ST. PATRICK'S NATIONAL SCHOOL - BALLYROEBUCK

St. Patrick's National School actively participates in the Hurling 365 School programme.

The Hurling 365 School programme promotes and supports the coming together of Co. Wexford clubs and schools to provide weekly coaching to children. It is a volunteer driven model which empowers clubs and schools to shape their own future development and equip children with the key skills and of course an enduring love of the game.

For more inormation on this programme please visit Wexford G.A.A. - Hurling 365.

Learning to swim is not just a great way for children to stay healthy and happy, it is also an important safety precaution and could have even more far-reaching benefits for both the children and other people.

St. Patrick's National School in conjunction with its Parents Council grant the opportunity for and promote every pupil to learn how to swim.

Swimming lessons are organised for each school term. If you would like for your child to participate in this invaluable programme, please contact us for further information.

Please note: Swimming is an optional activity and the cost is borne by parents.

We have the services of a Tag Rugby coach from Enniscorthy Rugby Club in our school. He visits the school for a six week block, generally during the third term. Coaching takes place during school time and is provided to the pupils in 5th & 6th class or as numbers dictate.

As part of our Active Schools programme an Active Hour is run on Mondays at various times of the year. Infants stay from 2.00-3.00pm on Mondays, while the rest of the school stay from 3.00-4.00pm. A wide variety of PE related activities is undertaken and participation is optional.

We offer French classes to the pupils in the Senior Room as preparation for the transition to Secondary School. It is available to the pupils in 5th & 6th class and is run for one hour per week for ten weeks and takes place after school. The Parent's Association cover the costs involved and it is optional to pupils.

St. Patrick's National School runs a school chess club as an extra-curricular activity. The chess club meet up weekly for tutoring & match-playing. Contact us for more information on the school's chess club.

Chess has long been regarded as a game that can have beneficial effects on learning on development, especially when it is played from a young age.

Below are some of the most critical benefits that chess can provide to a child:

• Develop analytical, synthetic and decision-making skills, which they can transfer to real life.
• Learn to engage in deep and thorough chess research which will help them build their confidence in their ability to do academic research.
• Help children gain insights into the nature of competition which will help them in any competitive endeavor.
• When youngsters play chess they must call upon higher-order thinking skills, analyze actions and consequences, and visualize future possibilities.
• In countries where chess is offered widely in schools, pupils exhibit excellence in the ability to recognize complex patterns and consequently excel in math and science.

Children are naturally interested in music, and music is naturally good for children. That's why at St. Patrick's National School, we place a strong emphasis on the positives of music co-exisitng with education. The school has a dedicated music teaching resource, musicianship lessons and an active school choir. The school also strongly promotes pupils to follow muscial interests as an extra-curricular activity.

Our Music Teacher, visits our school every Monday to teach music to all classes. The children learn to play the tin whistle as well as the other aspects of the music curriculum. Furthermore choir preparation takes place within the school for various occasions eg. sacramental preparation, end of year mass etc.

Why is music so attractive to children and why is music so well suited to children?

• Music is a language, and children are oriented toward learning languages.
• Music evokes movement, and children delight in and require movement for their development and growth.
• Music engages the brain while stimulating neural pathways associated with such higher forms of intelligence as abstract thinking, empathy, and mathematics.
• Music's melodic and rhythmic patterns provide exercise for the brain and help develop memory. Who among us learned the ABC's without the ABC song?
• Music is an aural art and young children are aural learners. Since ears are fully mature before birth, infants begin learning from the sounds of their environment before birth.
• Music is perfectly designed for training children's listening skills. Good listening skills and school achievement go hand in hand.
• Developmentally appropriate music activities involve the whole child - the child's desire for language, the body's urge to move, the brain's attention to patterns, the ear's lead in initiating communication, the voice's response to sounds, as well as the eye-hand coordination associated with playing musical instruments.
• Music is a creative experience which involves expression of feelings. Children often do not have the words to express themselves and need positive ways to release their emotions.
• Music transmits culture and is an avenue by which beloved songs, rhymes, and dances can be passed down from one generation to another.
• Music is a social activity which involves family and community participation. Children love to sing and dance at home and at school.

As part of our Green Schools Programme a School Garden was developed. Each year the children are involved in preparing, sowing, maintaining and picking the vegetables. Work is weather dependent but the children love being involved.

We have undertaken cookery classes with our pupils in recent years. The children learned how to bake biscuits, scones, buns and pizzas. It is a very hands-on activity that the children love and is run with the assistance of parental volunteers.

We offer the pupils from 3rd-6th class the opportunity to learn knitting and sewing. This is done in school as part of the Visual Arts programme. A group of volunteers from the school & wider community come in to assist and all pupils in these classes participate. Some basic materials are required but the bulk of the equipment is available in the school. Scheduling of this initiative varies from year to year.

Rainbows is a national programme to help pupils to cope with bereavement, loss or separation. Deputy Principal, Ms Mairead Byrne is a trained facilitator. We were delighted to offer this programme in our school for the first time this year. It's duration is for ten weeks on an after-school basis.

Each year we seek parents to help out as reading volunteers. The parents help by listening to reading in the Infants classroom. We may extend this to other classes in the future. This programme has run very successfully in our school for many years.