lisnafunchin.scoilnet.ie

Podcast 1: 11th May 2011.
This is our first podcast. Included are a recipe, some favourite poems, jokes, advertisements and an interview with Melany Molloy about World War 1
finishedpodcast1

Here is a picture of the four teams who played in the Olympic Handball Competition in the Watershed on May 11. The competition was organised by the Kilkenny Sports Partnership and Olympic Handball Ireland.

For 5th/6th Class.

Click to listen to your reading track for this week.

19-track

This week we had a cycle-to-school day for the pupils in our school. Thank you to the parents who organised it and accompanied the children to ensure their safety on the roads.

new muvee 002

Here’s the link for some online questions for our new novel, ‘Holes’, by Louis Sachar. Test yourself to see if you are keeping up with the story.
http://www.mce.k12tn.net/reading39/holes.htm

We have a lot of information regarding our Green School – Water programme for parents/friends to read on our School website.

There are lots of photos, reports and videos for you to read

You will find the whole project in the ‘School Projects’ section on our main website:
www.lisnafunchin.scoilnet.ie/static

Next week we are due to have our Green School Assessment, and before then we want to have a ‘Day of Action’.
This will involve pupils making a list of water-saving tips for parents and bringing them home. Then, on one day, next Saturday, 9th April, everyone in the school community will pick a few of the tips that they feel they can do, and focus on them for the day.

The idea is that, by everyone focussing on the tips for a day, we will pick a few that are easy to carry out and continue to use them daily!!

We thank you for your co-operation in this.

We will let you know how we get on in our assessment as soon as we get the news ourselves.

You can see what things we have been doing in school in the Green Schools Programme at www.lisnafunchin.scoilnet.ie/static
The pages are in the ‘School Projects’ section.

Dear Parents,

You may have seen in the media recently that the Department of Education and Skills have commenced a value for money review of the provision of small schools, particularly two-teacher schools. There is a threat that one of the outcomes of this review might be the closure of all such schools (approximately 600 schools countrywide). The Department has recently requested submissions from individuals/organisations with an interest in this area. Consequently we have sent the Department our views on this issue and we have let them know that the idea of closing two-teacher schools around the country is unjustifiable.

Below is the outline of the submission we have made.

We ask that parents please lobby their local TD on behalf of the school to try to halt any move towards such school-closures.

This response to the consultation on value for money of small primary schools is on behalf of my organisation, Lisnafunchin National School, Co. Kilkenny, a small school (enrolment 42 pupils).
Name: Conor Doyle
Organisation: Lisnafunchin National School, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny
Position: Principal

1. How well do small primary schools (of 50 pupils or less) meet the needs of pupils/parents/teachers?

Pupils academic, social, emotional, spiritual and moral development is addressed in a unique and effective way, arguably in a more effective way than in bigger schools.
Academically, pupils of all abilities benefit from being in a 4-class level classroom. Weaker pupils benefit as year on year they revise what they might not have fully understood in previous years. Academically stronger pupils benefit by being exposed to the higher level work being carried out in the classes above them. We consistently find that Micra-T and Sigma-T tests are well above the national average, in great part due to the multi-class teaching model of 2-teacher schools.
Socially, there is the drawback of there not being many pupils of the same age group and it can be difficult for some pupils to find pupils with similar interests to find friendships and develop interests – there tends to be a homogenisation of games and interests at playtime eg practically everybody in the Senior Class might play football for the year, even though some of the children, in a larger school with more possibilities and personalities, would undoubtedly choose different recreations.
However, as a counterpoint to this, we find that pupils in our school have a great sense of security as older children take an interest in and look after them, and they in turn look after the younger ones. The younger pupils also gain from being in daily, continuous contact with the older pupils whose emotional and moral development and maturity becomes quite obvious in 5th and 6th Class.

Our teachers stay in contact with other schools in the locality and have regular discussions regarding new developments in education. In a 2-teacher school there are challenges in delivering the full wide-ranging curriculum to all classes but all teachers attend Continuous Professional Development courses annually to keep up with innovations in education and technology.

2. Are the current minimum enrolment thresholds appropriate in terms of the distances between neighbouring schools?

The two-teacher system works very well when there are enrolments og 4 or 5 pupils per year in Junior infants. There is a critical mass within the classroom (16-20) and within each 2-class subgroup (eg 1st/2nd Class)to allow for peer teaching and group teaching to be carried out in a meaningful way

3. Is the current provision efficiently organised in terms of

o Use of resources (human, financial and capital)
There are two teachers teaching 42-pupils in our school, no SNAs, a shared learning support, and we consider that we give excellent value for money. We provide a full curriculum, achieve consistently high standards, make links with other schools and get the children to take part in many national competitions and projects. There is 100% take-up among teachers of Summer Continuous Professional Development courses.
In terms of resources, we work well within the grant allocation that we get. Using the grants we ensure that the school building is well-maintained and we have the latest IT and other educational equipment in the classes, which our pupils are extremely proficient in using.

4. Are there further comments you would like to make ?
Our 2-teacher school heritage is important to us at Lisnafunchin. Many of the parents and grand-parents of our pupils have attended our school in the past. Parents are very pleased with the standards in education and social development that their children are achieving. We don’t consider that the relatively small amount of money that the government will save by closing two-teacher schools justifies the tearing apart of the local community, and the destruction of an almost unique way of delivering education.

–
Conor Doyle, Principal,
Lisnafunchin NS
Castlecomer
Co. Kilkenny

In November/December  Jean Conroy came to our school to work with the pupils in the Senior Class. Over a five week period, Jean helped four groups of pupils to develop a model made from wire, twigs, leaves, seeds and any other natural material the pupils collected. The theme of the project was ‘Local Wildlife’ but the pupils did not neccessarily stick to this theme!!

Please click on the link, ‘CraftEd Project’ at the top of the page to look at some videos our pupils made describing the project

Here’s the tune for people who aren’t familiar with it.
 Remember, this is Part 1 in your notes. In your notes play the first two lines twice, then play the third line once and finally go back and play the first two  lines again.

salley gardens 1flute

Here’s the tw0-part piece with Part 1 and Part 2 playing together

salley gardens 1

Here’s Part 2, the violin piece playing on its own

salley gardens violin