21^st January 2016

Joshua Kelly was a much loved pupil here in St Finian’s Primary School and will be sadly missed by the whole school community.   Joshua was a beautiful, kind little boy who was very popular with his classmates and the staff of the school.  His smile could light up a room and his bubbly, affectionate personality was infectious.

There is a severe sense of shock and grief throughout our school. Trained staff from the Education Authority’s Critical Incident Response Team are helping to support the staff and children through this difficult time.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Joshua’s entire family circle and the St Finian’s school community sends them our sincerest sympathy and support.

Mr B Coulter

Principal

The good news continues from the Holywood Music Festival with Neala Cahir who came 1st in her Grade 3 Classical Piano.

Well Done Neala

Yesterday St Finian’s took part in their first ever Olympic Handball tournament in Bangor’s Aurora. Both our teams played really well and everyone had a great day out.

St Finian’s celebrated World Book Day in style.  A special assembly was held to view the many “Extreme Reading” photographs that had been sent in to school.  Children found extraordinary places to be photographed reading their books.  Thank you to all the parents that emailed these pictures to the school!  Prizes were given out to the most extreme pictures.  Well done to all children that participated. (photos are in the galleries)

Children also had the opportunity to read to other classes throughout the day and also to read or swap books that they had brought in from home.

This was a great way to promote reading in school but we would encourage all parents to spend time reading with their children at home.

Today Primary 5 and Primary 7 held a bring-and-buy sale for Trócaire. Thank you to everyone who baked and brought in toys to sell, an amazing £165 was raised!

On Wednesday 25th February Neala and Sarah represented St Finian’s in the Ards Borough Council Environmental Youth Speak competition in the town hall.

Neala didn’t have time for nerves as she donned her costume to speak second in the competition.  She presented a fantastic piece as Natural Neala the superhero fighting to save our planet.  It was a wonderful speech delivered in a very professional and mature manner.  Well Done Neala!

The competition was strong as children from all over the ards area made their speeches and poor Sarah grew more nervous as she watched the high quality presentations and fantastic costumes.

Sarah was speaking fourteenth and it was finally her turn.  Her speech was in the form of a poem she had written herself on the theme of a superhero.  She performed this poem beautifully and the audience were hugely impressed with her performance and the content of her poem.  A brilliant performance, well done Sarah.

A hearty lunch was consumed before the results of the competition were announced.  Unfortunately Sara or Neala did not win however they represented the school fantastically well and their speeches were fantastic.  The girls obviously worked immesely hard preparing for the competition and St Finian’s were very proud of them.   The girls will now perform their speeches in assembly for the whole school.

 

St Finian’s Castle Ball took place in Primary 2 on Friday 13 February.  The Lords and Ladies, Princes and Princesses enjoyed a fantastic morning of feasting, dancing and even a visit from The St Finian’s Royal Jester.

The guests for the ball all arrived dressed for the occassion and were announced to the ball by HRH King McKinney.  A beautiful feast of soup, rolls, cheese, wine (black currant juice!) was prepared and served to the guests by the Royal Cook Dunleavy before the Royal Court Jester Barnes entertained all the Lords and Ladies!

 

HRH Queen Russell looked on as the ball was competed with the Lords and Ladies having a ballroom dance!

St Finian’s Primary School recently installed solar panels in the school. This renewable sustainable resource will help generate electricity that will be used in our Primary School and hopefully reduce our electricity bill considerably every year. We may even be fortunate enough to generate enough electricity to sell back to the electricity grid.  St Finian’s is doing it’s bit to help the environment!

St Finian’s PS held a Red Day on Friday 5th February to raise funds for the British Heart Foundation.  The children and staff all wore something red to school and donations were collected for this worthwhile charity.  Thank you to all the children and parents for making such an effort.  We managed to raise a fantastic £156, well done!