Dear Parents,

Launch of ‘The Happy Diner.’

Following great interest in the school council’s project to rebrand the school canteen  (96 entries) the council met with the cook and her team and finally decided upon the new name– ‘The Happy Diner’ This was Russel Hayden Briggs’ entry – P7- well done young man!

We brought each class down today to explain the rewards system that we will have in place to recognise 5 desirable behaviours in ‘The Happy Diner’- Our ability to:

• Use our cutlery

• Speak in our ‘Restaurant Voices’

• Try different foods

• Use beautiful manners

• Have lots of colourful food on our plate, in our lunch boxes.

When a child is seen exhibiting these, he/she is rewarded with an ‘Outstanding Diner’ token for his table. Each table has been named after a fruit or vegetable and the tokens are transferred to a wallet for that fruit/ veg. At the end of the week the winning table’s name is recorded, and at the end of the month all winning tables are given a treat. We thank Elaine, our wonderful cook and her team for working so closely with us on this project.

Please ask your children about this. In St Clare’s Abbey we promise to teach our children to ‘Love God, Others and Learning.’ We see this project as a key part of the work we do on the second- ‘Loving Others’. We strive to develop our children’s social skills and part of that is ensuring that they have the social skills required for eating in public settings. This is a big piece of work and we expect to make great gains when we all work together.

Photographs of the art displays are posted below. Thanks to the school council, for a good job well done.

The Northern Lights

There was great excitement in school today from some pupils who had seen the ‘Aurora Borealis’ last night. It appears that some good photographs have been captured by many families.
If you have one could you send it to the school websitestclaresabbey@gmail.com as we wish to showcase these? Within the subject area of World Around Us we love to celebrate/ take note of key things happening in the world at a given time, especially in the local context. It is important for our pupils to take note of these. 

Final reminder re School Uniform Consultation:

The Department of Education has issued guidance to schools stating that a meeting should be held between school and homes to review the Uniform in light of new regulations. As such I invite any available parents to meet me on Wednesday 16th October@ 9.15. Please telephone the school or email me on mmonaghan771@c2kni.net if you are able to join us. Thank you to those who have already agreed to attend but I need a few more.

Family Mass

The first Family Mass to be held in the Parish will take place this Sunday @ 12pm in Newry Cathedral. St Ronan’s Pupils are leading the liturgy and Canon has asked us to encourage families to attend, especially families of pupils in P4 & P7 who will be receiving sacraments this year. It would be lovely to see lots of you there. It will be our turn to lead liturgy in the November mass.

Another lovely thing that will happen in our parish next week will be the visit of the relics Of St Bernadette to the Cathedral on Thursday 17th & Fri 18th October. In preparation we have been sharing the story of Lourdes with our older pupils and the P4-P7 classes will have an opportunity to visit the church on these days.

I wish you all a happy weekend,

Yours in partnership,

Mrs Monaghan

At the time of amalgamation it was agreed that funerals of staff of the former schools would not be attended by pupils from the newly amalgamated school. This was to avoid anyone being overlooked due to current staff being unaware of former connections with the schools.

That seemed like an appropriate arrangement at the time. However, having personally attended recent funerals of deceased former staff, I have become uneasy with this arrangement. Therefore, it will be modified as indicated below.

The family of a deceased member of staff of Abbey PS or St Clare’s PS, who retired from either school may request a school representation at their loved one’s requiem mass. If the mass is taking place during school hours and in a local church, we will try our very best to facilitate the request.  Requests may be made via telephone 02830262175.

We cherish the contribution that former staff made to both schools, from which we grew.

Mrs Monaghan