Please take a moment to watch and savour the extraordinary talents of our boys and girls and their teacher Mr. Herity.  They wrote, developed, produced and edited this truly stunning film.  Evocative and thought provoking, the film is a testament to the imagination of the students and their teacher.  It is being entered into the FÍS awards 2019.  Well done to all involved.  
https://vimeo.com/344570471

The school will be closed on Monday and Tuesday (6-7 May) for the bank holiday and in-service training for teachers.  All children return to school on Wednesday 8 May.  

Sixth class boys and girls in Mr Herity's room were learning all about bridges recently.  They found out that there are lots of different types of bridges, including Cantilever, Beam and Truss bridges.  They decided to design and make a selection of their own bridges using newspaper.  We love their ingenuity and creativity.  

As part of the Environmental Awareness and Care strand of the Science curriculum, sixth class students were delighted to welcome Emily Robyn Archer to their classroom.  She conducted a workshop on the dangers of plastic to our oceans.  The display below, was made using plastic coffee lids.  It is a reminder to us all that we need to preserve and protect our beautiful oceans.  Reusable coffee cups are a great idea.  

Owing to the hard work of our parents, guardians and family members, we have managed to collect enough tokens to fill 12 Aldi Posters.  That is an impressive total of 3,600 tokens.  We cannot believe it.  Thank you to everyone for being so generous and thoughtful.  We really hope that we are successful in our efforts.  

On Thursday last (28 March), we hosted a wonderful Intercultural concert in the school hall to showcase the rich tapestry of cultures and traditions that make Huntstown so special.  We were delighted to welcome parents, guardians and family members to join in our celebrations.  We enjoyed acrobatics, music, fashion and dancing.  What a joy to behold.  

Across the school this year there were opportunities to celebrate 'Engineering Week'.  The sixth class students hosted a number of workshops for other classes.  They built catapults, pasta towers and egg protection devices.  We were amazed by the creativity of our students.  

Congratulations to Cara, Casie and Robyn who were winners in the Sligo Feis Art Competition recently.  We are so impressed with the quality of their submissions and are not at all surprised that they were selected by the judges for an award.  Well done girls and thank you to Ms O'Dea for coordinating the submission.  

https://sacredhearthuntsto.wixsite.com/stemlearning2019 
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There are so many opportunities to enjoy STEM learning in our school - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.  We are entering the Primary Science Awards for the third time and we hope that by June, we will be awarded the Plaque of Excellence for our efforts.  All classes in the school have contributed evidence for our 'Log of Evidence'.  We are so impressed when we witness the lengths to which classes go in order to explore, discover, question and wonder.  It is no surprise that we are a centre for curious discoveries.  Whenever a question is posed, we use STEM learning to plan, implement, review and hypothesise.  Clicking on the link above, brings the user to our digital log of evidence.  We regularly add material to the blog and we hope to submit the blog to Science Foundation Ireland in the coming months.  
Well done to all the boys and girls for continuing to ask questions.  

'Illegal' is a work of fiction by the Irish author Eoin Colfer.  We are lucky that so many of our boys and girls love to read and whenever we are given a recommendation to read and enjoy a new text, we are always willing to take a look.  Ms O'Connor facilitated this display in the atrium recently which highlighted the wonders of this very engaging text.  Last year, the book club members in the school even got to meet Eoin Colfer when they visited Smock Alley in May.  Well done to all involved.  

Ms McEntee has been a power of strength in the school in supporting our students with visual impairment.  A number of our boys and girls use Braille for reading and writing.  This display of work was presented in the atrium recently and showcased the wonderful work that our students produced using Braille.  Well done to all involved.  

Please take note of the important messages in this cyber safety booklet.  It is a stark reminder to us all to take care when using the internet.  

The Student Council would be most grateful if our school community might respond to their appeal.  They are trying to collect tokens for the Aldi 'Play Rugby' competition.  Every time you shop in Aldi, please consider collecting the tokens on offer and donating them to the school.  There is an opportunity for the school to win €50,000 to develop the playing facilities.  A large poster has been erected in the Atrium, upon which the incoming tokens will be pasted.  There is great excitement as we watch our efforts - 'Great oaks from little acorns grow'. 
Your collective support is greatly appreciated.   

Many of our boys and girls are celebrating the richness of their relationships with their grandparents.  So many students are fortunate to live with or near their grandparents.  We can learn so much from listening to, playing with and helping our Grandparents.  They have so much wisdom to share and lots of insights that we can learn from each day.  Our picture shows art from Ms Donovan's class.  Well done everyone.  

We are delighted that so many boys and girls are enjoying our 'Skipathon' as part of the Active Schools activities.  Mr Shelly has set up skipping ropes in the P.E. hall and classes are invited to take part throughout the day.  We can't get over how much enjoyment has been savoured by our boys and girls, during this simple but very healthy exercise.  A great idea.   

Why not take a few moments to enjoy the beautiful voices of our incredible fourth class boys and girls who, together with their teachers Mr Doyle and Mr Thynne, produced this fantastic video.

vimeo.com/307470057/e49429ac63
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Thirty-five years ago, a wonderful lady started working in a small, developing school in the parish of Huntstown.  She could not have imagined that what was once a two teacher school would grow and develop to such an extent in the decades that followed.  Today, Mrs Lynch retires from our school and we are both heavy-hearted at her leaving and uplifted by her faultless service and dedication for all of these years.  Mrs Lynch has looked after us all, first as a member of the cleaning staff and later as the relentless power house in the staff room, who prepares for lunch time breaks and welcomes the many people who come to our school. 
Caring, kind and endlessly cheerful, Mrs Lynch has been a support to so many people and treats everyone with unfailing courtesy and respect.  We have been blessed to call her colleague and are grateful to call her a true friend.  Her children have attended the school and now that family link has been extended as we happily have two of Mrs Lynch's grandchildren, Holly and Grace attending. 
To be an active and committed member of any community requires investment of energy, truth of heart and integrity of intention.  Mrs Lynch has all of these traits and so many more.  We are sorry to say farewell but content in the knowledge that you remain a stalwart of our school and an integral part of what makes us such a wonderful place to grow and learn.  We hope to see you regularly in the staff room and hope that your retirement will be joyous and fun filled.  
​Míle buíochas agus beir bua. 

We are very excited about the upcoming Christmas raffle.  There are still some tickets remaining and with incredible prizes such as a new IPad, we are sure that nobody will want to forget to buy a ticket.  Thank you to the parents who are coordinating this important event.  
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Today we have been 'showing racism the red card'.  We are talking about ways in which we can combat racism, all the while working to celebrate our differences and rejoice in our unique qualities.  
We are so proud of all the boys and girls for their hard work.

Mr Herity and his class won a prize at the FÍS awards which were held at the Helix in Dublin last week.  This continues a long tradition of success at the awards and cements the school's reputation as a centre for innovative and creative film making and technology supported learning.  We are indebted to the boys and girls who have down through the years, produced such high quality films with imaginative story lines and brilliantly drawn characters, themes and ideas.  The judges are always high in their praises, given the incredible films the students manage to create.  We are also awestruck by the dedication of Mr. Herity, who has invested considerable effort and energy into producing these films each year.  The editing process is a lengthy and time consuming affair and involves many hours of re-shoots and sound checks.  It is a huge part of the culture of our school now and we are so lucky to be able to offer this facility for film making to our boys and girls. 

This year the film produced by Mr Herity used animation, lego, and green screening.  The film was called 'Once Upon a Rhyme'.  It won 'Best Mixed Media Production Award'.  We are very proud of all of our students and teachers for their hard work and dedication and we look forward to more success in the years to follow.  

Well done to the boys and girls from Rang 6, who participated in the Junior Achievement Ireland awards before Halloween.  They have been looking at the world of entrepreneurship, in preparation for the world of work.  The future is very bright when we have innovative boys and girls like those that populate Huntstown.  They have great ideas about how to improve the world around them and the gumption to work hard to achieve these goals. 
They were rewarded for their hard work with an invitation to the HSBC global head office in Grand Canal.  Working around the board room table, they shared ideas and imagined how they might contribute to the future of their country and the globe.  Thank you to Mr. Burke for coordinating this event.   

Ms Barry and her first class boys and girls were busy making these spooky rice krispie buns this morning.  They were exploring procedural writing and used the opportunity to outline the steps in making the buns.  It involved melting chocolate, mixing the rice krispies and decorating with eyes and marshmallows.  
The resulting cakes are both frightening and tasty.  We are so lucky in our school to enjoy treats like these as part of our learning.