Aistear

Aistear is based on 12 principles of early learning and development. These are presented in three groups:

1. The first group concerns children and their lives in early childhood: ■ the child’s uniqueness ■ equality and diversity ■ children as citizens.

2. The second group concerns children’s connections with others: ■ relationships ■ parents, family and community ■ the adult’s role.

3. The third group concerns how children learn and develop: ■ holistic learning and development ■ active learning ■ play and hands-on experiences ■ relevant and meaningful experiences ■ communication and language ■ the learning environment.

Each principle is presented using a short statement. This is followed by an explanation of the principle from the child’s perspective. 

Amber Flag

amber flag

This year, as part of our SESE programme, we are taking part in the Amber Flag Initiative, run by Pieta. The Amber Flag Initiative aims to encourage schools to promote, and actively bring about a culture change in positive mental health within the educational system and other organisations. The Pieta Amber Flag initiative enables schools and youth groups across the country to raise awareness of the stigmas which exist in their environments, and the stressors on the mental and emotional wellbeing of those within them. 

So, we are looking forward to Mindfulness Mondays and Friendship Fridays amongst other themed events in the coming weeks and months!

Kindness Café

Our Kindness Café in collaboration with our Amber Flag Initiative just before Easter was a tremendous success. Kindness chains and bunting were displayed around our café, while placemats incorporating encouraging and inspiring thoughts were spread throughout the café to help promote further kindness in our school and community.

The children of Kiltallagh were amazing waiters and waitresses serving up all the delicious food (some of which they had cooked/ baked in school the previous day in anticipation of the many hungry customers who duly arrived after our Farewell Service!

A wonderful air of happiness and kindness was surely present throughout the afternoon and we are delighted to have raised €125 for Pieta House- our chosen charity.

Heartfelt thanks to all who provided simply scrumptious baking to our Kindness Café and who donated so generously to Pieta House.


Kindness Café- Tír na nÓg Fundraiser

Following our beautiful Christmas Service in Kiltallagh Church on Wednesday December 20th, we returned back to our school where members of the community from Kitallagh joined us.

Delicious savoury and sweet treats as well as tea and coffee were served by the pupils in our Kindness Café- raising funds for the Tír na nÓg Orphanage in Tanzania.

We have raised in excess of €572.81 so far.

The spirit of giving is truly alive in the community of Kiltallagh!

Random Acts of Kindness Week!

On March 20th, all the pupils in our school came together to create our 'Random Acts of Kindness Chain'. Each of the pupils thought about how they could show kindness in a very simple way each day. They then wrote down their ideas on card and we created a Kindness/Care Chain to display on our main school corridor. This location serves as a perfect gentle reminder -should they ever forget to be kind!

Some of the kindness ideas were inviting someone to join in their game on the yard, opening the door or simply sharing a smile!

Smiling is infectious,
you catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too.
I passed around the corner
and someone saw my grin.
When he smiled I realized
I'd passed it on to him.
I thought about that smile,
then I realized its worth.
A single smile, just like mine
could travel round the earth.
So, if you feel a smile begin,
don't leave it undetected.
Let's start an epidemic quick,
and get the world infected!

Spreading a little kindness!

Carepack.ie is a kindness initiative that connects residents in a Nursing Home, Residential Home or other Care facilities with a kind volunteer who would like to write to them, draw a picture and send a little gift.

As part of our Amber Flag, the pupils and staff of Kiltallagh NS decided to participate in this fabulous initiative.

Míle Buíochas to An Post who sent the packages for free!

 

STEM

BEE-BOT/LEGO WE DO

The children in Kiltallagh have had an amazing few weeks with Bee-Bot and Lego We Do.

What is Bee-Bot you may wonder ?

Bee-Bot is an educational robot designed for children aged 3 and above. It is a small, programmable device that resembles a friendly bee, capturing the imagination of young learners. With its simple and intuitive interface, Bee-Bot introduces children to the basics of programming and coding in a fun and accessible way.

LEGO WeDo is an educational robotics kit designed to introduce  school students to the exciting world of programming. Through a delightful combination of building with LEGO bricks and using an easy-to-use companion app, students can gain an understanding of how code is created.

Sincere thanks to Tralee Education Centre for making these wonderful resources available to the students in Kiltallagh.

Why not check out our school Face Book page for some more images and videos of our aspiring programmers and coding enthusiasts !



SB Science Blast:

Science Blast is the current flagship project in the RDS Science and Technology programme. It is a STEM education programme, designed and delivered by the RDS, to inspire primary school children and is one of the largest science education programmes for primary schools of its kind anywhere. Evidence shows that at this age children are more open to the possibilities of STEM than students in later academic years, with positive experiences potentially having a lasting effect.
ESB Science Blast asks an entire primary school class to investigate a question they are curious about and to present their findings in their school.
Particularly during Term 3 of 2023, the children have been very busy working on various Science Projects which will culminate in a Science Fair in the school on Friday June 9th. This promises to be a fun filled science-themed afternoon -where families can come in and interact with the students and staff and hear all about their amazing projects. They can't wait!
The seeds of curiosity are already planted in the minds of our pupils in Kiltallagh and they are already looking forward to the next academic year where they can expand their projects and travel farther afield to show case them!
An interesting question-
If we have a new moon every month….where does the old one go?!!
 

Spaghetti Marshmallow Tower Challenge

The pupils in the senior room had a very enjoyable morning using marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti to create a freestanding tower. The goal of the lesson was to help the pupils understand engineering and the importance of team work.

 

  1. Each group got an opportunity to present their work and discuss their process.
  2. Fellow peers had questions for them afterwards including what were some of the obstacles they met on the way and how did they overcome them?
  3. The big question was...did the finished tower resemble what they had planned it to be?

 

STEAM

STEAM stands for Science,Technology,Engineering,Arts and Maths.

The vision of STEAM Education is to inspire children to love STEAM subjects and to become the future generation of Scientists, Technologists, Engineers, Artists and Mathematicians.

We are looking forward to engaging further in STEAM in the coming months.




Cooking and Baking

We have had a wonderful cooking experience in the senior room this past term, with all the pupils getting an opportunity to cook/bake their favourite dish-making excellent use of our updated catering facilities. 

We have had a full Irish breakfast, American Style Hot Dogs, Leafy Summer Salads, various selections of Pizza with goats’ cheese and caramelised red onion, a tasty pasta dish, Arroz Caldo Con Pollo-a dish native to The Phillipines and scrumptious French toast with assorted berries and maple syrup as our final dish a few weeks ago.  I bet your mouths are watering at the mention of these tempting and succulent dishes!

We are delighted also to let you know that our very own restaurant-Café Kiltallagh returned last week! Covering many strands of the curriculum, this project involved decorating the classroom to create an ambient dining experience where the pupils chose their own 3 course menu of garlic bread/naan bread, with a choice of chicken curry or pasta for mains and a selection of ice-cream for dessert. The food was prepared and cooked with the children and then served in the ‘dining room’. All pupils dressed up for what was a 5-star dining experience!


Specialist PE Teacher

We are delighted to welcome Amy Foley as our qualified specialist PE Instructor for 2023/2024

Amy has a Bachelor of Science (Honours Degree) in Physical Education with SPHE.

Apart from delivering the specific curriculum as specified by the Dept. of Education and Skills, Amy’s main aim is to increase the activity levels of primary school children in a safe, fun & friendly environment.

Amy will cover all the strands of the PE Curriculum (except aquatics) in 6 week blocks. Aquatics will be covered in Term 3 when the children will participate in swimming lessons in The Killarney Health and Leisure Centre.

Amy also coordinates our annual sports day which takes place in June of each year at Inch Beach (weather dependant) or at Milltown Castlemaine GAA Grounds.

We have a P.E. tracksuit that is worn on PE days. Gum guards are compulsory for Gaelic Football.

Artist in Residence

Our Artist in Residence, Cathy Giles joins us on a weekly basis for the junior room pupils and forthnightly for our senior pupils- developing their artistic skills and abilities. Cathy is a wonderfully talented local artist who aims to bring out the very best in each and every one of the children enabling them to express their ideas, feelings and experiences through a diverse range of art activities. In her work with the students, Cathy will cover all strands of the curriculum- drawing, paint, colour, print, clay, fabric and fibre and construction. The children create their own Art Portfolio annually of their work.             

The Artist in Residence was the brainchild of the parents of Kiltallagh and is most definitely an excellent addition to our programme of work and one which we envisage will continue long into the future.


Geometric Animal Art

We have had a fantastic start to our Art Lessons for 2024- with our Artist in Residence Cathy Giles guiding us along each step of our creative journey. 

Below is a link to our FaceBook Page where you can see the children creating their very own geometric animals!

Just copy and paste the link to see their amazing animal creations!

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/xNwxsjo63bfBwch2/

Claude Monet


Our Artist in Residence, Cathy Giles introduced the children to the works of the French Artist-Claude Monet recently. They focused on one of his famous works- ‘The Water-Lily Pond’, an oil on canvas painting.

The children studied an image of the original painting. Through visual thinking they explored what for them ‘was going on in the picture’, what they saw that made them come to this conclusion and what else they could find in the picture. They came back with some very interesting and varied observations.

Why not check out the painting for yourself and see what you come up with ?!

Artist in Residence
calendar

Green Schools

Our aim here in Kiltallagh School is to develop the pupils and staff awareness of their environment. The majority of young people care very much about their environment and endeavour to make positive changes to protect it. Our Green School Programme is a central part of Kiltallagh School life.

In June 2009, we raised our first green flag for Recycling in Kiltallagh School.

We visited KWD Recycling Centre in Killarney as part of our project. We introduced recycling, rubbish and compost bins in all the classrooms with various pupils assigned to empty the bins into the larger bins outside each evening. We also put in place a recycling bin for batteries and collected old mobile phones. We had regular clothing recycling days where all families brought in any old clothes, shoes, linen, curtains etc. These were collected by a recycling company. In the first two years we reduced our waste going to landfill by 40 %.

We are very proud of this achievement and have worked very hard to maintain our flag down through the intervening years and to improve on our recycling.

In 2010, we were delighted to win the Super Valu National Tidy Towns Award.

We then challenged ourselves and began working on our 2nd Flag for Energy. Our main focus was educating ourselves and the wider community about energy saving. We looked at various ways in which we could be more energy efficient in school and at home, such as keeping outside doors closed to keep the heat in, not leaving electrical appliances on standby, turning off lights when not needed. We established Energy Wardens who were responsible for turning off lights, computers etc. in the evenings as well as ensuring that all blinds were closed to conserve energy. We invited a plumber, an electrician, a Bio Energy Consultant and Michael O Coiléan from An Taisce in to talk to us about energy, how it is used and how we can conserve it. We visited the Wind Farm in Tursillagh where we learned so much about this renewable energy source. We established a competition for the pupils to compile an Energy Code.

This was one of our winning entries in our Energy Code Competition.
E-nergy Saving
N-ot Wasting
E-lectricity
R-eusable Energy- Wind
G-oing to Save Energy
Y-ah We’re Saving Energy

We received our second green flag for Energy in 2011.

Our third Flag was for water in 2013.

We first established our water usage in the school and then compiled a list of strategies to try and reduce this. We installed compression taps in all our sinks which ensured that taps were not left running and we also reduced the pressure of the water. Staff became much more conservative when putting on the kettle! A water butt was placed outside the school which was used to water plants etc. We learned about water saving in class and highlighted people’s use of water in the home encouraging them to reuse water for gardening and to take showers instead of baths. We visited the Water Treatment Plant in Killorglin as part of our research for our Green Flag.

In May 2015 we were awarded our 4th Green Flag for Sustainable Travel.

Under the guidance of Michael O Coiléan and Fiona Barry from An Taisce, all our pupils are encouraged to walk or cycle to school. We have established a WOF Day (Walk On Friday) each child is provided with a High Viz Vest to make them more visible to all road users thus hopefully keeping everybody safe.

In September 2015 we commenced working on our 5th green flag for “Biodiversity”. We were delighted to be awarded this in the summer of 2017.

Kiltallagh National School is very proud to be part of the Creative Clusters pilot initiative of the Department of Education, led by and in partnership with Tralee Education Centre.
 
We are part of a Creative Cluster with St. John’s Church of Ireland, Tralee; Fybough NS; St. Joseph’s NS, Castlemaine and LCA Youthreach, Tralee. 
We are currently in Year 2 of the project and have many exciting plans for this school year. 
Creative Clusters

Address

Castlemaine,

Co. Kerry.

V93KV76

School Roll: 17161S

Killtallagh N.S.

066 /9767718 

086/1715937

083/0129716

www.kiltallaghns.ie

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School Day

  • School Starts: 9:10 AM
  • Sos / Small Break: 10.50 – 11.00 AM
  • Lón / Lunch Break: 12.50 – 1.20 PM
  • Infants Hometime: 1:50 PM
  • Classes (1st to 6th): 2.50 PM

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