Mercy Ballymahon Notes

School Extension

We were thrilled to receive news on Wednesday last that the Department of Education has approved a major extension to our school. 16 new classrooms will be built including 2 Special Education Needs classrooms, 2 Special Education Teacher rooms, 2 Science Labs, a multimedia room and more. It will be fantastic to see the school expanding as our school population continues to grow.

Virtual Open Night 2021

Our Virtual Open Night for incoming first year students took place on Wednesday November 3rd. Thank you to the large number of parents who attended on the night. Application forms for registration are now available at www.mercyballymahon.ie. Closing date for enrolment is 5pm on Friday 26th November.

‘Trick or Treat’ Fundraiser

Thank you to all staff and students who took part in our annual ‘Trick or Treat’ fancy dress fundraiser on Friday October 22nd. We are delighted to announce that a total of €1443.85 was raised for Temple Street Children’s Health Foundation.

Anti-Bullying Day

On Thursday last we were delighted to take part in UNESCO Anti-Bullying Day.This year we entered the tackle bullying campaign #antibullyinginaction following on from our work with FUSE, DCU AntiBullying Centre. On the day, all students took part in a whole-school survey.

Sports

Our U16 Boys Gaelic Football team faced Moyne C.S. on Wednesday last. The boys secured a draw on the day on a scoreline of 0:12 to Moyne’s 3:3. Meanwhile, our U16 Ladies played Rochfortbridge last week in the Junior A championship. Hard luck to the ladies who lost out narrowly on the day.

Careers

Nearly all Leaving Cert students have had their 1:1 appointment with their guidance counsellor and were all geared up for the CAO application process which opened on Friday 5th. DCU delivered an informative talk to our leaving certs as well as TU Dublin before the midterm. Study skills and learning style evaluations have been delivered to 3 out of our 5 1st year classes and will be finished next week.  They now know, as parents were informed, due to the 3xrule there is no such thing as no homework!

Climate and Nature Summit

Our students participated in a Climate and Nature Summit here in the school from 1st - 5th November. The summit ran over 5 days during COP26. During this week, students joined a series of empowering virtual sessions to encourage stimulating climate and nature conversations and actions.

3rd Year Parent Teacher Meeting

Thank you to all 3rd year students and their parents who attended our Subject Learning Review Meeting on Thursday last. The meeting took place via Zoom. Details of meetings for other year groups to follow.