New challenge every week for St Joseph’s
‘We spoke to the Principal Ms. Bradley about the weekly challenges that the children enjoyed so much.
She said: ‘ When you meet teachers like those in St. Joseph’s it is clear to see the passion for both teaching and pet subjects close to their hearts. I wanted to find a way to give our great teachers a platform to inspire as well as educate.’ She certainly has done this; it was also important to Ms. Bradley to open the learning opportunities to all. St. Joseph’s is an Edmund Rice Trust school. This means that community partnership and excelling in teaching are core principles of how they act. Ms. Bradley gave a platform for inspiration to her staff through online learning and the school blog. This move allowed the world to participate and allowed the children an opportunity to show their work to the world. Ms. Bradley says that all the staff stepped up to the plate for the challenges using written explanations and video demonstrations. The first eight weeks were:
- Exercise (Mr. Carberry) - Poetry (Ms. Horan)
- Super Hero Art (Ms. Mooney)
- Baking (Ms. Maher) - Science (Ms. Dillane) - Peter O’Reilly Start to Art (Mr. Hughes)
- Garden Crafts (Ms. Marry) - Music Challenge (Mr. Mulroy)
The children were encouraged to upload their work in response to each week’s challenge. The response was fantastic! Photos and videos came flooding in, from Superheroes to rainbow cakes, to balloon cars and creating their own musical instruments. The children didn’t seem so far away from school or each other and wow, were they learning!
When speaking to Rob Mulroy and it is clear that his joy in making music cannot be easily resisted. This, as seen on the blog has inspired many young & budding musicians.
We watched videos and lessons on windmills and rocket cars from Ellen Dillane. Ellen has an ability to take complex science and distill it to fun games which inspire the future scientists, medics, and engineers of Drogheda.
These are just two examples of the fabulous staff of this school, the rest are represented in the way teacher best like to be, through the work of the children in the pictures here.