Ms O’Callaghan’s third class took part in the STEPS Young Engineer Award over the last number of weeks. This award encourages children to explore the world of engineering by developing an engineering project that would help improve their local community. The children had to, first, identify areas in the community that they felt could be improved through engineering. They then began to design individual projects and pitched their ideas to their groups. As a group, they decided on the project they felt that would work best, make a difference in the community and that they could construct. The children then had to sit down and discuss the logistics of their projects in relation to design and materials needed. Throughout the project, the children had to really think like engineers and work as a team. Here are the six projects they designed.


1. Little Red – created by Sophie, Tyler, Lucas, Senan and Freya
​A robot that will help clear the rubbish in Baldoyle. One arm will catch the litter and the other arm is designed to collect aluminium cans. The robot is moved through a remote- control car.

2. The Cuby – created by John, Stacy, Leah, Aras and Eliza
A robot that will help people cross the road safely as this group felt the roads in Baldoyle are very busy. This robot is controlled by a remote-control car, is painted yellow to make it bright like a high-vis and has a warning beacon on its head.

3. The Bridge 3000 – created by Charlie G, Rebecca, Andrea, Mikey and Nessa
The Bridge 3000 was designed to be a pedestrian bridge for outside Lidl. This group felt the traffic outside Lidl was always very heavy and that a pedestrian bridge would make it easier to cross the road safely.

4. The Water Filter – created by Jack, Joshua, Ethan and Eliasz
This group designed a water filter to clean the sea and stream in Baldoyle as they felt it was very dirty and constantly full with rubbish.

5. The Litter Pick-Up 2000 – created by Nathan, Emma, Alex, Kitty and Finn
This group designed a prototype to pick up rubbish as they felt rubbish is an issue in Baldoyle. They added magnetic strips to enable it to pick up aluminium cans.

6. The Planter 2000 - created by Oscar, Charlie E, Alex and James
This group created a prototype to allow for more planting of trees and flowers in the area. They felt that Baldoyle needed more trees and flowers to improve the environment.
 

This year we held a fun and festive Christmas Jumper Day to raise funds for Pieta House on Friday 10th of December. This fundraising activity was part of our application for the Amber Flag. The Amber Flag is awarded by Pieta House to schools that promote and foster Wellbeing within their schools. We raised a grand total of €1,915 and we would like to thank everyone that made a donation.
 

​Click on the gallery to see some pictures!

Mr. Griffin's First Class carrying out an experiment to investigate if milk contains fat.  

Predictions: 14 pupils predicted YES. 10 pupils predicted NO. 
We added food colour droplets to a plate of milk. We then dipped cotton buds with some Fairy washing up liquid into the centre of the food colouring. 

Result:
The food colouring dispersed into a fabulous display. The soap was breaking down the fat in this process, showing that there was fat in the milk. 

Check out the pictures in the gallery

This year Maths Week will run from 17th October to 22nd October. We have many fun and exciting activities planned for the pupils.

Since starting Junior Infants we have been busy strengthening our fine motor skills by doing stations everyday.

We do things like cutting and sticking, using tweezers, join the dots and playdough to make the muscles in our hands strong so that we will be able to hold a pencil soon.

We went on a Bear Hunt this month after reading the story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen. All of the Teddy Bears from Ms Kelly's class went on an adventure around the school and we had to find them!

​We had lots of fun!

We celebrated World Book Day in St. Laurence’s on Friday, May 28th.

World Book Day is traditionally held in March but due to Government restrictions we were unable to celebrate it on the actual date.

We marked the day in true style! The children made a huge effort to dress as their favourite characters from stories, novels and comics. The day certainly highlighted the great love for reading around the school.

We were hoping to have an outdoor parade in both buildings but the weather had other ideas!

According to the seanfhocal, ‘Is olc an ghaoth nach séideann do dhuine eigin’ (It is an ill wind that blows no good for someone) and despite the rain, we were able to have a parade on zoom! It meant that all the classes could see each other dressed up.
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Maith sibh go léir!

On the 6th of May 2021, St Laurence’s N.S was awarded an Amber Flag for our efforts to promote positive mental health and well-being in our school. 
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It is well documented that positive mental health and well-being enables young people to lead fulfilling lives. Home and family are recognised as the primary source of nurturing and support for children. However, mental health and well-being are recognised as everyone’s concern. It involves the whole school community, parents/guardians and the many others involved in day to day life of the child. Positive mental health for children is part of their overall health and is inextricably linked with well-being.

In order to promote positive mental health and well-being we decided to take part in the Amber Flag Initiative. This involved the whole school community coming together in order to create a safe, positive, and healthy attitude towards our general physical and mental health and well-being.

Our Aim: To Promote Positive Mental Health at School

​Our school has an Amber Flag Committee made up of teachers and students. The Amber Flag Team was busy during the past few months planning and organising lots of activities to promote positive mental health in our school and help improve our overall wellbeing.