2023-2024

Our Friends in St. Brigid’s

We have been extremely fortunate to have worked closely with St Brigid’s Primary School for a number of years now. The funding that we have received during this time has enabled a wide variety of learning experiences to be organised and enjoyed by the children.

Ballykeel P.S and St Brigid’s P.S. believe that emotional health and well-being is critical to developing a healthy and successful school community where each child achieves their full potential. Therefore, last year the Primary 4 and Primary 7 children took part in five shared lessons with the focus being placed on our ‘Take 5 Initiative’.  This is something that we are passionate about in our school and that is heavily embedded in all that we do here. The core themes are as follows;

• Connect Connect with the people around you: family, friends, colleagues and neighbours at home, work, school or in your local community. Think of these relationships as the cornerstones of your life and spend time developing them. Building these connections will support and enrich you every day.
• Be active Go for a walk or run, cycle, play a game, garden or dance. Exercising makes you feel good. Most importantly, discover a physical activity that you enjoy; one that suits your level of mobility and fitness.
• Take notice Stop, pause, or take a moment to look around you. What can you see, feel, smell or even taste? Look for beautiful, new, unusual or extraordinary things in your everyday life and think about how that makes you feel.
• Keep learning Don’t be afraid to try something new, rediscover an old hobby or sign up for a course. Take on a different responsibility, fix a bike, learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favourite food. Set a challenge you will enjoy. Learning new things will make you more confident, as well as being fun to do.
• Give Do something nice for a friend or stranger, thank someone, smile, volunteer your time or consider joining a community group. Look out as well as in. Seeing yourself and your happiness linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and will create connections with the people around you.

We have secured funding to enable the P4 and P7 pupils to participate in the same programme again this year in 2023-2024. Dates and details for the P4 and P7 shared activities are listed below. 

Primary 4

• 14^th November- Connect

• 21^st November- Be Active (Children will change into their PE kit for this lesson and must have this in school on this day.)

• 28^th November- Take Notice

• 5^th December - Keep Learning

• 12^th December- Give

P4 children will meet up with their friends from St Brigid’s a total of 5 times this year. During this time, they will take part in a wide variety of activities such as circle time, team games, arts/crafts, singing, mindfulness and scavenger hunts. All of the sessions will be focused on at least one of the Take 5 themes. Keep checking the website for further updates. 

Primary 7

• 16^th January - Connect

• 23^rd January - Be Active

• 30^th January - Keep Learning

• 20^th February - Give

• 27^th February - Take Notice

Pupils in P7 will take part in shared activities that are focused on the embedding of the core values of respect, responsibility, honesty and fairness. They will develop their understanding of their own identity and culture.  Activities such as arts and crafts, mindfulness and circle time will take place and all of the Take 5 themes will be highlighted throughout.