Togher N.S.

It is the end of yet another very busy year here at Togher N.S. We would like to say a fond farewell to our departing 6th Class. We wish them all the very best in Secondary School.
We would also like to welcome all the new children, who have been attending the preschool sessions, and who will be joining as Junior Infants in the new school year. We hope you will all be happy here at Togher N.S., and we are very pleased to welcome so many new families to our school community.
We would like to thank all the parents most sincerely for all their help and voluntary work and contributions over the year, and for the great kindness shown to all the staff. You are all very greatly appreciated.
Please come along on Monday night, the 23rd, to help us celebrate the end of a very successful year.

From the Principal, Staff & Parents’ Association

Enrolment of Children for September 2008
Preschool Sessions for New Children

Just a reminder that Enrolment forms and Information Packs are now available from the school, for families wishing to enrol their children in the school.
The Preschool sessions, which have been running on Friday mornings have been going very well.
Please can you let any other families you know, with young children, who may wish to enrol them at Togher NS, that the forms and information packs are now available from school.

Streamscapes Visit
Environmental Education Waterways

On June the 9th, Stephanie O’Toole from Streamscapes visited the school again. She took the children to the local stream, to see if they could find and identify the water invertebrates, plants and birds. The emphasis was to promote an understanding of all life being part of a cycle and how each part of a cycle affects the rest. Stephanie is always a very popular visitor here, and this year she extended her talks to include the lifecycle of butterflies and local birds.
They were also trying to ascertain the Water Quality, which is measured by the creatures present in the stream. Water Quality is measured on a scale of 1 to 5, depending on the creatures found:
1 = worms
2 = beetles
3 = caddis fly
4 = may fly
5 = stone fly & trout
The children found: cased caddis fly, leech, damsel fly, great diving beetle, minnows, dragon fly, trout, water skater, water scorpion, water snail, stone fly, nymph, fresh water shrimp, may fly, whirligig beetle, frog, midge larvae!!!! And that all means the water quality for our stream is 4.5. Great stuff!!! And lots of fun.

Science News

Well done to all the children who worked so hard on the many Science projects over this year. We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded The 2008 Discover Primary Science Award of Science Excellence.
Four lucky winners were chosen by raffle from 5th and 6th Class to attend the award ceremony. Mrs Keane took them to the Award Ceremony in City Hall in Cork, where they were able to mingle with fellow pupils from other schools, browse through the fun scientific stands and listen to some very interesting speakers.
They were lucky enough to meet an astronaut, Dan Tani, and to have their photo taken with him.
It was a great day out for them all, and a very well deserved award.

Our Star Web Site

The school’s website continues to go from strength the strength. You can see examples of the children’s work, in all sorts of subjects, on the website, and hear news of what’s happening in school.
We have been visited by people all over the world. We have had over 1300 visitors, from 30 countries, including USA, France, Canada, Germany, Australia, South America, Japan, the Cook Islands, Andora, Barbados…. The list goes on and on. Maybe we should have a Geography field trip, to visit the countries who are interested in reading about us.
If you know of anyone in far-flung places, who could visit our site, and add to our growing list of countries, please tell them the website is well worth seeing.
Visit it at www.iol.ie/~togher and see for yourself.

And Finally ……

We would like to say goodbye and thank you to Miss Aoife McNulty, who has been teaching our Junior Classes this year. She has been a valuable addition to the team here, and will be missed by staff and children alike. We wish her every success in the future, and we hope she will come back and visit us.
We will be welcoming Ms Majella Daly back in September. We’re sure she will enjoy meeting all of her new pupils.

Have a great summer! Let’s hope the sun shines!!