It has been lovely to welcome Rev. Gary into the school every Tuesday when he has had the opportunity to share life and faith with the children, part of a child’s holistic development.
We‘re delighted to have Amy Anthony from Church of Ireland DCU on her first year placement in the junior classroom. The children are finding lessons fun and are really enjoying learning in a variety of ways.
Olive Mooney, author of Chronicles of Cadaver College, came to speak to the children about writing her books. She read excerpts from her scary books and offered the children tips about creating atmosphere in stories.
Children travelled to the Triskel Art Centre, a beautifully renovated church in the centre of Cork to receive their award for being Regional Finalists in the ‘Our World Irish Aid Awards’. In their project, the children examined their response to the 17 Global Goals in their school environment, in the community, in their country and in the world. They discovered they could be quite influential in combating climate change by being part of an inter-school initiative which planted 500 oak trees on Corrin Hill, combating poverty by gifting ‘Hope’ shoeboxes, enhancing health outcomes through their FAPE project with kids who had cancer, improving the environment by recycling and reusing - just to mention a few discoveries!
The following week, the children travelled to Dublin to showcase their JEP (Junior Entrepreneur Programme) project FAPE. JEP operates across 32 counties and in 2019, over 16000 children took part from over 700 schools. 220 projects were showcased in Simmonscourt, and Fermoy Adair School were delighted to be shortlisted for two awards: Community Champions and Financial Wizards. Children proudly displayed their products and spoke about their innovative projects. FAPE (Fermoy Adair POONS Enterprise) sold a concept: children with cancer should be treated at home when possible. To help finance POONS (Paediatric Oncology Outreach Nurse Service) the children developed a fundraising business. Through various fundraising events, they raised €1544.13 and raised awareness about POONS, an initiative only found in the south. Many thanks to the founders of JEP and a special thanks to Diarmuid Sullivan, National Co-ordinator for an extremely successful, well managed function that inspired so many budding entrepreneurs.
The beautiful May weather encouraged children and teachers out into the fresh air. Donal O’Lochlainn invited the children to his hedge school under Fermoy’s oldest oak tree beside the park. According to calculations, this fine specimen was planted in the 1730’s and is over 32 metres high.
On Wednesday 22nd May, the children in the junior and senior room enjoyed the outdoor classroom. Luckily, we had excellent weather and the sun was shining all day! We had great fun on our scavenger hunt in the park, hunting for mini beasts and different plants around the park. The children in the senior room planted seeds and weeded the flower beds around the school as well as helping to keep our school clean by doing a litter hunt. After this, they set up and organised an obstacle course. The junior room had great fun drawing and creating games with chalk on the ground outside. To end the day, the senior room took part in a training session for the Euro Eddie Blitz.
As we go to press, we look forward to a delightful school outing to Leahy’s Open Farm and exciting times at Cork City Sports in June.
On behalf of the children, parents, staff and members of the Board of Management, I’d like to thank Canon Eithne Lynch for her service to the school as chairperson of the Board of Management for the past few years. Being a chairperson is an onerous, time consuming and often thankless position, so we’d like her to know that in Fermoy Adair her time, energy and focus has been greatly appreciated.