For boys and girls, mothers and fathers… really, everyone and anyone… is there more fun to be had than the simple pleasure of the black and white page of a good book? Or even better, a book with pictures! The Junior School’s Book Week 2023 saw spontaneous D.E.A.R. (drop everything and read) time, our book cover/door competition, a visit from author Valinora Troy, a pre-loved book sale (Thanks, Parents!) and culminated in Book Character Dress-Up Day. What a jam-packed week!
At times, we may joke about some of the quirky characters this great school attracts and fosters (staff as well as students) but we would not have it any other way. There is an essence, an elixir, distilled and adjusted over 84 years which Conlethians both create and develop and it was served up in copious amounts again this past Monday. Our Junior School Open Morning and Senior School Information Evening were smashing successes, with hundreds of potential Conlethians gaining a sense of what this school means to all of us. The staff were there, of course, with their enthusiasm and expertise, but the true stars were our student volunteers. Subject room after room, activity after activity, from Junior Infants to Sixth Year, our volunteers conveyed the best of us, both exhibiting and creating the Conlethian experience. And judging by the intelligence, creativity and openness of our visitors, long will that unique educational adventure continue!
St. Conleth’s Junior and Preparatory School welcomes you with great enthusiasm to our Open Morning on Monday 27th February, 2023. This event is for families who will have children joining Junior Infants for 2024 and beyond. With a small average class size, personal attention to each pupil is assured at St. Conleth’s and an inclusive and holistic approach to education is emphasised. Tradition is important at St. Conleth’s, but it is partnered by an eagerness to embrace modernity and its required innovations. Educating the ‘whole child’ is a responsibility which we take very seriously at St. Conleth’s. Each student is encouraged to participate in a variety of intellectual, artistic and athletic pursuits. Our younger Conlethians benefit from sharing in all the social, educational and recreational aspects of the larger school, from ICT to sports hall to performance spaces to canteen, yet they also have the sense of belonging and security that having their own purpose-built facility provides. When you join us at our Open Morning, you will get a taste and an appreciation for the unique and innovative Conlethian style of education.
Registration for our Open Morning on Monday, February 27th, is is now open to everyone!
Led by Cecilia, our Czarina of After-School, Morning Club and Fun, our whole Junior School welcomed the school visit team from Enable Ireland. Through information and lots of hands-on fun activities they conveyed clearly the challenges but also the triumphs of living with a disability to our students, who enthusiastically listened, learned and took part. And, once again, Conlethian Staff Alumnus, and current Enable Ireland Co-Ordinator, Jason was on hand to help the two groups mix with such ease and good humour!
Our younger Conlethians may very well be actually skating into school this morning, considering the sheen of ice that has rendered Dublin in Nordic impressionist brushstrokes, but they have also been slipping and sliding into the Christmas season: wrapping up tests and assessments, warbling in carol practice like robust robins and wrens, and adorning the school with their yuletide artistic masterpieces. More to come on them, but in the meanwhile, enjoy some scenes captured on a (quick) dash to the Herbo and a slower stroll to the Preparatory School: Ms. Elaine Leary and the Junior Hockey girls enjoying their traditional Santa Hockey Tournament (with OLG); Speech and Drama with old pro Mr. Pat Howe; and Story-Time with Santa’s Chief Elf, Ms. Dolores Kelly!
Covid did not just lead to grade inflation… and cost of living inflation… it has also led to holiday hype: we are enthusiastically embracing and extending all the rituals we missed over the last few years, and Halloween, most of all! Our round-up of our Halloween festivities started with catching the latest transfer to St. Conleth’s walking to school: Barney the Dinosaur. (He was at Blackrock, but was put under undo pressure to play in the back row.)
This year, teachers enthusiastically shared in the dress-up fun!
With one teacher particularly giving 110%! (plus a spontaneous, if rusty, warm-up for Christmas by First Years!)
The Junior School Students, as they do every year, stunned us with the creativity of their costumes and the enthusiasm of their wearing them!
And the Senior School Students, hopefully starting a new tradition, ponied up 2€ for GOAL and matched their Junior brethren in Halloween gore and glee!
Okay, by this stage it is only luke-warm as we have been a bit slow in getting it up since it was published last week, but here it is: the first issue of the Junior School student-produced St. Conleth’s Times (click!)!
We in the Senior School often miss what our Junior brethren are up to simply because they are so small and active that we sluggards can’t keep up with the little, industrious Harfoots! You read below how they have been sporting with both the oblong and the round ball, but, here, we get just a glimpse of other JS happenings: Texaco Art Competition commendees; The JSPA Teachers’ Day generosity and their Uniform Exchange; Principal Nolan doing his thing with parents and the whole school; after-school French with Alliance Francais; break-time shenanigans; the election posters from the friendly but intense Green Schools Committee Elections; and the latest episode of the most heartwarming show on TV: Shay Keenan’s Prepster PE Class!
Growing up across the pond, the cheap, simple and carcinogenic ‘baloney’ was our metaphoric food of choice, but it marks how far we have come (or how urbane is the Conlethian cohort) that we recently heard the above expression served up at breaktime by one student to another, in response to some credibility stretching bit of braggadocio. And why not? For ‘falafel’ is on the menu, as well as several other delicacies which did not previously moo, oink, cluck, or bark, such is the vegetarian transformation of our eating habits. Perhaps this is due to Ms. Clarke’s subtle but strident vegan advocacy? This week, the kids get to leave the canines home, as they enjoy cauliflower casserole, roasted celeriac and sweet potato soups and the dearly missed home-made bean burgers! Menu PDF.
Yes, you can’t get a broom closet in the original TriBeCa now for less than $10,000 a month (and no doorman!) but at least we can still enjoy the NYC neighbourhood’s most famous export: TriBeCa chicken wings! This week’s canteen menu (PDF):
One indisputably good thing about coming back to school: lunch by Chef Mark, Emerson, Anna and crew!
Yes, it is the eve off the First Day of School, dreaded and dreamed of in equal parts… and that’s just the teachers! But have no fear, great days lie ahead for y’all at St. Conleth’s. Induction for tomorrow for First Years and First Day for all Juniors, except Junior Infants, but soon everyone will be back at No. 28, Clyde Rd. See below for start days and times and get some rest. The fun is about to start!
The competition was intense, but always in good humour, and though we may have exhausted the local stocks of semiprecious medals in our enthusiasm for prize giving, it was worth it to see so many happy kids and happy parents.
Of course, the presence of enthusiastic boys and girls are the main ingredients for a successful Junior School Sports Day, and we had loads of them, but the parents played their part, too: helping out, cheering on and only occasionally tripping up their junior’s closest competitors. Louis Magee was the man in charge and he ran a fine show, ably assisted by all the teachers, and with the weather co-operating, it was a fine day overall in Irishtown. We now realise what we have missed these last few years. It is good to be back… all the way back!
