Activities

We do a wide range of activities with our pupils here at Carrickleck NS, some are listed below and to see the latest activities and events visit ‘Latest News’.

Sports

Sports Day

Every year we host our annual Sports Day …

It’s a fun day for the Children and their parents to show their talents in a variety of sports and games.

Gaelic Football

GAA Coaching: In January – February we have a GAA Coach who teaches Gaelic Football skills. We are delighted to avail of this activity. Keeping up with long tradition of GAA football in the school. A school football team was started in 1984 and we began to take part in the Cumann na mBunscol competitions in 1985.

In spite of the small number enrolled it has always been our desire to take part and get involved. Competition is not the sole consideration but is has a motivating effect to improve standards. Jerseys were borrowed before we were able to buy a set of our own.

Cumann na mBunscol Finals

Our school team has reached the final in Navan regularly and we were delighted to win for the first time in 2006. It is always a very special occasion for the boys and girls to play in Pairc Tailteann. Our most recent final was in 2013.The school purchased a new set of jerseys in 1999 to coincide with our very first final in Pairc Tailteann. In 2012, we bought a new set of jerseys. Our school crest is featured on these jerseys. The crest was designed as part of a project to mark the Millennium. Recently we have entered a girls team for the first time in a few years.

Sam Maguire & Brendan Martin Cup

Sam Maguire was a regular visitor for many years with winning Meath teams. He always caused great excitement and it was a fantastic chance for everyone in the community to come together.

In more recent years we had the honour of welcoming the Brendan Martin Cup and some of the ladies from the winning Meath team.

Soccer

In more recent years, we have entered a team into the FAI Schools’ Soccer Blitz which is held in the MDL grounds in Navan. This year our team was made up of 3 boys and 3 girls. They played very well and gave an excellent account of themselves. We won two out of three games, losing out eventually on goal difference to the winners of our group.

Athletics

Athletics has been popular in the school since 1987 when we sent a team to the Meath Primary Schools Sports in Dunboyne for the first time. We have been successful over the years winning gold, silver and bronze medals for sprinting, relays, long throw and long jump. It is always a great day out and a fantastic opportunity for the children to represent their school.

Community Games

All of our pupils are encouraged to take part in a variety of categories in the local Community Games finals each year and our school has had a number of winners in the regional finals and also been lucky to have a silver medallist in the All Ireland Finals in Athlone.

Rounders

Rounders was introduced in 1985 and has been played ever since. The game is ideal for developing throwing and catching, striking with a bat, fast running between bases and most importantly quick thinking. We have won boys titles in 1989, 1990, 1994 and 2000 and girls titles in 1991 and 1992, as well as featuring in many finals.

In 2023 we will field a Min Rounders team in the Cumann na mBunscol competition

Creativity

Visual Arts

We love doing Art in our school. Every year we participate and have plenty of winning entries in the Kingspan Art Competition as well as Community Games Art and Handwriting Competitions.

Creative Writing

Recently, all students entered ‘ Write A Poem’ competition organised by the Navan Education Centre. We were very successful this year and two pupils had their poems published in My Europe book which was a great achievement.

We have been very successful in recent years in creative writing, in both stories and poetry. We have participated in a poetry competition run by Navan Education Centre for the last few years. This is for primary schools in Meath and Louth. A book is then published each year with a selection of the entries. We were very proud to have our school represented in both the 2013 anthology ‘School Days are Happy Days’ and the 2014 anthology ‘Wild Imaginings’. In 2007 and 2011, we were extremely lucky to have author and illustrator Oisín McGann visit our school. During his visit, he read extracts from his books as well as giving us some great tips for writing stories. He even showed us how he creates his illustrations. Below you can see the drawings he did especially for us! In Carrickleck N.S. we aim to foster the love of reading and writing from an early age. The pupils in Ms. Fitzpatrick’s room recently created their own book of stories.

Nature & The Environment

Green Schools

WATER:

We are working to achieve our third Green School flag – Water.

We have a green school committee who meet regularly to brainstorm ideas. We regularly monitor our water bills to check our water usage. We have water monitors who check for leaking taps. We are collecting water in our school garden with a homemade rain harvester.

We have a green school slogan ‘Stop the flow, Save H2O’.

We had our Day of Action on the 22nd February 2019. We came to school wearing BLUE to highlight that we are trying to conserve water. We had assembly in the morning where the senior room presented water projects. The junior room recited a water poem ‘Where would we be without it’ and two short dramas. After lunch, we had some fun water relays where we used  water bottles as batons and team games where we carried water with jugs to see which team could save the most water. All water used during our games was used to water the flowers in our school garden.

ENERGY:

On the 22nd March 2017,we were visited by a representative from an Teagasc who checked our progress with our second Green school flag- Energy. We were delighted to be awarded our second green school flag.

We have worked so hard to get our green school flag.

The green school committee came up with several strategies to reduce our energy usage.

• We regularly check our electricity bills and monitor how much electricity we are using. We surveyed our school to see how much radiators and bulbs are in the school. We turn off lights when we are not in the room and we always close doors behind us.
• We have a green school slogan ‘Turn off the Light and Keep Our Future Bright’.
• We have a green school notice board, which we use to inform our community of all green school activities.
• We had our day of action on the 21st October 2016. We all wore GREEN clothes to raise awareness and we turned off all electrical appliances- no lights, no interactive boards and no kettle!

Litter and Waste:

The green school committee came up with several strategies to reduce our litter and waste.

• Our litter pickers monitored the school grounds for any litter.
• We sort our plastic,paper and compost into different bins.
• We use our compost bin regularly.
• We have a green school slogan ‘ Waste Not, Want Not’ and Reuse,Reuse, Recycle’ words that we all now. We want to save our plant so we can live and grow.
• We had a day of action where we created Halloween costumes out of recycled materials. It was a huge success. The green school committee and the junior room also visited V&W Recycling centre, Ardee to see how waste can be sorted and recycled.

On March 14th 2016, we raised our Green Flag for the very first time. It was a proud day for Ms. Fitzpatrick and the Green School Committee as well as the whole school and local community.

This flag is for Litter and Waste and it was applied for in 2013. In May 2015, all of our hard work paid off and we were awarded our Green Flag at an awards ceremony held in DCU. We continue to take great pride in keeping our school and local area litter free.

In order to receive our Green Flag, Ms. Fitzpatrick and her Green School Committee worked very hard to promote the reduction of litter and waste in our school. We followed the motto ‘REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE! So, as well as reducing our waste, we also began reusing some litter as part of our Art activities. We made Hallowe’en costumes, Christmas decorations and a Christmas Village out of recycled materials. We also visited V & W Recycling in Ardee to gain a better understanding of what happens to rubbish when it is recycled. We had great fun putting the items that we had brought to recycle into the various containers.

School Garden

Spring is a busy time each year in Carrickleck N.S. because we begin working on our school garden. Everyone in the school gets a fantastic opportunity to be hands-on in the planting and maintenance of our garden.

We have also won awards for our garden. In 2007 we won joint 1st place for ‘Best New Garden’ and in 2009 we won 1st prize for Best Traditional Garden. Both prizes were part of the Pride of Place awards organised by Meath County Council. In 2007, the judge was the well-known wildlife radio presenter and former president of An Taisce Ãanna Ní Lamhna. 

School Tours

Recent School Tours have taken us to Dublin Zoo, Gormanston Park, Wicklow.

School Mass

We have an End of Year Mass every year celebrated by our local priest. The pupils participate during with music.

Grandparents Day

Each year, as part of Catholic Schools Week, we recognise the importance of Grandparents with Grandparents’ Day. We take time to give thanks for our Grandparents and all that they do for us. We remember especially those who are not with us anymore and celebrate the many happy memories we have of them.

To mark this special day, we prepare artwork, pictures, prayers and poems which are displayed in Kingscourt Church. Grandparents are remembered in a special mass during this time.