November Newsletter 2024
Dates for your diary
Tues 22nd Oct Junior Room trip to the library
Wed 23rd Oct 5th & 6th Class trip to Beech Hill
Fri 25th Oct Ditch the Dark Day – wear your brightest most colourful clothes
Mon 28th-Fri 1st Nov Mid-term – School Closed
Mon 4th Nov Return to school
Mon 4th Nov Return Shoeboxes for Team Hope Appeal
4th & 5th Nov Cash for Clobber – bags of clothing may be left into school for collection on Wed 6th Nov (early)
Tues 5th Nov Visit by Agri-Aware Rep. The AgriKids™ Farm Safety Ambassador programme is an all-school approach to farm safety education. It enables all primary school children to collectively engage, educate and be empowered on the topic of farm safety.
Mon 18th Nov School closed. Teacher Training – Maths curriculum
Fri 22nd Nov School closed.
Sun 15th Dec Carol Service in St. Colman’s Church of Ireland at 3.30pm
Changemakers – 7th -18th October 2024
On Monday 7th October Richard Truell came into our school. He is a County Councillor from the Ballybay Clones area. He became a County Councilor to make a difference. He goes to lots of meetings. He helps to get new equipment for playgrounds. He helps get roads and houses fixed. He has to get votes by going to people’s houses. They meet twice a month. He finds it frustrating when jobs take too long. He spends 30 hours a week doing council work. He is making a difference by helping people in Monaghan. By Elea
On Thursday 10th October Bishop Ellis came into our school. When he came in we asked him questions like ‘Did you have any job before becoming a Bishop?’ and ‘What is your favourite part of the job?’ he answered these questions and said he used to be a Secondary School Science Teacher. He also said he didn’t want to stop teaching but God was calling him to become a minister. His favourite part of being a Bishop is going to different schools and meeting the students. He is in charge of 30 Rectors in 75 churches. He had one job he hated. This job was a market gardener. He had to go out in the rain making holes in the dirt, planting seeds and cutting cabbages. He has been a Bishop for 4 years now. He got ordained 35 years ago. When he was a child he went to Sunday School all the time. When he was old enough he started to help out and teach Sunday School. He had a few jobs before he became a Bishop. By Bethany
On Monday 14th October Richard Lowey came in to talk to us about his trip across Route 66. It took 10 days and he had one day off. He had to train at Templemore Garda Training HQ in co. Tipperary. The way he got the idea was because he always wanted to do Route 66 and wanted to raise money for Irish Children’s Hospitals. There were about 100 people involved. He was nervous about not coming home safely but he was excited about going to do it. He travelled across America by motorbike – it was a Harley Davison. The journey was from Chicago to L.A. It was about 3000 miles. He said he travelled about 300 miles a day. He saw a car in the Guinness World Book of Records with 36000 stickers. He made a couple of new friends on the journey. He said one guy crashed into a car and took the front bumper off. Richard raised over €9500. By Reuben
On Wednesday 16th October Bertha Wallace came to visit our school to tell us about her amazing sunflower field based in Co. Monaghan. This was the first sunflower field ever in Co. Monaghan and it was very popular. She got this idea from a man who was at a Board Meeting and he mentioned a sunflower field and said it would be a good idea to raise money for charity. Her goal was to raise €10,000. The charities she chose were Monaghan and Cavan Palliative Care and Braddox Presbyterian Church. She chose Monaghan and Cavan Palliative Care because they don’t get any payment from the Government and she wanted to help pay bills for sick families. She chose Braddox Church because they took out a loan to build their new church hall extension and they didn’t have enough to pay off their loan. To set up their ground to grow the sunflowers Bertha and Robert had to firstly plough the field and Robert picked all the stones. After all the stones were gathered she got a man to sow the field with about 130,000 seeds. Then just after 2 weeks sealant had to be sprayed over it to stop weeds from growing and stop insects from eating them. Then she just had to watch them grow. She was nervous about them being ruined with the weather. It took 3 months for them to grow. They were so surprised when on the first Friday they raised €10,000 and at the end they raised over €50,000. People came from all over the country. This was Monaghan Cavan Palliative Care’s biggest ever donation. The field was open for 3 weeks. By Leah
On Monday 21st October Brian Carleton visited our school to talk about the residential campsite for Portuguese children. C.E.F. is a Bible organisation that tells children all over the world about the Bible. It stands for Child Evangelism Fellowship. 27 other people were there. Brian arrived on Sunday. There were loads of builders, plumbers, road workers and one electrician. The first thing they did was pray. They read the Bible before breakfast. Brian had loads of jobs like digging, brick paving and erecting solar panels on the roof. Everything was revamped. New kitchen, redecorated bedrooms, a new car park and plenty of other improvements were added to the facility. Brian has made a difference by spreading awareness about C.E.F. and giving kids a better place to stay in Portugal. By Joseph
Internet Safety
On Thursday 17th October a lady came to speak to us about Internet Safety and Online dangers. She explained what she was going to speak on and asked us to write down what we did on the Internet in our spare time. She showed us some apps and told us of the dangers of them. We are to make sure they are suitable for our age. We should not pretend to be older than we are. She told us not to post anything bad, nasty, mean, rude or inappropriate on our Social Media platforms as this will always be with us. It will be like a bill board in front our homes where everyone can see it, even if we delete it. This could damage or future career. Employers can check over our posts even if we have cleared anything inappropriate and this may lead to us not getting the job that we really wanted. She taught us some actions, if someone we didn’t know tried to contact us – STOP communicating, BLOCK them and TELL our parents/teachers or a trusted friend. Imagine a stranger walked up to you when you were with some friends and asked you some private questions. You wouldn’t talk to them. You would tell your parents or teachers or someone you could trust. This is how you should treat your phones. We should make sure we have a strong password on our phones and change it every couple of months.
We all thought she was very interesting and helpful. Much of what she told us was all new to us and we are very grateful that she taught us so much about the dangers of the internet. By Lexi and Bonnie