News and Recent Happenings
June 2024
Fís Film Making
5th Class loved the process of creating their own films. They showcased their ability to use stop motion animation and to use green screen technology. They worked in teams to create three really unique group films and brought their own strengths and interests into the mix. Well done 5th class... !
Laptop Donation from Fidelity Investments Ireland
Thank you to Martina Raftery and ‘Fidelity Investments Ireland’ for their extremely kind donation of 30 refurbished student laptops for use in the school.
The laptops make it possible for the children to create projects, research topic areas, present work and engage with modern IT opportunities in the classroom. The range of possibilities are endless and will greatly support the children’s learning for years to come.
Fourth class School tour
Fourth class went on their school tour this week. They had a super day out. First we went to Pure skill and tried a variety of different sports. Then after we headed across to Planet for some Subway and some laser tag. The day ended with a small bit of shopping in Galway shopping centre. The children behaved excellently all day and great fun was had by all
Sports Day and Active Schools Week
The children had lots of fun and games at our annual Sports Day. We had events such as an obstacle course, penalty shootout, sack race, three legged race, egg and spoon race, potato picking and crossbar challenge. Children had an opportunity to try out lots of new skills and fun activities. It was a fantastic day!
Sports Day took place during Active week which was a huge success. We had boxing, hurling, Gaelic football and rugby where coaches from each sport took time out to come to the school to do some coaching with the children. A big thank you to all the coaches!
We also had our annual teacher vs student soccer match where 6th class were victorious after a tense penalty shootout. Well done 6th class!
Senior Infants School Tour
Senior Infants went on tour to Birr Castle Demesne. They had a fantastic day of exploration and adventure. They visited the beautiful gardens, inspected the various types of trees and plants, went on a minibeast hunt, followed the trail around the beautiful lakes and rivers and finished up our time in the grounds in the 'World's most amazing playground' equipped with the tallest treehouse in Ireland! A day out wouldn't be complete without a trip to Supermac's before hitting the road back to Bullaun.
Junior Infant School Tour
The Junior Infants headed to Loughwell Farm in Moycullen. What a day. From Go-Karting, to rabbits, Zip-lines to giant Lego, slides and sand pits. There wasn't a thing they didn't try. A very quiet bus on the way home was a sure sign a great day was had.
Library Visit
First and Second Class enjoyed an outing to the Loughrea Library, kindly facilitated by librarians Sheila and Ann. Each child was eager to find more books from their favourite authors with excitement when they came across books we have read together this year.
Bullaun N.S. has a clew of bookworms growing! Take a look and see....
First and Second Class School Tour
Let's Go at N.U.I.G. proved to be an exhilarating day of physical activity for First and Second Class. The array of bouncing castle challenges, zorb races, virtual reality headsets, archery and team games filled the day with plenty of fun.
May 2024
Manning Cup Inter-Schools Track & Field 2024
Well done to all the children who represented the school in this year's Manning Cup Inter-Schools Track and Field Competition in Bushfield. Every child from Junior Infants to Sixth Class trained hard and took part in the trials for this fantastic event. Events included sprint, relays, hurdles, long distance, long jump and ball throw. All the boys and girls should be very proud of themselves as they all gave it 100%.
We had a very successful evening with the boys bringing home the 2nd place plaque. Looking forward to next year already.
First Lego League Showcase
Fifth class had a wonderful time at the First Lego League Showcase which was organised by Galway Education Centre and Medtronic. The children got the opportunity to present their project to an audience and to see projects created by other schools in the county.
Our School Showcase
Thank you so much to all the parents, grandparents and students who came to visit our school showcase in our brand new school hall. The children presented their projects throughout the day and this was a great opportunity to develop confidence and oral language. Fifth class also taught some of the younger classes a new robot dance at the end of their showcase.
To finish off the School Showcase, each child got to build and bring home their Lego medal. Well done for all your hard work 5th Class!!
First Holy Communion
Second Class made their First Holy Communion on the 18th May in St. Patrick's Church, Bullaun. The children all looked amazing in their outfits and a great day was had by all.
A special thank you to Fr. Pat Kenny for a wonderful mass and to the 3rd class parents for providing tea/coffee and snacks in our new school hall after the ceremony.
First Lego League
Fifth Class have been busy working on their projects for the First Lego League. The theme of the programme this year is "Masterpiece" and it asks the children to explore their passions, interests and hobbies and to share these through Lego. During lessons, students learned about visual effects, sound effects, stage directors and museum curators, green and blue screen technology, foley artists use of sound effects and coding.
The students are continuing to work on their green screen movies and will be showcasing their Masterpiece projects this month in the Clayton Hotel to other schools and teachers.
P.E. : Orienteering
First Class enjoyed an orienteering lesson based on stories we have read this year. This activity required quick decision making, critical thinking and fast movement between stations. A fantastic start to Physical Education in our new hall.
Learning about Venus Fly-traps
First Class have been reading Alfie Green and the Fly-trapper, a carnivorous plant who outgrows his home and needs to be relocated to the bogs of Arcania. We enjoyed learning facts about this interesting, endangered plant and shared our findings with the older classes who asked excellent questions.
Football Blitz
The boys football team competed strongly in the recent Cumann na Bunscoil competition. They unfortunately lost 2 very close encounters by a score but their effort was rewarded with a big win in the final game. Well done boys on a great effort.
Football Blitz
The girls football team showed great enthusiasm and skill recently when competing in the Cumann na Bunscoil competition. It wasn't to be on the day but they should great teamwork and determination throughout each game.
April 2024
Spring trips to Turoe Pet Farm
We are very fortunate to have Turoe Pet Farm close by to view all the signs of spring! The children engaged in conversation on what they could see and related it to previous experiences. The most exciting part of our visit was the new-born kids! The information gleaned from AgriKids educational programme was given a real life context where signs were observed, animal behaviours assessed and we even spotted some machinery.
The playground facilities tested our gross motor skills and encouraged co-operation among all.
Thank you Turoe Pet Farm for a fantastic day on the farm!
WEEE Battery Challenge
Well done to everyone for the collection of 800kg worth of batteries as part of the WEEE recycling competition which is an amazing effort for our school size. 4th class collected the most batteries in our inner school class competition and were rewarded with a pizza party. Thanks to the parents committee for sponsoring the pizzas they were enjoyed very much.
Sketching A memory
4th class enjoyed an art lesson where they sketched the school they have spent nearly 6 years in as they prepared for the big move.
Soccer Blitz
A great day out was had at the FAI competition in Shiven Rovers FC.
Enjoyment was had by all.
In Shiven Rovers
We had 2 girls teams and 2 boys teams. All teams won games with one of the Girls team missing out on qualification on score difference.
March 2024
Thank you!
Thanks to all in our community for your generous contributions to our Easter fundraiser in aid of Trócaire. The total money raised for the cause came to €1,190.
Thank you for the pipes and taps that will soon save countless hours hauling water that is unsafe to drink...Thank you for solar powered water systems..that bring clean water to hardworking communities struggling with poverty and climate shocks....
Lasting change will take time. But with every drop of water that flows, the kindness, help and love held in your amazing gift of €1,190 to Trócaire this Lent will stand together with families...and our local partners in 16 countries to build a more resilient tomorrow and a better, more just world.
-A message from Trócaire
Easter Bonnets
Some of First Class' colourful creations. Each design was unique and included recycled materials. They certainly sparked joy and celebrated Easter in style.
Superb efforts made!
First Confession
Second class celebrated their First Confession on 15th March in St. Patrick's Church in Bullaun. Thank you to Fr. Kenny for a beautiful ceremony and well done to all the children.
Seachtain na Gaeilge
Bhí Seachtain na Gaeilge ar siúl ón 11-15 Márta agus is léir go raibh an-spórt ag na páistí go léir. Bhí muid ag damhsa, ag canadh, ag seinm ceoil agus ag caint.
We celebrated Seachtain na Gaeilge from the 11-15 March and the whole school had a fantastic week. The children took part in several activities including Cá bhfuil Learaí?, Tráth na gCeist and Buddy Reading trí Ghaeilge. We got a chance to show off our dancing and music skills at the céilí mór agus fleadh cheoil on Wednesday. GAA Jersey day took place on Thursday and on Friday the children turned Scoil Éanna green for the day. We finished off the week with a wonderful ceolchoirm in the church where the children performed songs as Gaeilge and played some traditional tunes. It was fantastic to hear the children using the Irish language throughout the week. Maith sibh!
Seachtain na Gaeilge
Tá Seachtain na Gaeilge ar siúl ó 11 - 15 Márta i Scoil Éanna. Tá a lán rudaí eagraithe againn, cosúil le ceolchoirm, céilí mór, fleadh cheoil, Tráth na gCeist, Lá glas agus neart spraoi. Seans iontach do gach duine sult a bhaint as an nGaeilge.
Seachtain na Gaeilge is taking place from the 11 - 15 March in Scoil Éanna. We have lots of events organised such as a concert, céilí mór, fleadh cheoil, table quiz, dress up in green day and plenty of fun. This is an ideal opportunity for the whole school to enjoy all aspects of our language and culture.
Damhsa Ghaelach
Níor laghdú an bháisteach ár ngliondar! The rain didn't take from our enjoyment of learning some Damhsa Ghaelach. Thank you 6th Class girls for instructing 1st Class during Seachtain na Gaeilge!
World Book Day March 7th 2024
Our final World Book Day in this school premises and it was celebrated in style by all. Huge efforts put in across the board with costumes coupled with high levels of enthusiasm for all planned activities made for a hugely enjoyable day.
Scroll through the photos below to get a feel for the day.
Mystery Story Teller for each class was revealed - It was lovely for the children to hear a new voice.
Character Costume Parade in the front yard where everyone got a chance to tell the crowd what character they were dressed as.
Book Swap and the Human Library in full swing.
Buddy reading to start off the day. The older classes were paired with the younger classes to encourage fluency and intonation. It offers the children an opportunity to hear older peers read and is a great confidence booster for the older readers.
A peek at some of the fantastic costumes.
Alternative Book Cover Competition
Here are some of the winning entries from this year's Alternative Book Cover competition. We have a some seriously impressive artists walking amongst us in Scoil Éanna. They each received lovely prizes of books and art packs.
Engineer's Week - Coding Workshops
Students in 5th class visited younger classes to teach them how to use Scratch and to get them started on some coding challenges. 5th class got an opportunity to showcase their skills to younger classes and got to develop great presentation skills.
As you can see all the children had so much fun and developed creativity, logical thinking and problem solving skills.
Here is the design that prompted our challenge, a flower crafted out of recycled materials. First Class made use of salvaged scrap art supplies in response to this task.
Engineer's Week - Design Challenge
Developing Citizenship - How our actions affect others
Taking care of our environment is our responsibility! First Class designed posters for display in our new school building to remind the school community to keep our school clean, green and tidy!
February 2024
Book Fair 2024
The Annual Book Fair is taking place this week 26th Feb - 1st March.
Children are encouraged to browse the books and hopefully find a book/books that interest them.
This will be the final year of the Book Fair being "celebrated" in our little hallway.
Writing for a New Audience.
A couple of weeks ago some very proud Junior Infants joined Senior Infants to share their report writing with them. The older children gave them lots of positive feedback and words of approval.
Today, it was the turn of the Senior Infants pupils to return the visit, proudly sharing their most recent piece of writing with the pupils of Junior Infants. They created a unique sea creature and used adjectives to describe their creations in their pieces of writing. Junior Infants were fascinated by their imaginative pieces and were very impressed with their neat writing. Senior Infants returned to their classroom 10 foot tall after all the praise and encouragement they received in the Junior Infant room.
World War 2
Students in 5th and 6th created group projects and presented them to the class to deepen their knowledge on the topic of World War 2. The students used various strategies to present their projects and engage the audience - posters, powerpoints, constructions, news reports and dramas.
Valentine's Day
Meet and Greet Sessions
All classes were paired up today for a meet and greet session. The focus of this conversation session was to give the children a chance to practice the new skills they have been working on as part of the SSE area of Social Conventions and Awareness of Others - using appropriate language styles to suit their audience, using good eye contact whilst talking to others and to encourage the children to feel more comfortable in informal social situations. Here are some photos from the Senior Infants Meet & Greet session with pupils from Fourth Class. Everyone really enjoyed the session.
Valentine's disco - Junior and Senior Infants celebrating friendships today - joining up for a disco.
Made with Love
First Class moulded and painted their own Love Bugs to celebrate St. Valentine's Day
Pancake Tuesday
Lá na bPancóga
5th Class loved making their own pancake batter for Pancake Tuesday ! The perfect treat before Lent!
Lots of real life experience using measures in maths.
The Year of the Dragon
2nd class enjoyed learning all about the origins of the Chinese New Year and how it is celebrated. We made lanterns and dragons to celebrate the festival.
St Brigid's Day
This year 5th class created clay St Brigid's Crosses which they can bring home in the coming weeks! The St Brigid's Cross is said to protect the home.
Each child created a completely unique artwork which they are painting and glazing and preparing to bring home.
Senior Infants using pipe cleaners to make St Brigid's crosses.
January 2024
"A Problem Shared is a Problem Halved" - Fractions 5th Class
5th Class have been tackling fractions in the last month. They used peer teaching to help them to solve those tricky fraction problems.
Homemade soup
The children chopped, peeled and boiled the vegetables for soup. Then when the vegetables were cooked we used a hand blender to blitz the vegetables and the finished product was delicious.
Fun with Fractions
Fourth class started the new year off on a tough topic. They compared fractions and decimals and matched them. Fun games were had to aid in the learning of a hard topic.
First and Second Class enjoying the cold January weather.
December 2023
Christmas Concert
The Annual Scoil Éanna Christmas Concert 2023 - the highlight of the year for many.
Christmas Festivities
5th class enjoyed the build up to Christmas. They created their own Christmas Village Art Projects and enjoyed some Christmas Music!
The Elves and the Shoemaker
First Class fashioned clothes out of felt for their Elf on the Shelf! He chose his favourites from the line of clothes and was even treated to some accessories! Junior and Senior Infants visited the classroom workshop to view our designs and share their opinions on them.
Pizza Party
Second and Fourth class joined forces to create some scrumptious pizzas for Christmas! We used some delicious toppings like pepperoni, ham, cheese, pineapple (who puts pineapple on pizza!!!) to create some mouth watering masterpizzas ;) Bon appetit!
November 2023
Fourth class success
Fourth class recently won a teamwork award for their video "Why does the length of day change from Summer to Winter?" in the Reel Life science video competition. The class worked really hard as a group and it was fantastic to receive an award for teamwork. Well done fourth class. The video can be accessed on the following link: https://youtu.be/8O3hbFnyiA0?si=DK0BoFHj2v4FvsjL
Mask making
The children designed and painted their own mask during an art lesson this week.
Shadow Puppet Theatre
For Science week, 5th class have been creating puppets using opaque materials to explore how shadow puppets can be created.
Each child, created their own story and retold their stories to the class.
Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence
4th Class Gaelic Football exhibition day.
Homemade goujons
Lifestyles are very important in our classroom. This week the children learned how to make chicken goujons using cornflakes. They loved making their own goujons and they were delicious!!
Yoga Sessions
Second class had a lovely relaxing morning trying out some different yoga poses. We tried the warrior pose, downward dog pose, chair pose, tree pose, snake pose and the frog pose. All relaxed and ready for the day.
October 2023
Happy Halloween
Fantastic effort across the school for our dress up day for Halloween! Well done everyone!
Well done 5th class for getting into character!
Happy Halloween!
Some shots below from the Senior Infants Halloween Fashion Show - SCARY STUFF!!
A spirited bunch all dressed up for Halloween! Fantastic efforts First Class
Halloween Fun
First and Second class joined forces to fight off evil spirits this Halloween. We had lots of fun making potions and creating magic capes.
Exploring the Power of Magnets - Senior Infants
Today Senior Infants discussed the area of magnetism in science. They investigated the magnetic attraction of different materials from around the classroom and made predictions.
Reel Life Science
4th class created a video for the Reel Life Science competition. They worked extremely hard on creating a video describing how the length of day changes from Summer to Winter. The class really enjoyed the process and learned so much from doing the video.
Engineering: Windmills!
Inspired by the story of the Little Red Hen and uses for mills, First Class worked as Engineers to design their own windmills. These were then tested as a class with many minds looking for ways to improve on each design.
Well done all for the effort given to this project.
Homemade Pizza
The children made their own pizza dough from scratch. using flour, yogurt and salt.
Maths Stations
First Class worked with number in a fun and meaningful way using stations.
New School Jersey
New Scoil Éanna jerseys being given their debut outing by our new Junior Infants today for training in the yard.
Girls Football Mini 7s
Well done to our Girls Football Mini 7s panel who did themselves proud competing in our blitz in Bullaun pitch. They had a fantastic opening game, beating Kiltullagh, but unfortunately came up against a very strong G.S Uí Cheithearnaigh team who went on to win out the final on the day. There was very high quality football played on the day and the girls should be very proud of themselves.
Camogie Mini 7s Team Progress to the Finals
Congratulations to our camogie mini 7s team who won all of their matches on their blitz day in St Thomas' pitch. The girls played Peterswell, Ballyglass, St Ita's and Leitrim coming out on top in each game. They fought hard and gave every ounce of their energy. The team now progress to the Mini 7s Camogie finals day on Tuesday 17th of October at Kilconieron GAA Grounds at 9:30am. Best of luck girls.
D.E.A.R. - Drop Everything and Read in effect in First Class, making the most of the sunshine!
Creating Craters
4th class have been exploring how craters are created. The class dropped different sized balls into boxes of flour and cocoa powder from a variety of heights. These created craters and we then measured how much of a diameter the craters had. This simulates the impact a meteorite has on Earth. Craters can also be created by volcanic activity or an explosion but thankfully we didn't have either of those in the classroom!!
Outdoor and Adventure Activities - A Trip to Turoe Pet Farm
All of the children from Junior Infants, Senior Infants and the Autism Class were treated to an adventure to Turoe Pet Farm today. A huge selection of areas from the curriculum were explored here including the outdoor and adventure area of PE, walking, outdoor challenges, Geography - our local natural environment, weather, caring for my locality. But most importantly the day offered the children an opportunity to be "kids" - making up their own games, collecting conkers, making dens, protecting their stash, collecting sticks and leaves and trying their hands at all the wonderful outdoor apparatus that Turoe Pet Farm has to offer.
Thank you very much to the Corcoran family for allowing us the use of the facilities for the day.
Ciorcail Cómhrá
First Class ag labhairt Ghaeilge dá chéile faoin gréine
September 2023
Wellbeing
Senior Infants taking part in a live Zoom Wellbeing Workshop.
Autumn
Senior Infants children exploring the joy of the changing seasons.
Architecture
The children in 5th were reading about unusual houses and homes around the world. After looking at the work of Mars Jr. (an illustrator), they decided to create a drawing of their own skyscrapers to create a cityscape.
Scratch Coding
5th class have been learning about block coding through Scratch. Each child animated their names using code. It is great to see each child bringing their interests into their projects. The children were applying the maths concepts we have been learning about to animate too - real life maths - degrees of rotations etc.
Sunny shadows
4th class enjoyed the sunshine this week by completing an experiment on the Sun and the shadows it creates. We have been looking at how the Earth spins on an axis while also orbiting around the Sun. This leads to our shadows being different sizes and going in different directions at different times during the day. To see how this works we drew our shadows in the yard early in the day and stood in the same spot later to see how much our shadows moved. We were amazed to see how quickly this happens.
Banana bread making!
First Day of First Class!
Smiles all around on our First Day! Looking forward to an exciting year ahead.
Check out our previous school years in the archive section linked below. Press on the green button to visit each year.