Daffodil Day

Daffodil Day 2019 is on the 22nd of March 2019. The Irish Cancer Society encourage people around Ireland to get involved by buying a bunch of the sunny bright yellow daffodils or any of the fundraising daffodil merchandises such as key rings, brooches, flowers and pens. Our Transition Year C students are delighted to be involved with this fundraising campaign and they have raised just over €150 for the Irish Cancer Society. Well done to Siocha, Cheyanne, Gabrielle, Diana and Bryan.

An Garda Síochána Art Competition

Check out the amazing artwork by our art students! An Garda Síochána are headlining an art competition celebrating ISL and Deaf Awareness. Here are some of our creative students’ entries for the Art competition.

First Ever ISL STEM Glossary

Recently Dr. Elizabeth Matthews from Dublin City University School of Inclusive and Special Education coordinated an ISL Glossary project. We are honoured that our teachers Maggie Owens, Sean Herilihy and Liz McLafferty are involved in this innovative project with Dr Elizabeth Matthew and her team.  On the 12^th of February 2019 DCU launched the first phase of a newly developed Irish Sign Language (ISL) STEM Glossary project at the Deaf Heritage Centre in Cabra. It is funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) the project aims to create the first ever open-access online glossary of maths terms in Irish Sign Language. This first phase glossary has over 200 videos of Maths Glossary in ISL. Some new signs are developed such as ‘Prime Number’, in Statistics we have Mean, Mode, Median, Range, Standard Deviation. This online resource is a very valuable tool for Deaf and Hard of Hearing learners at primary school, post-primary school and for their parents and teachers. Guests to the launch had fun at the interactive Mathematics stations which was prepared by Maggie Owens and Holy Family School for the Deaf Transition Year Students. Many thanks to Dr.Elizabeth Matthews for making this possible.

You can enter STEM ISL by clicking HERE

Best of Luck to Mr.John Murphy

Holy Family School for the Deaf are delighted to welcome Senior Inspector John Murphy to our school for Tea/Coffee & Cakes to celebrate the occasion of his retirement. Our principal Eimear O Rourke made a lovely speech on behalf of all the staff past and present thanking Mr.John Murphy for his never ending support, encouragement and hard work with our school. He was also presented with a 3D mixed media artwork which was created by one of our 3rd year students. John thanked all  the staff for their courtesy, kindness and friendliness during his inspecting years. He tells us that he always wanted to see ISL take prominent in the school and to see St.Mary’s and St Joseph’s amalgamated. He is now delighted that both of these dreams have come true with ISL becoming a 3rd official language of Ireland on the 24th of December 2017 and St.Mary’s and St.Joseph’s amalgamating into the prestigious Holy Family School for the Deaf. Best of Luck on your Retirement, Mr.John Murphy. 

JCSP Make a Book 2019

Great fun was had by all in Roganstown House today when a group of third students visited the JCSP Make a Book Exhibition.

We were delighted to showcase our Newsletter project entitled ‘Signs’ to this nationwide exhibition of creative work.  As part of their IT subject our third year students started a Newsletter project last September.
Using programmes like Microsoft Word, Publisher, Photoshop and Internet search tools such as Google, the students drafted, edited, created and published a Newsletter for every month of the academic year.
The students took turns each month in taking responsibility for the Newletter roles such as Editor, Reporter, Photographer, and Graphic Designer, gaining them very valuable leadership and teamwork skills.

This Newsletter Initiative demonstrated excellent cross curricular involvement with Literacy, English, Art, and IT. Well done to all the third year students involved in this project. Feedback was very encouraging and the National Director of the PDST JCSP programme was high in her praise for this initiative. Congratulations also to their teachers Maggie Owens and Catherine McFarlane.

Editor/Manager: Sinead
“I really like it when we print out the finished newsletter. It is really interesting and it makes me feel proud”

Reporter: Vanessa
“My favourite is creating seasonal photos of the team for every month. I loved the Autumn picture where we threw leaves up in the air!”

Reporter: Rachel “My main responsibility was the back page, I loved looking for the right word search, jokes and poems for people to read/do”

Graphic Designer: Sean “I really enjoyed using Photoshop and creating our new headline and logo  – SIGNS”

Reporter: Winnie “I like researching stories and writing/typing them up for the newsletter”

Holy Family LCPE Students wins an award!

Holy Family School is one of the piloted school to have PE as a Leaving Cert subject. On Wednesday the 6th of March our LCPE students attened PE Xpo. PE Xpo Ireland aims to develop the understanding of PE and Sport among young people. 5A students entered the PE Xpo competition under the Leaving Cert PE Category with their project “Actions Speak Louder Than Words”. This project focus on topic 7 from the LCPE specification.
The project explores Deaf people, Physical Activity and Inclusion. Congratulations to 5A students and to their teacher Sarah Jane O’Regan for all their hard work.
Link to https://www.pexpoireland.com