Carnival Floats in 1st class for Engineers Week

Today 1st class treated the whole school to a Carnival parade. They worked really hard all week making their floats for homework and today they got to show the whole school the fruits of their labour. The atmosphere was electric on the court!

Rainforest Houses in 1st class during Engineers week

The past number of weeks 1st class have been learning all about Brazil. This week during Engineers week they made some rainforest houses. Check them out!

Science in 2nd class

Sunrise hike

On 31st of January our 2nd class pupils and their parents made the hike to Gossan Stones which frame the Equinox sunrise. They wrapped up and set off on their hike in darkness and were delighted to be met with a magnificent sunrise before making their return journey back to school for their day of lessons. Huge well done to everyone who completed the hike, this may become a regular hike for us here at Nun’s Cross!

Well-being week 2025

During well-being week we took a break from homework and instead used our well-being wheel for suggestions for alternative exercises and activities to engage with in our evening times. Our junior classes took part in co-operative games as arranged by our Active Committee. During these games the children from all 4 junior classes were mixed into teams, where they had to work together to succeed. Our senior classes did well-being stations with our senior teachers for an afternoon, trying out yoga, art through music and co-operative games.

We would like to say a huge thank you to Felisity who kindly gave her time to do karate with all classes during the week.
Our Well-being week finished on Valentines day with a lovely church service which was led by our junior classes and attended by our parents.

Leinster Swimming

Our wonderful Lily who is in 6th class swam for Nuns Cross NS in the Leinster minor schools meet. which was held on Saturday January 18th. She qualified in all 3 events for the Nationals on 30th March.  These include the 100m individual medley, the 50m freestyle and 50m butterfly. We are incredibly proud of her achievement and wish her all the very best of luck in the Nationals.

Lily and Freddy also got to meet Olympic swimmer Ellen Walsh! 

3rd & 4th class Boys Hurling Blitz

Last week our 3rd & 4th class boys (and girl) travelled to Bray to compete in the hurling blitz organised by Cuman na mBunscoil. We were immensely proud of the team work and determination shown on the day. The children played with great skill and confidence, winning all their matches. We would like to thank Brian along with our 6th class trainers who practiced drills with us in the lead up to the blitz.

Tag Rugby Autumn Internationals

On Thursday our wonderful Active Committee arranged a tag rugby blitz which was enjoyed by all classes. The teams included Ireland, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina to represent our favourite rugby team (Ireland) and their opponents for the Autumn internationals. We were extremely lucky to have the weather on our side. We would like to say a huge thank you to our Active Committee for organising a fun filled day for all of us. Come on Ireland!!!

Anti-Bullying Week 2024

This week we celebrated anti-bullying week in Nun’s Cross. As part of our Bí Cineálta anti-bullying policy development, we decided it would be a great idea to spend the week looking into what bullying is, how if effects children, the role of bystanders and the importance of telling. Our senior classes completed the FUSE anti-bullying programme for their specific classes and Zippy’s Friends and circle time were used in the junior classes. Our student council also ran a poster competition and they announced the winners during assembly on Friday. Well done to all the children for getting involved. Posters will be displayed throughout the school to remind everyone to be kind and not to bully.

Avondale Trail Challenge

On Tuesday 32 athletes from 3rd - 6th class travelled to Avondale to complete the trail challenge. In absolutely terrible conditions with freezing temperatures and heavy rain, the children ran their hearts out to complete the 2.5km circuit. We are once again so proud of the children who showed superb grit and determination to complete the course on the day. On our return to school we warmed up with some hot chocolate as a treat. This challenge concludes our cross country season and also our running club for the winter.

Science Week 2024

Last week was science week and we enjoyed a week full of predicting, observing, investigating, collecting data, presenting, drawing and labelling diagrams, etc. The children worked really hard during the week to prepare their experiments. Our 1st class worked on volcanoes during the week which eventually erupted on Friday. Videos of the children doing their experiments were also shared with the classes where others preferred to carry out their experiments with a live audience of their classmates on Friday. We also had a special visitor who donated some microscopes to the school. 6th class and 1st class got a lesson on identifying the parts of the microscope as well as using it. They then tutored their peers in other classes on how to use and identify the parts of a microphone. Our Junior Infants were busy all week learning about light, the colour spectrum and shadows. They experimented with making colours, watching how light travelled and making shadows!

Hurling/Camogie in 1st & 2nd class

On 12th November our 1st and 2nd classes participated in a combined hurling/camogie blitz. On the day three teams who represented the school played in 4 matches each on the Astro in Bray Emmets. The children showed great skill and determination on the day, relishing the opportunity to practice their skills in a match setting. We would like to say a huge thank you to Vicky for generously offering her time to coach the children in the weeks leading up to the blitz. We really hope the children will consider playing for their local clubs because there is huge talent there!

Directional Language in Junior Infants

Junior Infants have had lots of fun recently learning all about directional language. They have taken part in lots of hands on activities which incorporated directions and directional language but also lots of creativity, problem solving and engineering in the mix too!

One activity they took part in was to create mazes from our Lego boards and lego to create a clever maze for which a ball or marble needed to make its way through. The children had to work bery patiently in groups to design their own mazes and had to think with an engineering mind to over come problems such as:

• -How do we get the ball to take the path we want it to take?

• How do we stop the ball from bouncing over the lego walls?

• what happens if we make the ball roll faster/slower?

• What happens if the path isn’t wide enough for the ball?

• what happens if we use a dice instead of a ball?

We took some pictures and videos to share of some of our creations! See if you can spot any of the clever booby traps that were included in some of the mazes!

We also put our directional language skills into use with some coding by exploring directions with our school set of BeeBots and BeeBot mats! BeeBots are really clever computer robots that need to be programmed to move. However, if you programme them wrong and give them the wrong directions they will get lost on their town maps and wont make it to the desired location! The children were so good at their directions in Junior Infants however that all the Beebots are accounted for and a search party wasn’t required to get any of them back to the charging dock!

Acorn Picking with the Nature Trust in Ballygannon Wood Rathdrum

Today 1st class were invited to take part in some acorn picking as organised by the Nature Trust in Ballygannon wood in Rathdrum. We began the day with a cosy bus ride to Ballygannon where we had fun chatting to our friends about the trip ahead. When we arrived we had a little snack before we were taken on a guided tour of the woods. We were given identification keys to show us some of the trees/berries/nuts we might see on our journey. We had great fun exploring the woods.

When our guided tour ended we had fun drawing pictures of our most exciting finds during the day before we enjoyed a delicious hot chocolate. The boys and girls would like to say a huge thank you to the Nature Trust for your invitation for today, we had a fantastic time!

Harvest Offerings

On Friday we had our Harvest school service where the children brought in donations of non-perishable food for charity. We donated the food to the Local Lions Club. We wish to say a huge thank you to the school community for your kind donations on Friday.

The classes each made their contribution to the service, which was attended by lots of parents and grandparents, by focusing on where the food we eat comes from.

Katie-George Dunleavy visits Nun's Cross NS

We were delighted to be visited by the super talented paralympic cycling and current World Champion Katie-George Dunleavy who kindly paid us a visit to show off her unbelievable medals. We all gathered in the church and welcomed Katie with an original song ‘Katie-George you’re the best!’ which was written by 3rd class and their teacher, Ms Honner.

Katie-George spoke to us about all the hard work she puts in with her training to enable her to compete at the highest level and we were very impressed to hear that she is already eyeing up the next Paralympics! We were also blown away to hear about her serious injury which she had in the lead up to the paralympics. Thankfully, it didn’t result in her having to pull out from competing. What a brave athlete. Following this the children were given the opportunity to ask Katie-George some questions. We learned that she enjoys porridge for breakfast, she sometimes gets noticed when she’s out in public, and she trains every single day! We also learned that Katie-George did not win every race or competition she ever entered. She spoke to us about the times she lost, and she told us this is where she learned the most about herself and her sport. This is a hugely valuable lesson for us all to learn, we can’t always win everything, but it's important to always keep trying and working, even when it’s difficult, hard work pays off!

After all of our questions were answered, each class got the opportunity to take their picture with Katie-George and we even got to hold and pose with her medals. What an inspiring day! We would also like to say a huge thank you to Maija for facilitating this visit, it meant the world to us.

Wicklow Invitational Cross Country Relays

Last week a group of 40 students from 3rd - 6th class went to Avondale to participate in the Wicklow invitational cross country relays. Teams were made up of 4 boys or 4 girls and pupils from 3rd and 4th class ran the 4 x 200m and pupils from 5th and 6th class ran the 4 x 400m race. The children made us superbly proud on the day, running incredibly well to help their team mates and pass the baton as quickly as possible without giving up. Take a look at some of the action below!

The Vikings and Under the Sea in 3rd class

Third class enjoyed learning about the Vikings and Under the Sea in September. Have a look at their great theme-based work!

Letter writing workshop with Plunkett Press

A number of weeks ago our 4th & 5th class were invited to a letter writing workshop in Ashford village which was run by Plunkett Press. The children learned all about how letters are printed, they had great fun writing their own letters and posting them to their own special someone.

Creative Day 2024

Creative Day was a alive and well this year as the children in Nun’s Cross got stuck into a variety of creative activities. The activities were lead by teachers, parents and children and each one gave the children an opportunity to explore a new avenue of creativity! A huge amount of fun was had on the day and everyone went home full of enthusiasm and with their creative juices flowing! Check out our activities below! If you have any ideas for our next Creative Day make sure to let us know! Check out the slide show below, or scroll down for more details on each creative station!

We were delighted to welcome in Carla for creative day this year. She comes from a family of mosaic artists and we were delighted to have her in sharing her creative trade with the children. They all really enjoyed working with the tiles and created some beautiful pieces!

We had some sports creations on the day too which were lead by some of the students in the senior end. We were delighted to see their leadership and creativity in action. They created some fun games for the classes to try out and a huge amount of fun was had. Along the way, some of the classes added their own ideas to the games too so no game was every the same!

A form annual favourite is tie dying and it was a huge hit this year too. The children worked very hard to create original tie die pieces and we cant wait to see how they turn out when they are dry! Thank you to some of our wonderful paste pupils for returning for the day and helping out with this station. Their experience of the day over the past few years shone through and they were a huge help, especially to the younger children.

Each class had a space in the busy timetable to create their own individual creations which will be sold on a creative stall on our annual Family Fun Day. The children have worked very hard creating, painting and sculpting. We wont give too much away ahead of Family Day but its safe to say you need to be sure to get to the creative stall early!

Mrs Pearse led her very popular jewellery making class and many children in the school came away with beautiful individually create beaded bracelets! We are sure you will agree that they are beautiful!

Our Computer managers front he senior end of the school took the lead, once again, with a coding station. They have worked tirelessly with our suite of iPads and Laptops to make sure they were up to scratch for all the wonderful activities the boys had created for each class this year. The junior classes had great fun learning how to programme the Bee Bot Robots while the older classes really enjoyed some programming on Scratch!

Once again, Creative Day was so much fun. Thank you to everyone who got involved. We already cant wait for next year!