A massive well done to the huge number of children who won prizes in the Pentel International Art Competition.

There was lots of sport and activity in St. Paul’s last week for our annual Active Week. Each day the children took part in different activities including Athletics, GAA, Orienteering and the much love Water Day. Thank you to all the teachers involved in making it such a fantastic week. A special thank you to Mr. Burns and Ms. McCarthy who organised the whole week.

Keith Duffy, and his wife Lisa, paid a visit to St. Paul’s last week to be presented with a cheque for The Keith Duffy Foundation. The children in Sixth Class donated some of their confirmation money to the charity, which so far has amounted to €800. Keith and Lisa really enjoyed their visit to the school and were astounded by the wonderful facilities offered to the pupils in St. Paul’s, in particular to the children in our ASD classes.

Leinster Glory for St. Paul’s!!

With all four of the St. Paul’s teams qualifying for the Leinster Olympic Handball semi-finals, there was great excitement in the build up to the big day. The Leinster finals were played in Gormonston College on Monday, 8^th May. We would like to bring you a report of what was a very special day for St. Paul’s.

The Semi-Finals

The U-11 girls’ team played the first semi-final against Corduff NS. They won 4-2 and made it into the Leinster Finals. The U-11 boys’ team played against Corduff also and won convincingly on a final score-line of 6-2. The U13 girls’ team played Rush NS and won a close game, showing great heart and skill. The U-13 boys’ team defeated St Peter’s, Phibsboro in a tense semi-final and qualified for the finals. This meant that all of the four St. Paul’s teams had made it to the Leinster finals. We waited nervously for the finals to start.

The Finals

The U11 girls’ team faced Skyrne in the final. After playing very well, they narrowly lost on a final score-line of 3-2, but came second in all of Leinster. The U11 boys’ team played Rush NS in their final. They dominated Rush and won 3-1, claiming the Leinster title. The U13 girls’ team played against Yellow Furze. After playing excellent handball, they were narrowly defeated by Yellow Furze. The U13 boys faced Skyrne in the final. After playing their hearts out, they were defeated by a very strong Skryne side.

After the completion of the finals, all our teams were presented with their medals and the U11 boys celebrated after receiving their Leinster championship shield. We would like to thank all the teachers who coached us throughout the year. It was a fantastic year! We are already looking forward to next year’s competition. Go St. Paul’s!

Seán Twyford & Erin Leeson (Rm 16)

St. Paul’s First Football County Final Appearance: Saturday 10^th June at 3.30pm, Páirc Tailteann, Navan

Saturday, June 10^th will be a proud day for St. Paul’s Ratoath, as it marks the school’s first appearance in a boys’ 15 a-side county football final.

St. Paul’s finished first in the division 1 shield division and qualified straight to the final. On route to the county final, St. Paul’s defeated Whitecross N.S., St. Stephen’s Navan, St Declan’s Ashbourne, St. Joseph’s Navan, Duleek B.N.S., and Kells B.N.S.

The boys’ final will take place in Páirc Tailteann, Navan at 3.30pm on Saturday the 10^th of June. St. Paul’s await the winners of the semi-final between Whitecrosss N.S and Duleek B.N.S in the final. We would encourage a big support for our boys on their big day.

Last February St.Paul’s took part in the nationwide Big Travel Challenge run by An Taisce. This competition saw the Green School Committee choose a mode of green transport to promote over a 10 day period. As we had noticed a drop off in the number of children cycling we set ourselves the challenge of encouraging more children to travel by bike on the school run. The committee made classroom visits and teachers recorded the numbers of cyclists daily over the ten day period. Names of all children who cycled were were entered into a raffle and Ms. Egan’s second class created some cool posters and slogans to display on the corridors.

The data we collected was sent in to An Taisce along with evidence of the work our Green School committee is involved in and details of how St. Paul’s embraced the Big Travel Challenge 2017. Our cyclists increased from a baseline figure of 32 to 104 by Day 10 of the challenge and this was based on data received from 552 pupils. We were delighted with the improvement!!

Things got even better two weeks ago when we received word that St. Paul’s had won a prize in the Big Travel Challenge awards. Details were kept secret and we were invited to attend an awards ceremony and create a display focussing on our Green School work on the travel theme.

Seven lucky committee members along with Ms. O’Doherty, Ms. Egan and Ms. Prendiville set off for the Hilton Hotel, Kilmainham on Wednesday 10^th May armed with big smiles and a colourful display! It was lovely to browse and see all of the work the seven other featured schools were involved in and we got to listen to some very interesting speakers. Then came the highlight – the awards ceremony itself! We couldn’t believe it when we were announced as the Cycling School of the Year 2017!!

We were presented with an engraved plaque, a framed and mounted certificate and a cheque for €500 to put towards our Green School endeavours next year!! To be in the top 8 of 1800 schools eligible to enter this competition is a huge achievement and we are all very proud of the Green School Committee and all of the pupils and parents of St. Paul’s who have embraced the idea of sustainable, green travel and are playing such an important part in changing our attitudes and safeguarding our environment for future generations!

Congratulations to all of our Sixth Class children who were confirmed on Friday.

Friday was a very busy day in St. Paul’s with all the children taking part in our annual sponsored walk and run. The children from Junior Infants to Fourth Class walked various routes around the village, while the children in Fifth and Sixth Class had more of a challenge having to run around Fairyhouse Racecourse. The day was a great success and well done to everyone for taking part.

Thank you to all the children and their families for gathering sponsorship money for our school, and thank you also to our Parents’ Association for supplying water and apples for all the children.

Congratulations to our four Olympic Handball teams who performed so well in the Meath Championship finals played in Gormonston College on Monday the 3^rd of April. All four teams won their respective semi-finals, which was a fantastic achievement in its own right.What follows is a brief report on the four finals:

Results of Meath Championship Finals:

U-11 Girls’ Final

St. Paul’s NS V Skryne NS:

Having made a great start, scoring early in the final, our u-11 girls’ team lost out to a very good Skryne team on a final scoreline: Skryne NS 3 St Paul’s NS 1

U-11 Boys’ Final

St Paul’s NS v Yellow Furze NS:

St Paul’s made a great start to the final scoring first and they maintained their lead throughout to record a great victory!

Final Score line:  St Paul’s NS 3 Skryne 1

U-13 Girls’ Final

St Paul’s NS v Yellow Furze NS:

This was a very entertaining and high scoring match. Our girls played excellently but they came up against a very talented Yellow Furze team.

Final Score line: Yellow Furze NS 6 St Paul’s NS 3

U-13 Boys’ Final:

St Paul’s NS v Skryne NS:

This was a very tense and exciting match. Having trailed by three goals mid-way through the match, our boys fought back to level the match, forcing the game into extra time. In the end, St Paul’s emerged victorious on a final score line of St Paul’s NS 7 Skryne 6.

All these impressive results mean that our four teams have qualified for the Leinster finals which will take place on Monday May 8^th in Gormonston College.

Happy Easter from everyone in St. Paul’s! Don’t eat too many eggs!

A super well done to Jack Tormey in Sixth Class who represented St. Paul’s in the Meath Spelling Bee final! Jack worked very hard to prepare himself for the challenge and we are very proud of him for doing so well. Well done Jack!

Daffodil Day was a huge success this year and we are delighted to report that we raised €1,557 for the Irish Cancer Society. This would not have been possible without our wonderful Student Council who were very busy all day selling daffodils, pins and raffle tickets! Thank you also to Ms. Swanton’s Fifth Class who made the beautiful sign for the table.

Well done to our raffle prize winners: Ms. O’Connor, Cara O’Sullivan and Séona Cunningham.

Our boys and girls’ Olympic handball teams have been busy competing in the Meath Championships. Our four teams have competing very successfully in the group stages of the competition. All four teams have qualified for the finals day which will take place in Gormonston on Monday April 3^rd. Best of luck to all involved!

Bhí seachtain íontach againn in the lead up to St. Patrick’s day with lots of activities taking place ar scoil for Seachtain na Gaeilge.  There was plenty craic agus ceol i rith na seachtaine.

Children in Junior and Senior Infants and rooms 25 and 26 enjoyed some ceol tradisiúnta played by some of our talented múinteoirí . The páistí from 1^st and 2^nd classes were treated to a visit from an Irish Author Treasa Ní Ailpín who read a scéal and kindly gave the school a bronntanas of three books she has written.  A huge quiz took place in the halla for the páistí ó rang a trí go dtí rang a sé which generated great excitement and resulted in a tie for first place for three teams!

The week was rounded off nicely on lá glas where each class gave a wonderful performance as Gaeilge at assembly to mark Seachtain na Gaeilge. Afterwards the páistí showed off their dancing skills at the céilí mór.

Many thanks to all of the múinteoirí for their help throughout the week and a special go raibh maith agaibh to the páistí from the Coiste Gaeilge who produced some lovely artwork and who have been very busy encouraging all of the páistí scoile to use their Gaeilge more often.

St. Paul’s u-11 and u-13 quiz teams recently participated in the Credit Union Quiz organised by Ashbourne Credit Union. Our two teams performed excellently. Our U-11 team finished in third place, while our U-13 team claimed second prize. The boys and girls were delighted when Caroline from Ashbourne Credit Union visited the school to present the children with their certificates!

Last Friday was a busy day in St. Paul’s as we had a GAA day in order to help Ratoath GAA Club with their fundraising campaign to build a Multi Use Games Area with a Ball Wall and also floodlit astro pitches. The children all wore Ratoath GAA colours on the day and Fourth Class put on a special GAA Assembly showing off all their wonderful skills! Thank you to everyone who brought in some small change on the day for our Coin Trail – all that small change added up to an impressive €1356!

The Green School committee are hard at work on the travel theme and we will be applying for our fourth green flag in the coming months. We are monitoring the modes of transport that are being used by our pupils when travelling to and from school.

Fit Feet Friday had its relaunch in December and we are delighted with the uptake. 84% of children are participating by using a green travel mode on Fridays. This is wonderful and we would love to see this increase even more by the end of the year!!

Golden Boot
As part of our Fit Feet Fridays we are running a Golden Boot competition. One of our committee members, Fionn, kindly donated an old football boot and this was blinged up by Shane, Fionn and Isabel. The class with the most children travelling in a green way every week gets to keep the Golden Boot and they also get extra yard time- even more opportunity to get fit and healthy! Ms. Smyth’s 3^rd class were our first Golden boot winners with 28 children in the class travelling to school in a green way – Wow, fantastic statistics!!!

Workshops

Karen from Green Schools will be visiting the school over the coming months and will facilitate a variety of workshops for different class levels. These proved very successful and enjoyable last year so we are delighted that we can look forward to more scooter workshops, bike rodeos, nature walks and climate change talks before the year is out!

Green School Big Travel Challenge 2017

Green Schools run a national competition every February in order to promote sustainable modes of travel on the school run. Every school participating chooses an area to focus on and promotes this over a ten day period. While analysing our Fit Feet Friday statistics we have been delighted with the increased numbers of children walking to and from school but the numbers cycling have dropped significantly. So, our travel challenge is to get more of our pupils out on their bikes. We want to see those bike sheds full!! There will be raffle prizes up for grabs as teachers monitor the number of cyclists in their class during the weeks pre and post midterm. Remember, two bicycle wheels are better than four car wheels so now that Spring has arrived dust off the cobwebs on your rothar and travel to school in a fun and healthy way!! More information on the Big Travel challenge can be found here:

Join the BIG TRAVEL Challenge this February!

Last Friday was a very sad day in St. Paul’s when we had to say Goodbye to our caretaker Shane. Shane has been a huge asset to the school and there was never a job too big nor too small for him! He always carried out his work willingly and skillfully, with a constant smile on his face. We had a special assembly for Shane on Friday where Sixth Class performed a goodbye song and two of the boys in Fourth Class wrote their own poem for him. We wish Shane the very best of luck in his new adventure and we hope to have him back for a visit soon! Thank You Shane!

Well done to all the children from Third Class to Sixth Class who took part in our wonderful Carol Service this week. Have a listen to Daniel’s beautiful rendition of “O Holy Night”.

There was great excitement yesterday when Santa made a surprise visit to the school! We were delighted to hear that all the boys and girls are on Santa’s Nice List!

Once again our Parents’ Association hosted a Christmas Fair to remember! Preparations began back in October and all the hard work and commitment paid off on Sunday 4th December. We had a tremendous amount of support from our parents and their families and also from people who are not necessarily connected with the school. There were lots of stands including books, cakes, flowers, white elephant and a tuck shop. People could browse and then relax with a cup of tea or coffee in the seating area. Lots of families visited Santa and his elves in the grotto and some of the children availed of the face painting. The event concluded with a huge Raffle with over 85 substantial prizes. Thank you to the many sponsors of these prizes and congratulations to the many winners. The staff of St. Paul’s would like to take this opportunity to thank our fantastic Parents’ Association and to the volunteers for all their work in creating, and on the day helping out, at this event, to ensure it’s success. A massive thank you to all the parents who donated cakes, books and unwanted gifts for the elephant stall. A special note of thanks to Santa who took the time out of his very busy schedule to visit the school and for the time spent with the children. A huge thank you also to our secretary Yvonne and our caretaker Shane for the massive amount of work they did in the lead up to the day.

This year the Christmas fair generated in excess of €11,000 for our school. Thank you all!

Many thanks to all the children and their families in St. Paul’s who donated something for the St. Vincent De Paul Christmas Hampers. Each child brought in a few small items, which in turn made up 48 wonderful hampers which will be donated to families in need this Christmas. Thank you!

Ms. Smyth’s Third Class were over the moon to hear that they had won the Golden Boot competition in the Senior end of the school this week!

The Golden Boot is awarded to the class who has the most children travelling to school in a green way. 28 children from Room 12 either walked, cycled, scooted etc. to school last week. This was the first week of the Golden Boot competition, which makes it an even bigger reason to celebrate!!!

The Golden Boot will take pride of place in Room 12 for the coming week! Well Done everybody!

On Thursday, December 1^st, our four Olympic handball teams travelled to Gormanston to compete in the Meath league. All four teams preformed to a very high standard. The day consisted of the boys and girls playing a number of matches against local schools. At the end of a very enjoyable day, all four teams (Girls & Boys U-13 and Girls & Boys U-11) sat at the top of their respective tables. We look forward with anticipation to the next round of the league which will take place in the New Year. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Irish Olympic Handball Association for organising a very well run competition and all the teachers that coach the various teams throughout the year.

Congratulations to all our prize winners in the School Christmas Raffle.

There was great excitement in school this morning to discover that Jingles the Elf had returned from the North Pole.

Many of you will be aware that we are holding our annual Christmas Fair on Sunday 4th December from 11am to 2.30pm. Each year our Parents’ Association host a huge bumper raffle on the day and this year is no different.  We have over 75 great prizes on offer, a flavour of which you can seen by clicking the link below. Tickets are €2 each or a book of six is €10. Two books of tickets were sent home previously with each family. If you require any more Yvonne has some in the office and there will also be an opportunity to purchase on the day of the fair.

Christmas Raffle Prizes

The theme for Book Week this year was “Books from Around the World”. Classes were busy reading books about lots of different countries around the world. Junior and Senior Infants had a special visit from Clifford the dog who was up to his old tricks again getting himself into all sorts of trouble! First and Second Class took part in a drumming workshop where they learnt about musical instruments from all over the world and played some great music! The children in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Class had a talk with the Irish author Jackie Burke who has inspired many of the children to write some short stories.

As usual it was a very enjoyable and successful week. The Book Fair raised nearly €5,000 for the school to spend on books for our libraries. Thank you to everyone for your continuous support during Book Week.

At Christmas time we try to emphasis the real meaning of Christmas and reflect on those who are not as fortunate as we are. This year the school were delighted to support two very worthy Christmas shoebox appeals, offering the choice between an old favourite ‘Teamhope’ and, this year, a more local cause – the ‘Dublin inner City helping Homeless’. Items such as hats, gloves, scarves, underwear, sweets, chocolate, Christmas cards, roll on deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, shower gels etc were suggested as box fillers. We had a tremendous response resulting in 334 shoeboxes for ‘Teamhope’ and 165 for the ‘Dublin City Helping Homeless’. Thank you so much for your support. The volunteers collecting for both initiatives were astounded at the generosity shown!

Thank you to Zurie’s dad for this beautiful photo of St. Paul’s!

Congratulations to today’s prize winners and to everyone else for such creative, colourful and scary Hallowe’en costumes. Take a look below!

Have a look at our lovely (and some scary!) class photos from Hallowe’en Dress up today.

There was tension, excitement and rivalry in the air as the two teams boldly strode onto the Trim GAA pitch. The talk in the St. Paul’s dressing room was all very similar “Go out there and play your heart out, whether you’re ten points up or ten points down…”

The referee threw in the sliotar, blew his whistle and the game began. Both teams fought hard in the first 5 minutes, but it was Rathbeggan who drew first blood, scoring an early goal. Things didn’t get any easier for St. Paul’s as Rathbeggan piled on the pressure quickly adding on another goal and a point to their tally. Finally a break as the referee blew for half time!

The St. Paul’s team got into a huddle. There were certainly some concerned faces, but the team and the coaches all agreed that in the second half they would show Rathbeggan who the real St. Paul’s were. Some early chances for St. Paul’s went astray from frees and open play. Rathbeggan seemed to have no bad luck as the goals rained down on the St. Paul’s team. St. Paul’s, who had beaten and drew with Rathbeggan in previous matches, then managed a goal and one point both scored by the Corbett brothers Tomás and Seán.

We could all see how hard the team was working, but unfortunately it wasn’t our day as Rathbeggan won the game by 13 points. Tears were shed by our brave St. Paul’s warriors as they shook hands with the Rathbeggan players. A tough day on the field and an unlucky score line.

Well done to the boys and their coaches Ms. Bagnall, Ms. Burke, Ms. Ní Mhurchú and Ms. Talty. We are all extremely proud of you!

Written by Ruairí Braiden, Sixth Class.

A huge congratulations to Tomás Corbett who represented Meath in the Cumann na mBunscol exhibition game at half time during the Kerry V Dublin All Ireland Football semi-final in August. This was a huge achievement for Tomás as he was the only player picked to represent Meath on the day. Well done Tomás.

St. Paul’s in the Cumann the mBunscol Hurling Final 

Well done to our boys’ Hurling team who have made it to the Cumann na mBunscol Final. The boys will play Rathbeggan National School in Trim GAA Club, this Saturday the 22nd of October at 4pm. All supporters are welcome!

Student Council

Green School Committee

Active School Committee

Coiste Gaeilge

Gardening Committee