Junior Infants and some students from Le Chéile visited the Teddy Bear Hospital at NUIG, Galway

Great News! Our Junior Infant class was successful in securing a place at this year’s Teddy Bear Hospital in NUIG on Thursday  26th of January.

What is Teddy Bears Hospital you may ask?

Teddy Bear Hospital is a student-led project/initiative run by medical, healthcare, and science students at NUIG Galway ( The Sláinte  Society/Health Promotion Society). they focus on promoting all aspects of physical and mental health. The goal of the Teddy Bear Hospital is to reduce playfully the fear of children when visiting a doctor and at the same time provide an opportunity for medical students to learn more about pediatrics and give them a chance to work with children.

The main focus of the Teddy Bear Hospital is to create an atmosphere of trust where children can deal with the topic “Hospital and Disease”. They want to show that illness and the fight against it, is part of everyday life and does not necessarily have to be experienced as threatening or frightening.

We had a great day out. The children had an opportunity to explain what had happened to their teddies, receive a prescription, and attend the x-ray department, the A & E, and the pharmacy. Some of their teddies needed an x-ray, some had to get stitched, some an injection, and some just needed some TLC.

Thank you to the two Marias, Philip, and Eilis for accompanying us on our day out!

More photos on the Junior Infant page.

Joseph Hillier

Our Per Cent for Art Scheme was inspiring for all of us especially the children who got to work with the artist Joseph Hillier.


The Public Art Working Group was established last year with representation from each group in the school- BOM, Parents Together and teachers. What an exciting project we took on under the guidance of Rina Whyte our Project Manager. Rina advertised. Twenty seven artists applied. Shortlisted to four who sent in scaled maquettes of their proposal. The selection panel chose Joseph Hillier who impressed with his understanding of our ethos and his proposed sculpture which spoke to us of children developing and changing, of the contours of the environment here in "Droim na Gaoithe"- Ridge of the wind and of diversity as exemplified by three distinct metals.


As he worked Joseph sent us vimeos from his workshop in London to show in all classes. He discussed making the first mould. We saw "Elemental" at a very early stage. He talked the children through each process involved. Then Joseph arrived in Ireland to stay in Claregalway (thanks Brendan for looking after him in the Arches). While here Frank treated Joseph and I to a lovely meal and chat in Ard Bia. Joseph took delivery of his three sculptures and worked during our Mid-Term to install them.


We were greeted on November 1st to "Elemental" in situ at our entrance and a day of workshops with Joseph. He asked the children to explore tesselating shapes on stone using acrylics. They sketched designs of their patterns first then worked on their stones. Damien took photos of them engrossed in their work. Joseph was so kind and adapted to each age group effortlessly. Eilís organised the room for the workshops, kept the momentum going, and set up ahead of each group. My abiding memory is of Joseph telling me the sink was too low for me so he would take over the brush washing and water replacing! A true gentleman. Before sending the stones home with each child Damien used his drone to catch images of their stones placed in flowing patterns around the sculptures.


Joseph touched our hearts and inspired young minds. We hope to see him again when we get an opportunity to celebrate "Elemental".


Terri

New School Kit

We are so grateful to Paul Nash Travel for generously sponsoring our new school kit. Our children love representing the school in many sporting events, including those in hurling, athletics, volleyball and soccer to name but a few. Sponsorship like this means we can participate at a very successful level, there is real pride in the jersey! Thank you Paul, All-Ireland competitions here we come!

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Virtually Here Project

Congratulations to Andrea and the children of 5th class on the successful completion of their Virtually Here project.

Virtually Here was a pilot project developed between Galway 2020 and the PDST -Technology in Education. Claregalway Educate Together was one of 5 schools chosen to take part in this pilot program.

Parents can view the uploaded virtual worlds under the parents tab of the website here.

https://www.claregalwayet.ie/virtually-here

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