if they did not wish.
As a school staff, we felt it was important to mark a school day on the calendar for Sports Day. Therefore, this Friday June 12th has been earmarked for our own St Mary’s Sports Day. For the 79 pupils registered for the Healthy Kidz live event on Saturday, this will serve as a great practice run as the activities we post will follow the same format. If you are not registered to take part in the Virtual Healthy Kidz Sports Day on Saturday, that is no problem at all. You can still have a go at the activities at home on Friday for a bit of fun.
There is no pressure to organise a big event in your garden on Friday. We know how busy you, as parents / guardians, are at home in lockdown. The good news is that there will not be any school work posted to any online classes from Nursery right up to P7 this Friday. A video of some our P7 pupils demonstrating the 8 activities will be posted into all of the online classes @9am on Friday, but please remember that you can do as much or as little of this as you please. You can do it at a time that suits your family. You don’t have to follow the same format as suggested in the video and you may even wish to create your own events instead. Friday is designed to be a day for us to come together as a school community for some fun in our own homes.
A link to the Healthy Kidz guidance booklet which outlines the instructions / coaching tips / equipment needed for the 8 activities can be found below if you want to get a head start. This is the same booklet that was shared on May 11th. All of the information will also be posted into the online classes by class teachers tomorrow. Whatever you get up to on Friday and/or Saturday, we hope that you enjoy it and that the sun shines. If you do any physical activity, make sure to capture it and upload it to your online classes to show your teachers. Have fun!
We had a packed “virtual” house last night as our keen KS2 footballers tuned in to listen to and ask questions from two members of the Armagh County Squad, Eoghan Mc Donnell and Jarly Og Burns. Thank you very much to Eoghan and Jarly Og, who spoke about their own sporting careers as well as answering many questions from the floor, inspiring and encouraging the next generation of players.
Well done also to the KS2 children whose skills at asking questions, talking and listening have really developed through this new medium for teaching and learning, “video conferencing”. Our guests were very impressed by not only the questions asked but also the confidence with which the children can use our video conference platform, Collaborate Ultra. Well done all.
We have a real treat for you this afternoon, when we will be joined by 2 members of the senior Armagh panel: Jarly Og Burns, (Silverbridge) and past pupil (and Mullaghbawn man), Eoghan Mc Donnell.
They have kindly agreed to join us at 5 pm for a chat about their sporting lives and tips for all our budding Armagh players.
A link will be sent to all KS2 pupils, (who have returned their Code of Conduct for video conferencing), through their Google Classroom this afternoon, please log on 10/15 minutes before starting time, and fingers crossed we will have no WiFi problems
A huge thank you to Caroline O’ Hanlon, for taking time out last night to speak with our KS2 girls and their Mums. Caroline told us how she became involved in sport from a young age, through her local Club and Primary School. She spoke about her many achievements, offered tips for continual skills development even during this period of lock-down. She emphasised the importance of sport and exercise on all our health and well-being and encouraged our girls to get involved.
Well done also to our wonderful girls, they had great questions prepared and put them to Caroline with such confidence. They have all taken to this “virtual” world with ease!
Finally a big thank you to Miss Murphy for organising, Caroline is a wonderful role model for all our girls and everyone really took a lot away from the session, thank you.
We are delighted to welcome Caroline O’ Hanlon, footballer and netball player, “virtually” tomorrow evening at 7 pm to speak to our KS2 girls about her participation in sport and busy life as a doctor.
We know many of our girls look up to Caroline particularly for her performance on the Armagh County, Ladies’ Gaelic team but also as the Captain of the Northern Ireland Netball Team, who participated in the World Cup. We know they will be eager to listen to and learn from her great wealth of experience.
There will be time to ask questions, so any girls (or Mums) who wish to, please have your questions noted down. We kick off at 7 pm as always, the virtual room will be open 10/15 minutes before that time for everyone to gather.
All “Code of Conduct Permission” replies, must be returned before attendance and we would want to take any girls who have not used Collaborate Ultra before, on a virtual tour of the video conferencing platform tomorrow afternoon in preparation for the event.
Any Mum who has a boy and not a girl in KS2 and who would like to join us, you would be very welcome, the link can be posted to your son’s KS2 Google Classroom for you. You can contact either one of us at the email addresses below.
