Laois school celebrates national awards won in a busy year

There is delight at Laois national school Scoil Fionntáin Naofa in Shanahoe on being the recipient of not one but four national awards in recently.

These included a Green Schools Flag for biodiversity, a Curious Minds Platinum Award for STEM, a Blue Star Flag for all things European related and an Active Schools flag.

The hardworking Green School committee worked tirelessly to promote the biodiversity agenda at school level over the course of the last two school years. The committee worked under the guidance and direction of Assistant Principal 2 and Green Schools coordinator Mrs. Kris Cahill.

Initiatives and projects undertaken by the Green Schools committee included the development of a pollinator/bee garden in the school grounds, installation of new raised beds in the schools vegetable patch and participation in the Birdwatch Ireland Garden Bird Survey. As part of the ‘Heritage in Schools’ scheme, all classes collaborated to construct a willow dome in the school grounds using surplus foliage from the school’s existing willow tunnel. Pupils also had workshops on biodiversity and composting with outside speakers.

The school was awarded a ‘Blast Artist in Residency’ in conjunction with Laois Education Centre in 2023-2024 and Mrs. Cahill’s 2nd to 4th classes explored the theme of biodiversity through the medium of clay with Roscrea based professional artist Monica O’Meara. They used the rich flora and fauna in the local natural environment as a stimulus for creating a large-scale clay installation.

The Green Flag for biodiversity is the school’s fifth green flag to be achieved to date. Mrs. Cahill and representatives of the Green Schools committee attended the Green Schools award ceremony in Kilkenny in mid-April and a very enjoyable day was had by all concerned.

Close links are fostered at school level with local GAA Clubs namely Colt-Shanahoe and Shanahoe Ladies GAA clubs who are great supporters of the school. In conjunction with Colt Shanahoe GAA Club, the school has the support of a qualified coach throughout the year as part of the Games Development initiative.

In addition to this, many girls in the school also play camogie with Clough Ballacolla GAA Club. All pupils in the school had a block of gymnastics lessons facilitated by Laois Sports Partnership this year. Furthermore, all pupils from 1st to 6th Class have swimming lessons each year in Portlaoise Leisure Centre. A block of Tag Rugby is facilitated for all pupils in the school by Leinster Rugby in conjunction with Portlaoise Rugby Club in the Autumn term each year.

All classes in the school engaged in a wide range of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) learner experiences over the course of the school year 2023-2024. A concerted effort is made to ensure that pupils in the school have access to a broad, balanced, relevant and stimulating curriculum across all four STEM areas, while also ensuring that active and collaborative learning is the cornerstone of all pupil learner experiences in this domain.

As well as weekly Science lessons, additional learner experiences in Science include all classes participating in ‘Science Week’ activities in November each year. During Science Week in November 2023, 5th and 6th classes visited Castlecomer Discovery Park which is a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Discover Centre where they undertook a variety of outdoor Science activities using the sylvan setting as a natural learning space.

Different platforms that the pupils were set up on included Khan Academy, Maths Playground, Read Theory and Book Creator. All classes had the opportunity to develop their word processing and typing skills. Pupils in the senior classes became very adept at using Google Classroom as a platform for creating and sharing multimedia presentations. Senior Class pupils also undertook a variety of coding projects using ‘Scratch’. Those in the Sonas, junior and middle classes were introduced to coding using BeeBots and BlueBots which were kindly loaned to the school by Laois Education and Support Centre.

Thanks to Laois Education and Support Centre the pupils in the school also had the opportunity to engage with the VexRobotics programme also. A peer learning approach is adopted in the school when it comes to using technology in that the pupils in the senior classes familiarise themselves with new digital programmes and resources and in turn teach these to the younger classes.

Pupils in 5th and 6th Class were involved in a very interesting and worthwhile Maths initiative this year in conjunction with Laois Education and Support Centre which used the IZAK-9 Cubes Resources as a bridging tool for facilitating a transition programme between primary and post-primary school.

The pupils in 5th and 6th Classes in Scoil Fionntáin Naofa collaborated with 5th and 6th Classes in Tobar an Léinn NS in Raheen, St. Fintan’s Boys N.S in Mountrath and Castletown Primary School together with the Transition Year Students in Mountrath Community School to undertake cognitively challenging Maths tasks using the IZAK9 Cubes resource as a stimulus. The year-long programme culminated in a large-scale Cubeathon event held in Mountrath Community School in April of this year which was facilitated by the creator of the IZAK9 Cubes resource Franz Schindleinwein.

School Principal Barry Whelan who has overall responsibility for Maths in the school was on the organisning committee for this transition programme in Laois Education and Support Centre. The school plans to build on the work achieved to date in relation to the Maths transition programme when it commences engagement in a two year long creative cluster in the Autumn in partnership with Laois Education and Support Centre and the aforementioned three neighbouring primary schools.

In relation to Engineering, pupils participated in a wide variety of experiences for ‘Engineer’s Week’ in March. Their work in this regard was integrated with the design and make element of the primary Science curriculum and to this end they applied the skills of exploring, planning, making and evaluating to their engineering work. Projects undertaken included constructing buildings from paper cups, making fully functioning vehicles from recycled materials and fashioning the Eiffel tower from lollipop sticks, to name but a few.

5th and 6th Classes in the school achieved their third consecutive Blue Star flag this year for exploring the European Union as part of their engagement in the ‘Blue Star’ programme. The idea of the ‘Blue Star’ programme is to foster better understanding and knowledge of the European Union among primary school pupils in terms of how it affects the lives of Irish citizens.

The pupils in 5th and 6th Class opened up meaningful lines of integration between different subject areas by exploring the European Union under four key headings namely: History, Geography, Culture and Creativity while also making key links with key institutions within the European Union. Minister for State in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Laois Offaly TD Seán Fleming visited the school in May to give a presentation to the senior classes on his European portfolio as part of his work in the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The school was also fortunate to be chosen to participate in the ‘Say Yes to Languages’ pilot programme on modern foreign languages funded by the Department of Education in the school year 2023-2024. Participation in the pilot programme enabled pupils in the middle and senior classes to have a block of French lessons with Aurelie Lemoine a native French speaker and qualified teacher in term three.

he school was delighted to be chosen to participate in the ‘Say Yes to Languages’ programme in the coming school year (2024-2025) also.