Piercestown will be re-opening its doors as a Rainbows venue in the coming weeks.

What is Rainbows? Rainbows is a national children’s voluntary service with an average of 6,000 children and young people coming into the service every year throughout Ireland.Rainbows supports children and young people in groups. There are groups for children and young people who have been affected by the death of a close family member and there are groups for children and young people whose family has changed because their parents have separated or divorced.. It is a 12 week programme run throughout the school year. Children like adults do experience grief and loss – it is often misunderstood and not recognised. Grief and loss not supported at a young age can become deep and unresolved in a young mind and heart and can affect future pathways to emotional and positive health and well-being.

If you are interested in your child attending Rainbows, further information around dates and days will be available in the coming weeks. If you have any immediate queries contact Siobhán on 053-9158854. Piercestown N.S is an open venue which is happy to accept both children from Piercestown N.S. and other schools.

For further information on Rainbows go to http://www.rainbowsireland.ie/

Is your child ready for school?!

Enrolment is now taking place for Piercestown N.S. for September 2015.

Enrolment forms and information are available from the school on 053-9158854. Should you wish to see the school please don’t hesitate to contact the office and an appointment to meet you and your child can be set up.

Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.  ~William Butler Yeats

The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book.  ~Author Unknown

Parent teacher meetings will be scheduled for the following dates:

Tuesday Feb 10th and Thurs Feb 12th from 3.15pm – 5.45pm.

Times and dates will be allocated to parents/guardians in the coming week. If a time or date does not suit, please don’t hesitate to contact the school on 0539158854.

We look forward to meeting you all.

Electric Ireland’s Powering Kindness is a special initiative that encourages people to be kind to one another, while raising much-needed funds for three chosen charities.

Piercestown N.S. have decided to join in this wonderful initiative and see how much kindness can be powered both in school and at home! A Powering Kindness noticeboard has been set up with a positive thought for each day. Tuesday’s thought read :

‘Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echos can be truly endless!’

Keep an eye on the blog each day for more positive thoughts. The Powering Kindness board also contains lots of post its. This affords the children the opportunity to carry out a random act of kindness or a child who is in receipt of a random act of kindness to record this for the school to see. Everyone in Piercestown NS is invited to take part in this initiative from junior infants to 6th class, teaching staff and non teaching staff, parents and members of our community.

Take inspiration from some quotes by famous people:

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. Aesop

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness. Dalai Lama

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. Mark Twain

Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you. Princess Diana

Remember it costs nothing but it might make someones day! What will your random act of kindness be?!

Thinking caps are on many of the boys and girls this week as the first competition for Active School was announced by the Active Committee last Friday.

Similar to the Greenschool, Piercestown needs to establish it’s very own motto/slogan for Active School.

Friday 23rd of Janauary is the deadline so get your thinking caps on! Active Committee members will meet the following week to select the chosen slogan!

Who will be the brains behind the words? Who will be the famous slogan designer?

Watch this space!

Congratulations to Mrs. Byrne and her Senior Infant class who were the worthy recipients of the ‘Class of the Month’ award for December 2014. Senior Infants showed the biggest improvement during the month of December overall in their behaviour both inside and outside of the classroom. As one pupil added at assembly ‘Senior Infants really deserved the award this month’. As a result of their efforts Senior Infants enjoyed their pizza party last Friday, received their certificates and got to use a class homework pass on Monday last. Well done to Mrs. Byrne and her senior infants class.

The question on everyone’s lips however, is who will be the first Class of the Month for 2015. The junior end of the school have dominated the year so far so fingers crossed the award will make its way up the senior end of the school soon!

The Active Committee for the New Year was announced at assembly on Wednesday last.

With over 50 applicants applying for the positions, the standard was extremely high. There was a great buzz of excitement as the successful candidates were called out. So without further delay I introduce you to our Active Committee 2015:

Rory Walsh, Luke Kavanagh, David Codd, Diarmuid O’Leary, Cian Clarke, Ellen Ormonde, Lauren Devereux, Harry Dempsey, Kevin Culleton, Kate Barrett, Millie Murphy, Jeff Miller, Etain Doolan, Jessican Akinyemi and Aoife Cullen.

Parent Representatives are Maura O’Connor and Colm O’Leary and teacher representative is Ms. Michelle Hearne.

The Active School committee will be lead and co-ordinated by Ms. Walsh.

All are very excited about kicking off this process in the New Year.

The first in school meeting will take place at 12.30pm this Wednesday Jan 16th in the P.E. hall. Watch this space!

Have you been listening to 2FM lately? Have you heard Ryan Tubridy mention the Eason’s Spelling Bee competition?

Here at Piercestown N.S. the boys and girls of 5th and 6th class ave registered to enter the Eason’s Spelling Bee Competition for the first time.

All students in 5th and 6th class can volunteer to enter should they wish to do so. So far over 20 children have expressed interest in taking part.

Stage one involves an in-house ‘Spelling Bee’ competition. A winner will be chosen from this contest and will go on to represent Piercestown N.S. at County level with all other ‘Spelling Bees’ from national schools in County Wexford.

So get your spelling hats on! Further information about the time and venue for the in house ‘Spelling Bee’ competition coming soon!!!!

Welcome back and Happy New Year.

We are very much looking forward to what 2015 holds……, gymnastics, swimming, Confirmation, end of Primary school for 6th class, Holy Communion, Active School meetings, Green School, Blue Star programme to name but a few activities on the horizon!

Watch this space for more updates as we progress through term 2.

We hope you all had a well deserved break and look forward to many more good times in 2015!