Well that was some week. I feel like I haven’t been near the office until today. That might explain the 600ish emails that are still unread. I will get to them, I promise.
A big event was our athletics race in Morton Stadium. On Monday and Tuesday our team were running for the first time on a running track. We were able to use UCD’s lovely new track to give the children the experience of what a real track is. As lovely as Dartmouth is, it’s very hard to corner on a right angle. Renagh came to help with overstretched muscles as the children got to grips with the newness of everything.
Then on Wednesday the whole team supported by Rang 6 went to Morton Stadium and had to get to grips with a stadium full of people and other teams. We had a slow and sobering start as our fastest runners were in the sprint races and our fastest were not able to get into the finals. Our substitute runners were dying to get involved and begged to do something so with no practice or training some of them put themselves into the field events of long jump and shot putt. Amazingly they did very well. Robin was fourth place in the shot putt. Ella was just outside the places and incredibly Dylan got bronze. I was so impressed with how they managed to shake off the disappointment of not making the final cut and made the most of the situation they were in. A life lesson for everyone I think.
Given the performance in the heats I was resigned to that being our only medal. I had talked to the children about this because some days you turn up and someone is just faster and there’s not much you can do but accept that and still do your best. However our children have something the other children didn’t have. They were a team, while they were waiting they were practising their baton passes and all our teams got into the finals of the relay race or were very close and our under twelve girls were not far off medal places a dipped head might have been enough. The stadium was emptying out. I was texting the school saying that we were going to be late and our under 14s had almost perfect races. Our girls came in second and our boys charged home with some clear space behind them to take the top spot. Given that we clearly didn’t have the fastest runners it made the performances that little bit sweeter. We were a team that did our best and it was lovely to see that acknowledged. At that stage there were only three schools left in the stadium and the children were buzzing with the thrill of it all the way home where the very patient parents who were waiting for nearly 90 minutes cheered the team back into the school.
While all that was happening Rang 4 were off at the Junior Book Awards. A project they have been working on for a significant part of the year.
Yesterday Rang 3 agus 4 went for a walk with Amal. Its purpose is to highlight the journey that children just like ours have to make in a very unfair world fleeing wars, violence and persecution. Some of our children spoke about it on the news. You can read what they thought about it at the end of the newsletter.
On Thursday passersby were all smiling as they heard the Junior Infants perform their assembly for the parents. Today the passersby didn’t get the same uplifting experience as we had to move inside because of the rain. The whole school got to listen to the infants sing their songs and help us get ready for the summer. They were even better today than they were yesterday.
Annie Blayney has her hospital bag packed and will be on maternity leave from today. As a result we have broken with tradition and she presented the class with their end of year gift of the class hoodies. They also had an award ceremony which was very entertaining and because Annie is Annie, they have just finished creating their movies. Having two babies to mind will be easy compared to all the things that she has been juggling in the run up to today. We will look forward to seeing the photos when bump becomes baby.
While at Santry I heard a call of Mr Fairbrother, this is becoming less frequent since we changed to first names in the school and I was greeted by a fellow teacher who was also in my first ever class as a teacher in RMDS. So I got to stop and reflect on me 20+ years ago. I feel honoured that a student of mine has gone on to become a teacher. There’s no way I look old enough to have taught him!!!
And now I’m off to make a rainbow castle unicorn cake whatever that might look like.
Have a lovely weekend everyone,
Paul
Sports Day is almost here!! If you have an hour to spare on June 8th and feel like volunteering, please contact pa@rmds.ie. We still need a few stall holders and race officials. There will be a swap stall (for all equipment for hobbies) and a bake stall, so if this is a contribution that you can make, we would love to hear from you!
The Walk with Amal was very enjoyable. Amal is a 12 foot tall puppet. She is a 10 year old Syrian girl. She has visited many countries. We were lucky enough that she came to visit Dublin. While we were waiting for Amal, we talked about our words and actions of welcome which included hello and welcome in different languages, and sign language because we were warned that she was a little bit shy. When she arrived, she was very shy and hid behind the trees. But then she came down and she was really tall!!! We said our words of welcome and gave her a leather bracelet in the Woodquay Amphitheatre. We saw an RTE helicopter flying above us. We walked all the way to city hall behind Little Amal and some of us even got to hold her hand. There was a brass band playing fun pop songs. We met the Mayor of Dublin and he gave us drinks and crisps.
