We had our last day of school at Burnfort National School for the year 2020-2021 on Friday. We had a big outdoor assembly after our hectic sports day. We said a big thank you to everyone at BNS for working so hard this year. A special thank you to our fantastic leadership team this year, Mrs Maher, Mrs Walsh and Ms Curran for all your support and hard work. Also, a big thank you to our COVID officer Mrs. O'Brien and our wonderful secretary Joan and our fantastic SNA Nellie, for all your work behind the scenes. We said a tearful farewell to 6th class and three of our teachers this year; Mr Walsh, Mrs O'Keeffe and Ms O'Connor. A guard of honour was created for our outgoing 6th class and they walked out the school gate proudly. What a fabulous group of children, they will be missed! Best of luck to the 6th class in their new secondary schools next year!

 The last day of Active School Week was a busy one! During the school's sports day pupils could be seen hopping, crawling and also manoeuvring their way through an obstacle course. The three legged race and the egg and spoon race both took a bit of practice at first but there was no stopping pupils once they got going. 

For many though, the pupil v staff challenges were the highlight of the day. Teachers and staff went up against the 6th class with penalty shoot outs and tug of war. 
Teachers have agreed that they all need to work on their shooting skills because the vast majority of the shots they took went wide! The 6th class may have won the penalties but the teachers didn't hold back with tug of war. The teachers won by a very tight but entertaining margin.
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To close off Active School Week, the whole school took to the yard for a socially distant whole school dance. We started off with the Macarena and finished with the Cha Cha Slide. Both teachers and staff had great fun showing off their moves. 

Well done to all on what was a very enjoyable and successful Active School Week. 

Thursday's activities brought to us- tennis and taekwondo. 

Pupils were introduced to the art of taekwondo. We got to try a variety of skills including the turn kick, turning and blocking. We really enjoyed our taster session. 

Pupils also got to try their hand at tennis with Ms O'Connor. We had great fun practicing our forehand and backhand. Thanks Ms O'Connor for taking each class group.

 We've now hit the half way mark of Active School Week and the activities are in full swing. 

Today we welcomed Jimmy from Mallow Rugby Club to our school pitch. The sun was shining and pupils were ready for action! Many children had never had the chance to try rugby before so this gave all a great opportunity to give it a go. Jimmy kept pupils on their toes with a variety of activities and everyone had a great time!

Meanwhile, in the school hall each class had a chance to try our hand at dodgeball. Children dodged and weaved and there was laughter galore!

Many pupils also got the chance to try our new active walkway that was launched this week. 

Today was another busy day in Burnfort National School for Active week. 

We were delighted to welcome Mark back to the school for Gymnastics. We tried our hand at a variety of skills and had great fun doing so. The cattle in the field next to our pitch enjoyed watching Mark's session also!

Mr Walsh also took each class for a session of basketball. Pupils played a variety of ball games and practiced skills such as dribbling, throwing and catching. The games at the end of each session we enjoyed by all and gave pupils a chance to showcase their skills. Thanks to Mr Walsh for taking pupils for basketball. ​

We had an outdoor 6th class graduation on Tuesday night last. We had a lovely evening. The children were presented with certificates, a lovely framed class photo, a class hoodie and a pen. We then celebrated with some pizza and music.  We will miss these fantastic 6th class leaders as they move onto pastures new. We also bid farewell to some 6th class parents for the last time and we wish them all well in the future. 

On Tuesday the whole school gathered to raise our new Green Schools Flag for Water. This is our third green flag. The Green school's committee worked really hard and were presented with a certificate,  water bottle and a keyring as a token for their great work! The two eldest Green's school's committee members, Megan Jones and Lydia O'Connell helped Mrs Walsh raise the flag. As a big treat for everyone, the ice cream van came to Burnfort National School and the children and staff enjoyed a lovely 99 cone to finish off the big celebrations.  Well done to all involved!

Today was the first day of our in school activities for Active School Week. 

Each class had the opportunity to try a yoga class with the fabulous Agne from 'Kids Yoga' in Studio Fit, Mallow. The quietness of the school pitch was the perfect setting for our yoga sessions and the beautiful weather only added to our experience. We performed a number of poses and stretches as well as some balances and each class thoroughly enjoyed our session. Thanks Agne!

Active School Week 2021 officially kicked off in Burnfort National School on Friday after school with pupils completing 'Active Homework'. This is no ordinary 'homework' however. Pupils are being encouraged to 'get up and get active' after school by running, walking, skipping, playing football/basketball, jumping on the trampoline- the list is endless! 

We are 'eager beavers' here in Burnfort and we actually decided to get a head start on our 'Active Homework' by dropping all other school homework from Tuesday the 8th June to the end of the school year. (Needless to say. both pupils and teachers were delighted!)

We stepped things up a notch from Friday and pupils have also been set a number of active challenges to try at home for Active School Week. These challenges have been set by teachers, local sports persons and Irish Olympians!

Click on any of the challenges below if you'd like to give them a try-

It was with great sadness today that the staff and pupils of Burnfort National School said goodbye to Karyn Graham, our GAA coach. She has coached football in the school for the past 7 years. She always had a positive, kind and child centred approach. Every child came away from her sessions with a smile on their face and with Karyn's praise and enthusiasm the children felt confident in their own ability. Today we presented her with a small token of our gratitude for the hard work she has completed over the years in a small outdoor ceremony with the whole school. You will be sorely missed Karyn!

Junior and Senior infants had a great time on their school tour visiting Grenagh farm Thursday 10th of June. They had lots of fun partaking in a barrel ride, taking a trip around the farm in a tractor, playing in the play areas, visiting the fairy garden and meeting all the animals and getting to feed some of them. 

The children of 1st, 2nd and 3rd class went to "The Farm", Grenagh last Wednesday. They enjoyed seeing all the animals including rams and horses. They also had fun on the zipline and go karts and the children even went for a train ride in a barrel train! The children loved their special day and would love to go back again soon! Here is a slide show of some photos from the day!
For photos from Ms Curran's 1st and 2nd Class tour, click below-

Recently, we received beautiful new Ipads in Burnfort National School. We have all had so much fun trying out some fun educational apps, including; Kahoot, Maths Fight, Scratch Jnr. and Epic, where the children enjoy games and quizzes and learn new skills like coding. The ipads are also handy for children to research topics in History, Geography and Science. Here are some pictures of the children enjoying the ipads in 5th and 6th class!

Pupils from 2nd Class were delighted to receive their First Penance today in the Church of St John the Baptist, Burnfort. 

A big thank you to Fr Jim Greene and Monsignor Anthony O'Brien for listening to the boys and girls confessions and to class teachers, Mrs Sarah Walsh and Ms Niamh Curran for preparing them for their special day. 

The 4th, 5th and 6th class had a fantastic time at Coachford with the Ballyhass Adventure Group on Tuesday. The children had so much fun on the high ropes, bouncing, climbing and sliding down slides. They jumped, slid and raced each other on the Inflatable Aquapark. The children learned many important teamwork skills in their team building exercises and finally all children tried their hand at archery, some even hitting the bulls eye! A great day had by all!

Words can not describe how excited the boys and girls from Junior Infants to 2nd class were when they heard the news that we would be welcoming Karyn Graham back to school to practice GAA skills with them. 
GAA plays such a massive part in our community and we're delighted to include it in school as part of a balanced PE curriculum. 
Karyn will be training pupils from Junior Infants to Second class for these three weeks and then will be taking the senior classes for the next three week block. 

​Welcome back Karyn!

As you can all see our newest green school's flag is flying high. We have received this flag for our work on the theme of water. The children of Burnfort NS spent two years discovering how precious a resource water is and how we can conserve it at home and at school. We know how to treat water with the respect it deserves. The examiner who undertook our school assessment gave us a glowing report and was very impressed with the interest and can-do attitude of the green schools committee.  Credit must be given to last years committee who put in trojan work. Their efforts well and truly paid off. Normally we would have a flag raising celebration but covid has obviously hampered this. However the work that was put into the water theme by this group of hard working children must be acknowledged. The children involved were an absolute credit to the school. Well done!
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Green School Committee 19/20

As part of our quest for our second Active School Flag, we decided to participate in the 'Run Around Ireland' Challenge. 

The initiative encourages both pupils and teachers to walk or run to visit some of Ireland's famous landmarks. Each lap of the school yard equates to 1km on our map of Ireland and laps vary in size depending on each class level. Not only are we getting fitter in the process, we're also learning about lots of famous landmarks around Ireland such as the Cliffs of Moher and The Giant's Causeway AND we're practicing our addition as we add up all the laps that we have completed!

We have just completed our second of the four week challenge and our Active School's Committee have decided to pick up the pace even further by creating a competition between classes to see which class can run the most laps collectively. Bring it on!

The weather has improved and we're encouraging pupils to get active and to cycle, scooter or walk to school once it is safe to do so. These modes of transport are not only good for our body and mind but are also beneficial for the environment also. 

A submission has been made to the new government initiative 'Safe Routes to School' and we're also looking forward to the installation of our new bike rack for the school which will be coming soon.

It is great to see so many pupils (and parents!) cycling to school and that they're all wearing their hi-vis vests and helmets. Below is a picture of just some of the boys and girls that cycled to school today. Keep it up!

We celebrated World Book Day this week with various reading activities taking place in the classrooms. All the children dressed up as their favourite book character and there were prizes for the best dressed. Well done to Cian and Kate (Juniors and Seniors), Caoilfhinn, Emma and Kate (1st and 2nd), Liam, Seán and Éabha (2nd and 3rd), Christopher (4th) and Molly and Eva (5th and 6th) who won best dressed book character.   A very difficult Emoji Quiz was designed to boggle our brains. Prizes were awarded to the successful competitors. Well done Donagh O'Reilly (1st and 2nd, Sam O'Connor (2nd and 3rd), George Goulding (4th) and Killian Mc Carthy (5th and 6th) who won prizes for the Emoji quiz.  Book day tokens were also distributed to all children. 

This year Seachtain na Gaeilge was very different as the activities were confined to each classroom, rather than a whole school participation in the various activities. Despite having to put our annual Céilí and Seisiún Ceoil on hold, we managed to complete a Tóraíocht Taisce (Treasure Hunt), Tráth na gCeist (table quiz), Lá Scannanaíochta (Film Day) and various other cluichí. Bhí duaiseanna ar fail do na buaiteoirí. Here are some pictures of our prize giving ceremony that was held outside an bhliain seo. Well done to the Gaeilgeoirí na Coicíse who won an award for speaking the most Gaeilge during the two weeks. Maith sibh!

No, the staff and pupils of Burnfort National School have not disappeared! Since the beginning of January, we've once again resumed remote learning from home. 

The boys and girls of Burnfort have taken to their laptops and other devices to learn and interact with their teachers online. We would like to think we have now become experts at all things involving 'Seesaw' and we look forward to our weekly catch ups on 'Zoom'. Both teachers, pupils and parents must be commended for the trojan effort they're putting in to ensure the standard of education continues while teaching and learning from home. 

We're looking forward to the day that we get to to return to school but until then, Seesaw is the place to be!