Holy Family N.S. Rathmore Co.Kerry P51 N290: Award 2022-2023

Award 2022-2023

STEP 1:

Our pupils engaged in all the strands of the science curriculum: Living Things, Energy & Forces, Materials and Environmental Awareness and Care. As well as investigating the above strands our pupils also participated in science week activities and welcomed a Lego workshop to the school.

Living Things

Energy and Forces

Materials

Many of our classes engaged with the Materials strand of the Science Curriculum.

Juniors looked at different materials used to heat items, second class looked at the properties and characteristics of materials used to build a tower, fourth investigated how starch is everywhere and 5th & 6th looked at materials used to make cars, lighthouses and catapults.

Environmental Awareness and Care

Currently on our 8th Green Flag in our school we are very environmentally conscious of everyday activates that can help our school environment and our surroundings. We actively partake in a Spring Clean/Litter pick each year, our green schools committee promote and remind us to recycle in our compost bins and recycling bins weekly, We recycle shoes for less fortunate children in Africa with the In Your Shoes campaign, we plan herbs and other plants and bulbs annually around the school.

Green Schools Committee in our Outdoor Classroom showing the herbs, strawberries and plants they have planted.

Our Annual Spring Litter Pick

Click to see video we featured in for In My Shoes Campaign:

CLICK HERE

Science Week

This year as well as engaging in experiments in school our pupils got their families involved. We had a wondering response to our families getting involved. Our pupils also took part in an online webinar on Zoom to earn about all things milk, cheese and dairy foods hosted by An Teagasc.

Lego Workshop

As part of our science week activities we had CorkLearn It visit us with a Lego workshop. This is something we have engaged with for a number of years. The children always thoroughly enjoy the experience and they progress onto new activities every two years.

Step 2 - Technology

For this step we engaged with Coding Project and Hour of Code with pupils from 2nd class to 6th class. The pupils became familiar with blockly.com, code.org (Hour of Code) and Scratch.

6th Class children used their ICT skills to develop PowerPoints on their Magnetic Car projects and their Light House.

Further to this 6th class designed simple circuits using batteries, bulbs, motors and propellers. Every pupil in the school had an opportunity to investigate how these circuits worked during our STEM Showcase Day.

Coding

ICT Skills - Powerpoints

Click on the links to view Power Points:

Electronic Circuits

Design and Make Activities

We had a number of classes engage in engineering projects.

6th Class Designed and Made Magnetic Cars
6th Class Designed and Made a Light House
5th Class Designed and Made a Bridge out of lollipop Sticks
5th Designed and Made Catapults
3rd Class Designed and Made Playgrounds from Paper
3rd Class Designed and made Bridges also.
2nd Class Engaged in the Marshmallow Challenge
Infants engaged in Construction Activities.

6th Class Engineering Projects:

5th Class Engineering Projects:

3rd Class Engineering Projects:

2nd Class Engineering Projects:

Juniors Engineering:

Guest Speaker Invited To School

We were delighted to welcome Donal Moynihan, Consulting Engineer to our school. Donal visited and spoke with 5th and 6th class pupils. He gave a wondering introduction to engineering and some of the various engineering roles there are today. Mr Moynihan discussed the different aspects of engineering, where engineering originated from, some of the oldest engineering products to the newest and most well known products. He discussed the role of a civil engineer in todays world. The students had opportunities to measure the volume of a room, they engaged in map work and discussed differences between regional and national roads. Mr Moynihan's presentation was extremely insightful and interesting and the children thoroughly enjoyed the talk.

Thanks again Mr Moynihan.

Took Part in an Engineers Week Event (Virtually)

Our school was registered to participate in the virtual engineers week events. Teachers and pupils logged in to Virtual Events to learn about Engineering and Sports, Bridge Building and Scientific Sue activities.

All the teacher sand pupils thoroughly enjoyed these events.

Mary Immaculate College Student Visited with an Egineering/Coding Car project.

We were delighted to welocme past pupil David Dineen with a coding/engineering project from his college course in Mary Immaculate Collge. David spent time with 5th class showing our pupils how the car responded to codes to operate. The children were given plenty of opportunities to test drive it themselves. Míle buíochas David for taking the time to showcase this to our pupils.

STEP 4 - MATHS

For this step in the Curious Minds Platinum Award the children engaged with Maths Week Activities and Used Maths Skills as part of STEM.

For Maths Week Activities the children solved problem-solving activities. Well done to all the classes for taking part and congratulations to all the pupils.

For Use of Maths Skills as part of STEM 2nd to 6th classes engaged in coding activities. They used 'Blockly', 'Hour of Code' and 'Scratch' to complete activities and projects.

Maths Week Evidence:

Maths Week takes place this coming week. Children in Holy Family N.S. will be engaging in various maths activities throughout the week.

Children can also participate in Maths Week at home. Below are links to some maths activities that children can enjoy doing at home with family and friends.

Maths in everyday household activities: CLICK HERE

Puzzles and Maths at home activities: CLICK HERE

We really enjoyed Maths Week 2022! We watched Maths Week TV, solved daily problems and did a number of estimating activities.

Here are just a few photos taken during a Maths Trail around the school and during station-teaching.

Maths Trail

Maths Week Activities

Coding Evidence

STEP 5: STEM SHOWCASE

Children from Holy Family NS engaged in a showcase day in school where 3rd to 4th classes displayed experiments for the whole school. See the timetable, list of experiments on display and photos/videos of the day below.

Parents and children also engaged in experiments at home and in the community. These activities were thoroughly enjoyed by all. See the photos of experiments/activities undertaken by pupils and their families below.

Show Case Day Friday 24th March

Well done to all the pupils and teachers from 3rd to 6th class who put on a wonderful display of science, engineering and maths experiments and activities today. It was a jam-packed day of predicting, investigating, researching and experimenting. Well done everyone. You were all wonderful.

Video Of Our STEM Show Case Day

Science/STEM event for parents/community.

Our pupils and parents engaged in wonderful science/engineering activities at home. We provided parents with an array of experiments on our school blog that they could follow. This made the process easier for all involved.

Below is a selection of fabulous experiments by our boys and girls at home. 😀

Well done to 2nd class pupils Chloe, Liam, Zoya, Michael & Darragh and to 6th Class pupil Chloe for engaging with science experiments at home yesterday.