ST. MARY'S TIMES

Summer and Seashore with friends from Ballyhalbert

As part of their last term’s  topic entitled “Summer and the Seashore”, our Primary 2 children enjoyed a day with Victoria Primary school at Seaside Ceramics in Donaghadee, where they decorated a plate with their own personal seaside theme. They had a fantastic time and learned a lot about mixing colours, working and co-operating with others and spending time with their friends. This was also the last visit of the year between the two Primary 2 classes. They have had a great time together, and have formed lasting friendships.

Ardnabannon 2009

The primary 7 pupils had the time of their lives at Ardnabannon from 5th – 8th May. During the week the children tried activities such as bouldering, rock climbing, abseiling, archery, zip wire, hill walking and orienteering.

The weather was very kind to us but still everyone including the teachers managed to bring back a big bag of dirty wet clothes!! The evenings saw us watching Man Utd secure a Champions league final spot with all Man U supporters going happy to bed. We also spent a night at COCO’s adventure playground in Newcastle and Lisburn water park. This was a truly memorable week and each child gained in many ways not least by confronting their fears and in every case overcoming some of these especially in abseiling and whizzing down the zip wire.
The success of the week can be measured by the number of pupils who wanted to stay just ONE MORE DAY PLEASE!!! Even those who were a little homesick at the beginning of the week. The pupils in terms of their behaviour and manners were a credit to their school, their family and their parish well done!!!!

New Hotel Opens in Kircubbin

Pupils from St Mary’s primary School have been involved with the National Trust to build a brand new hotel for the Kircubbin area.

The hotel was built entirely from recycled material and opened to guests in Mid May 2009.
The first residents are well settled by now and include spiders, worms woodlice, millipedes (that don’t actually have 1000 legs!!), ants and flies.

As you can see from the picture the hotel is designed for minibeasts and will become a focal point for some of our topic work in the coming months!!! As well as the hotel building landscaping using wild flower seeds was also carried out and we can’t wait to see the nature reserve develop!!!