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.

5th & 6th class No Lunchbox Day

On Friday Ms Mulholland’s 5th and 6th class had their No Lunchbox Day to raise money to cover the tour to Emerald Park. An amazing effort was made by the class in planning an exciting line up of entertainment alongside some delicious foods and tasty treats. Children in all classes left their lunchboxes at home for the day and their lunch was provided for them by 5th & 6th class. The menu had lots on offer, including hotdogs, veggie dogs, deli rolls and fruit skewers, and once a healthy lunch was eaten there was an array of baked goods including cookies, brownies, flapjacks, rocky road, cupcakes and ice lollies. Music was provided on the day by Molly, Jack and Isaac who had some really cool dance moves on display. Additional activities which were provided for included hair braiding, bracelet making, nail painting, face painting and shooting some hoops. Take a look at some of the action from the day below!

Pancake Tuesday in Nun's Cross

Today our wonderful Student Council surprised the whole school with pancakes to celebrate pancake Tuesday. Our wonderful committee met and planned the day, organising supplies and delegating roles to allow this day to run smoothly. We had our 5th and 6th class students cooking the pancakes on their crepe makers. We also had our team from 3rd and 4th mixing the batter. We had representatives from 3rd and 4th also helping to bring the students from their classes, keeping a steady flow of traffic. When the children visited, they chose their pancake and decorated it using honey, lemon, sugar, marshmallows, strawberries, cream, sprinkles, chocolate and strawberry sauce. The pancakes were so yummy!

All pupils also took part in our pancake flipping contest which was very hotly contested. Take a look at some of our photos below:

Well-Being Week

This week at Nun’s Cross our Well-being committee have been highlighting the importance of our well-being through a variety of different activities and events. Our well-being is very important to us and this week we have tried to focus on the 5 different areas that are important to support in order to have good well-being and mental health.

CONNECT

Ms Pearse very kindly spent time this week with each class to focus on a variety of stories and breathing activities. She used a variety of stories, tasks and exercises to help give the children the skills they need to develop the self confidence and awareness to deal with some tricky feelings and/or situations they might come across!

We have also spent some time this week clearing our minds and allowing ourselves to relax and be calm. We have completed lots of mindful colouring and have been listening to some relaxing music which has even made some of us sleepy!

BE ACTIVE

We are a very active school and we know how important this is for positive well-being! This week Ms Doyle very kindly took each class for a dance lesson in Bokwa! We absolutely loved it and hope she will teach us some more moves soon!

We held a school disco and all the children got to show us their moves on the dancefloor! It was so much fun and we have had many requests from children to have a disco every week - and why not?

TAKE NOTICE

Taking notice is a very important part of having healthy well-being, but its one that can sometimes be the easiest to neglect because we are busy. This week we made an extra effort to slow down and think about things we dont always have time to reflect on. We took the time to think about the things that make us happy, things we are grateful for and things that we are looking forward to in the future. We had great discussions with each other and realised just how lucky we are! We represented our thoughts in posters, gratitude jars and chains, and happiness posters.

KEEP LEARNING

We were so lucky to have Felisity Cullen-Molloy, from Greystones and Arklow Karate Kid, volunteer her time to come and teach our whole school some self defence this week. Felisity demonstrated some cool defence moves for us and we also got to practice them ourselves. It is an important skill for everyone to have some knowledge of and, as it was a new experience for most of our children, it allowed us to learn something new too! We are grateful to her and her team for their time - the children really enjoyed it!

GIVE

We held an Amber Day, where all the children were invited to dress in amber colours, and we raised money for Pieta house, a very worthwhile charity which works to support mental health. 4th class delivered a wonderful assembly to a sea of amber, reminding us that God wants us all to be a bright light and if you feel that your lamp is running low on oil, you can always turn to him for help.

We held a collection for Pieta house and we would like to thank you all for your incredible donations to end our well-being week. We were blown away by the generous support and kindness shown. Luke, one of our 5th class students, took it upon himself to bake cookies and sell them to his class mates. The efforts of Luke, and indeed his classmates for supporting his efforts, raised a huge €90 alone! Together with the donations brought in throughout the school, we have raised an enormous €491 for Pieta House this year!

Well-Being

In 3rd class, we have been working through the Weaving Wellbeing programme and we have spent extra time outdoors this month. We have engaged in a variety of activities which promote good mental health and wellbeing. These include mindfulness colouring, daily affirmations, breathing exercises and meditation. Each child has their own 'wellbeing toolkit' of simple strategies and tools that they can use to help regulate their feelings. We will continue to build on these as the year progresses. We also have a feelings check-in board where the children can identify how they are feeling at different times of the day and we have re-introduced our worry box as a way for the children to express any worries they may have.

Amber Flag Award

We are delighted to announce that Nun’s Cross have been awarded their very first Amber Flag award. This award is presented to schools who make a conscious effort to promote and improve the well-being and mental health of their school community.

Nun’s Cross began the process at the beginning of the academic year and began by setting up an Amber Flag committee made up with a selection of students from each of the classes from 2nd-6th. The students who felt they could make a contribution to this area submitted an application and from these, 6 students were chosen.

Together with the leading teacher, Mrs Gannon, the committee worked hard throughout the year to make positive changes and to co-ordinate events to promote positive mental health and well-being in our students, teachers, and parents.

They introduced ‘Worry Boxes’ to each classroom to help children who have worries and who may not be able to verbalise these to have a way to talk to an adult who can help.

The committee also coordinated a Well-Being week where the school dedicated more time each day to positive well-being. Some activities that the classes did were meditation, mindful colouring, mindful homework activities in place of regular homework, extra relaxing time including reading, listening to music etc, each class took part in yoga or Pilates, we held a fundraiser for Pieta house and designed well-being posters to display around the school.

With thanks to Saint Patrick’s Mental Health Services and also thanks to our PTA for hosting, we had a parents evening event to help educate our school community on children’s mental Health and well-being.

Of course we had lots more planned for this year that unfortunately had to be cut short but we will pick up where we left off as soon as we get back to school.

The committee would like to thank all the students, teachers and parents for all their help in our mission to gain our first Amber flag for Nun’s Cross. Also a big thank you to Pieta House for recognising all our hard work and for all the hard work they do to help people who need their support!

“Dear Amber Flag Committee in Nun’s Cross National School,

We, at Pieta, are delighted to inform you that your school has been awarded with the Amber Flag! 😊

We would like to thank the Amber Flag Committee for their commitment and dedication to promoting Positive Mental Health in your school this year. As you know in order to receive a Pieta Amber Flag you have to set and achieve goals throughout the year and our team found your application to be an outstanding initiative promoting positive mental health. We are truly overwhelmed with the amazing initiatives being run in schools this year. You are all a credit to your school.

We know how difficult the last few months have been and we are so thankful that you were able to achieve your goals either in person or “virtually”. We understand it’s been a trying time for the Amber Flag Committee but we hope that you can look back on your achievements throughout the year and be grateful of the time you spent together and the goals you’ve accomplished! Don’t underestimate the positive impact that your work has had this year. We, here at Pieta, certainly don’t.
We are hoping to send the physical flags once we get back from working remotely, hopefully this will be in September so thank you for your understanding.

Again, well done to all of you. Pieta’s Amber Flag Team hope that you are proud of all your accomplishments this year, especially in spite of the current situation. We certainly are!

Kindest regards,

The Pieta Amber Flag Team”

Parents Information Evening On Children's Well-Being

We had a big turn out for our parents’ information evening on the topic of your child’s well-being.

This programme supports parents to encourage and promote positive mental health and well-being in their children. The programme also explored how the building of resilience in children helps them to manage and cope with the day to day stresses of life as they occur.

Some of the following areas were the main elements of a jam-packed evening of helpful information:

· Explored the factors that influence mental health and well being in their child.

· Learned how to build and nurture resilience within their own child.

· Developed an understanding of what children need for positive mental health and well being

· Looked at ways to promote well-being in your children

·Were given tips on how best to support their child’s positive mental health and well-being.

We have received amazing feedback on the evening and many thanks to Sharon for her clear and relaxed delivery of the content.

Well being week in 5th and 6th

Last week was well being week in our school and we really enjoyed taking some time out from our busy lives to concentrate on being well. We enjoyed a wonderful talk on nutrition, pilates and we also took the week off homework. Our amber flag committee also challenged us to make some well being posters which can be seen below.

We also had great fun making a wall display to remind us to always be mindful.

Nutrition Lessons

A huge thanks to Maija Tweeddale for coming in and delivering a very interactive and informative session to all class around the topic of nutrition and in particular, the impact that good nutrition has on our well-being.

Junior Infants - 3rd class got a lesson, split over two levels, on just how important good nutrition is in order for our stomachs and brains to be able to communicate to each other and also learned how important it is to get 12 hours sleep each night. The children also learned about good and bad bugs inside our bodies and why they are important for a healthy body.

The senior classes extended the material by delving in to how they can use this knowledge to inform good choices in their own personal diet and nutrition and discussed how their food choices has a direct impact on their well-being.

Thank you so much to Maija for her time and knowledge, the sessions were very informative to all the children!

Worry Boxes

Each class has had a worry box introduce to their classroom. This is an idea brought forward, and made, by the Well Being committee as a way for children who have something on their minds but are unable to express it. The children can now, in confidence, put anything that is on their mind into the box which will be monitored by the teachers.

Well Being Committee

We are delighted to have set up our schools first Well Being Committee which is made up of a group of very enthusiastic students from 2nd-6th class. We are looking forward to how we can improve and develop the well being of our school community.

Yoga in Nun's Cross

Allyson Dowling kindly came in a do 3 yoga sessions with the younger classes. Each class got their own session, which they fully enjoyed and were nice and relaxed afterwards!

Well-Being Week

All next week there will be a big focus on all things well-being in Nuns Cross and we celebrate our first well-being week. Each class will focus a little extra time on activities such as mindfulness colouring, DEAR time (Drop Everything And Read), extra classes outside (weather permitting), breathing and relaxation activities and more. 

We are also thrilled to have some visiting experts to help us this week. Allyson Dowling has kindly offered to come in a do 3 yoga sessions with the younger classes, Claire Andrews, who runs Wicklow Yoga (www.wicklowyoga.com) is kindly giving her time to do yoga with 3rd and 4th class and Nina Scott, who runs Nina Scott Pilates (www.ninascottpilates.com) has made space in her busy diary to come and do some pilates with 5th and 6th class. We really appreciate the time these 3 mums are giving to come and do these classes with the children. The effect that good nutrition has on our well-being is something that is well known and we are delighted to have another one of our fantastic mums, Maija Tweeddale, who is a nutritional therapist, coming in to spend two days teaching the children all about good nutrition.  

We will be ending the week with a fundraiser by holding an Amber Day. We hope to see as much amber/orange around the school as possible and this will be to raise funds, and awareness, for two causes. The first is for Pieta House, a fantastic charity who help so many people who are in their darkest place. To find out more about their services please go to https://www.pieta.ie/about.  Some of the money raised will also go towards developing our sensory room. Our sensory room came up as the number 1 resource the children feel that Nun's Cross has to help, and to care for, their mental health and well being in our school. It also came up as the number one thing the children would like to see improved in our school so we will be trying to invest in it as much as we can this year. The sensory room is a small space, but a very valuable space to any child in our school who just needs a safe space for a while, some where to decompress, let off some steam or to just be calm. We hope that this fundraiser will be something you will support generously.  

Finally, all children will receive well-being focused homework this week in place of the normal writing, tables, spellings etc. This homework is based on the wheel of well-being which highlights 6 different areas we should focus on in order to have good mental health and well-being. We are all good at looking after some areas but not as good at looking after others so this is designed so the children will have choice over what area they would like to work on each day. If there is something outside of the suggestions that your child would rather focus on for their personal well-being then, of course, that is fine. No documentation needs to be done each evening however your child may be asked, over the course of the week, to feed back on activities they have engaged in for homework. 

Well being homework for Junior Infants - 2nd class

Well-being homework for 3rd-6th class