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:

Team Hope Shoe Box Collection

It’s been another great year in Nun’s Cross for making shoeboxes for Team Hope.

Team Hope’s Christmas Shoebox Appeal is an annual campaign that delivers gifts straight into the hands of children affected by poverty. Often these shoebox gifts are the only gift that a child will receive at Christmas and the joy that they bring is incredible. Since 2010, they have delivered over 2.1 million Shoebox gifts to Vulnerable Children across the world, and Nun’s Cross are delighted to take part in this effort every year.

This year we collected 87 shoeboxes filled with all sorts of essentials and treat for children in Lesotho, South Africa. Thank you to everyone who helped to make a difference this year!

If you want to take part in this year’s collections, it’s not too late! Donations can be made until November 15th, with a variety of collection points around Wicklow. Or you can make a virtual shoebox by donating money and Team Hope will put a shoebox together on your behalf! Check out The Team Hope Website for more information!

Student Council Update

Last week our student council met to decide how best to gather the views, opinions and ideas of all students as we plan for the year ahead. We are keen to keep improving school for the students and to see where they think these improvements may be identified. We also put the feelers out there for ideas for a school fundraiser. One of our senior members developed the survey which the council approved before circulating to the children for completion. Today we collected the surveys and we got to analyse them in groups to figure out which ideas were most popular. We listed the most popular/practical ideas and tomorrow we will discuss the ideas from each class and make a further survey to decide our priorities in the year ahead.

Creative Schools inspiration wall

Inspired by our whole school mural which was completed during Creative Day last June, our Creative Committee set their sights on decorating another external wall of the school. We noticed that there was a lot of interest in using chalk to draw and create on the yard, but there was nowhere for children to draw on apart from the ground. So we put our heads together and we decided to create an inspiration wall on our yard. We chose to paint it slate grey as opposed to black as we the idea was to make our school a brighter and more colourful place rather than making it duller and darker. Take a look at some of the creativity which was on display today.

We were delighted with the finished product which was decorated beautifully on it’s first day of use. We are excited to see the wonderful creations which will be visible on this wall. We would also like to say a huge thank you to Chris and our caretaker Michael for helping us to make this possible.

New GAA goalposts

This week we were delighted with the delivery of our GAA goalposts and 10 GAA footballs. We have been patiently waiting for this special delivery for a long time. Earlier this year, following our hugely successful Nuns Cross GAA Class Blitz, it was brought to our attention by both Student Council and the Active Committee that a set of GAA goalposts would be hugely beneficial to the children who became very inspired when training for our blitz with Kevin our GAA coach. We are looking forward to having 3rd - 6th class pupils back in school to test them out for us.

Face Lift For Nun's Cross

The Student Council proposed painting the window ledges in our school to add more colour to our beautiful garden!

Today they got to work and each window ledge was brightened up with a colour from the rainbow!

We are sure you will agree that they certainly brighten up the place! Well done and thank you to our wonderful student council!

Team Hope Christmas Shoebox Appeal

It has been tradition for Nuns Cross National School to support Team Hope in their Christmas Shoebox Appeal. This is an annual campaign where pupils of the school along with thousands of other individuals in Ireland donate shoeboxes filled with gifts to be given to children affected by poverty in Africa or Eastern Europe.  It is an opportunity to share a little joy and excitement with children who live in circumstances where these can sometimes be in short supply.

You can read their stories at www.TeamHope.ie.

This year due to the effects of Covid-19 restrictions things are a little different and the Christmas Shoebox Appeal has gone online. People are asked to donate 20 euro to make a shoebox. Every 20 euro donated will allow Team Hope’s partners in Africa and Eastern Europe to purchase items for shoeboxes locally, which will be packaged and delivered directly into the hands of children.

Parents can send donations in with their children in an envelope and there will be collection boxes in each class which Student Council are busy making.  Alternatively to make a virtual box of your own with your child you can visit www.TeamHope.ie at any time and choose the items you would like to add.  You can also upload a colouring page of your own with your donation to personalise your shoebox!

Today Student Council held a whole school zoom assembly to share the great work Team Hope do. They also taught us the 4 Ws they can include in their shoeboxes - something to Wash, something to Wear, something to Write on and something Wow! We were given a tour of the website and taken through the procedure of filling a shoebox. This was followed up with a question and answer session where pupils in all classes were given the opportunity to ask any burning questions they had.

Student Council

This week 3rd class have been working very hard on completing their applications to join the Student Council in our school. Our current members in 4th, 5th and 6th class have the very difficult task of reading all applications and awarding points to determine who will be joining us.

We have a very difficult task as the applications are all really good and it is clear that the boys and girls in 3rd class have put alot of work into making them.

It is lovely to see how much the students value our school - the play areas, the flowers, colours, pond and all the sports we enjoy.

Lots of great ideas have been put forward to improve our school which will definitely be noted. These will make up our action plan for the coming weeks. These include:

1. Bringing back our Friday Whole School Assemblies. Next week Student council will draw up a rota for assemblies. If weather is permitting, we will have short assemblies on yard. These will be socially distanced. If the weather does not permit, we can use our whiteboards and connect with the other classes.

2. We would like to freshen the school up with some colourful paint on our windowsills.

3. We would like to add more flowers to our garden. Some great ideas were shared on the applications - like giving each class a flower bed of its own or a pack of seeds to sow. We may need to think which flowers grow best in the different seasons to make the most of this idea.