Dear Parents/Guardians,

 We hope you are well this week. Our news is as follows

•  We had our Green Schools Assessment here in St. Tolas on Tuesday last. Two assessors from Clare County Council came to visit the school and see the work that has gone into working towards our next Green Flag. – Global Citizenship, Energy and Fair Trade. First the assessors met with the committee members where they asked questions about the theme this year. After break the assessors came to the hall where they were treated to a special Cruinniu. Juniors had learnt all about Brazil and told everyone some facts and counted to 10 in Portuguese! Seniors learnt about Ethiopia and sang a song in Amharic. 1st class learnt about Kenya and they showed us necklaces they made like those worn by the Masai. 2nd class treated us to facts about Honduras and how global warming is affecting this country. 3rd class had done projects in groups on a number of countries including Vietnam, Morocco, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Nigeria. 4th class had facts for us on Tanzania while 5th told us about Cambodia. Finally 6th class told us what they had learnt about Ethiopia and climate change. It was a very interesting Cruinniu for everybody. We will not hear about whether we have achieved our next Green Flag until later in the year. Thank you to our very active Green Schools committee and to Ms. Connolly and Ms. Hackett who put in trojan work on this project.

• We will have a visit today from Joe Searson, Diocesan Advisor in Religious Education. Joe will visit all classes and talk to the pupils.
• Best of luck to our boys’ and girls’ basketball team today who take part in the first round of the Marian Keane Memorial basketball tournament. This will take place in the Leaisure Centre in Shannon. Our teams will play against St. Conaires and Newmarket-on-Fergus. We wish them well. Thank you to Ms. Vaughan and Ms. Fitzsimons who have coached the teams over the past few weeks during their lunchbreaks.
• Swimming started this week for pupils in 2nd class, 3rd class and 4th class. This will continue for eight sessions in total. Swimming is part of the Physical Education programme and pupils may not be excused from taking part unless there is a medical reason that they cannot go swimming.
• Well done to 6th class who took part in the Munster final of the Féile Dramaíochta conpetition in Glór last week. We were informed yesterday evening that we did not get through to the All Ireland final this time! We are all immensely proud of the work that 6th class put into their play over the past few months.

Kind regards,

Mary Dunlea Fitzgerald, Principal