Danescastle school’s flag day is cause for celebration
DANESCASTLE National School has celebrated the success of the latest school year with a ceremony that involved sporting activities, music and the raising of two prestigious flags.
At 11 a.m. the ceremony kicked-off with the raising of the Active School flag, which was awarded in recognition of ongoing work promoting health and wellbeing among the school population.
It was a day that celebrated many aspects of the school including the presentation of a cheque for €1,000 to third class pupil Ashleigh Carroll-Nugent from Conradh na Gaeilge representative Edel Ní Bhraonáin.
Ms Ní Bhraonáin congratulated Ashleigh for the wonderful piece of artwork she completed based around a theme of ‘What it means to be Irish’.
Ashleigh won €500 for herself and €500 for the school.
The children then performed a song they wrote for Bliain na Gaeilge and following that Anne Griffin, from Wexford County Library, gave an address in which she outlined a reading initiative run by the library during the summer months.
Ms Ní Bhraonáin encouraged all the children to get involved in the programme.
Principal Áine Kennedy, praised all of the children for their hard work throughout the year and she paid particular tribute to teacher Carmel Wallace and the Green Schools Committee for helping the school achieve a Green Flag for Global Citizenship.
School secretary Philomena Cahill gave enormous help to the project and that fact was acknowledge when she was invited to raise the Green Flag along with sixth class committee members Tom Moran and Robyn Roche.
Ms Kennedy then congratulated the children on achieving another Discover Primary Science and Maths Award for the school and thanked teacher Áine Kehoe for her work with that.
The guest of honour at the ceremony was Cork senior hurling manager John Meyler who was invited to raise the school’s first Active School Flag. Mr Meyler has close ties with the school as he is the father of Danescastle’s Active School co-ordinator Sarah Meyler.
He spoke to the children about the importance of keeping active and congratulated everyone involved in helping the school get its Active Flag.
He also reminded the children that Playstation and other computer games are not sports activities and encouraged them to instead opt for healthier activities and to get outdoors.
Ms Kennedy wished Mr Meyler the best of luck with the Cork hurlers. She thanked Fr Jim Kehoe and the Board of Management, the Parents’ Association, staff and pupils for all their work during the school year and the ceremony concluded with music.