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Parents classes STEAM

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EDNIP (Embracing Diversity Nurturing Integration Project)

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World Cafe

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World book day fun infant corridor

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World book day buddy reading 2nd and 3rd class 2024 📚

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2nd Class Performance Multicultural Celebration 29th Feb 2024

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2nd Class Performance Multicultural Celebration 29th Feb 2024

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2nd Class Sharing their projects on Kenya

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2nd Class Sharing their projects on Kenya

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Peace Proms Choir - We are one

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1st class sharing their knowledge of India 

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1st class sharing their knowledge of India 

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During Open Book Day we watched Paddington Bear and discussed how difficult it was for Paddington to leave his family and home abruptly. We learned that some people have to leave their homes because they are unsafe and do not have a choice. We also discussed ways we can make people who have to leave their homes feel welcome and comfortable.

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Upcoming event: Wellbeing Week April 2024

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Upcoming event: Wellbeing Week April 2024

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Peace Proms engages children and young people in music and enriches their lives through exceptional musical experiences and performances. Peace Proms celebrates culture and diversity and promotes peace, unity and tolerance through music. Well done to Ms. De Brun, Ms. Carr and Ms. Mckenna for all their hard work with the amazing Peace Proms choir.

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OLL and Nano Nagle Budding Reading Focus Groups

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OLL and Nano Nagle Budding Reading Focus Groups

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WATCH One Book One Community will promote literacy and spark conversation in Our Lady of Lourdes Community

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Pictured at the launch of ‘One Book One Community’ were Mary Kavanagh, LEC committee from Colaiste Nano Nagle, Julianne Ryan, LEC parent, Tracy Fitzgerald, LEC secretary, Jonna Malone LEC committee […]

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Mo Farah's Victory Mobot by Senior Infants!

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Mo Farah's Victory Mobot by Senior Infants!

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Senior Infant's Response to Ready, Steady, Mo

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Senior Infant's Response to Ready, Steady, Mo

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Well done to all of our wonderful parents that are coming to our weekly STEAM classes with James. OLL recognizes our amazing parents as amazing teachers to their children. We love when parents come into our school and share their stories and knowledge.

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Ms Fitzgerald HSCL of OLL visited Colaiste Nano Nagle for their annual multicultural day to share knowledge and ideas for our upcoming event.

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Ready, Steady, Mo! Picturebook - Senior Infants Openbook day Febrauary 22nd  2024

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Ready, Steady, Mo! Picturebook - Senior Infants Openbook day Febrauary 22nd  2024

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Senior Infants learned all about Olympic Gold Medalist and Refugee Mo Farah.

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Ready, Steady, Mo! Picturebook - Senior Infants Openbook day Febrauary 22nd  2024

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Ready, Steady, Mo! Picturebook - Senior Infants Openbook day Febrauary 22nd  2024

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Community Zoom with Eoin Colfer Author of Illegal

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Community Zoom with Eoin Colfer Author of Illegal

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OLL Open Book Day Zoom hosted by School of Sanctuary Ireland.

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Learning about Refugees and Asylum Seekers

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Learning about Refugees and Asylum Seekers

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Children accross the school learned the proper defintions for refugees and asylum seekers on world refugee week.

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Upcoming event: Red Against Racism March 21st 

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Upcoming event: Red Against Racism March 21st 

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We learned all about the Chinese Year and Traditions

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Graciella Aloba

in third class wrote this lovely welcome note to a new child Adwaith. Graciella joined our school in September and wanted to show a warm welcome to her new classmate. This is what OLL is all about showing welcoming and warmth to pupils. Well done Graciella!

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This is our school of sanctuary welcoming board in our school foyer. This displays some of our actions on our school of sanctuary journey over the last year.

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As cooking for cohesion was such a success last year, our wonderful parent Rita once again made lovely delicious coconut rice and shared her food and stories with students from MIC and parents from the community.

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Community helpers - Creating Bird Feeders

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Community helpers - Creating Bird Feeders

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3rd Class worked together to come up with positive environmental changes we could make to our school. We decided to design and make birdfeeders for our school!

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Aiming to foster a love of reading, bolster literacy, and spark conversation, the ‘One Book One Community’ initiative in the Our Lady of Lourdes sees young readers and families bring one of 700 books into their homes from Thursday, October 11, 2023.

The event organised by Our Lady of Lourdes Local Education Committee (LEC) will see 500 copies of the book ‘Illegal’ by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin shared throughout the community, tackling the issue of migration and integration while sparking conversation in the community.

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Mr. Jennings Leadership Presentation TED Project

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Mr. Jennings Leadership Presentation TED Project

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Peter Jennings, Our Lady of Lourdes on ways to develop a positive school ethos and creating a trusting, shared leadership school environment in Mary Immaculate College as part of the TEAL Project

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P Jennings Presentation Teal Project  Oct2023

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The Pieta Amber Flag Initiative recognises the individual efforts to create healthy, inclusive environments that support mental well-being of primary school children. OLL is working towards our Amber Flag in 2023/24.

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St Mary's School of Sanctuary Celebration

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St Mary's School of Sanctuary Celebration

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Ms. Histon, Ms. Fitzgerald and Mr. Jennings from OLL attended St. Mary's School of Sanctuary Celebration in May 2023.

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Kindness Day November 13th 2023 Crazy Hair Day

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Kindness Day November 13th 2023 Crazy Hair Day

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Children in OLL celebrated World Kindness Day November 13th 2023. Children made their hair crazy and wore odd socks. Children brought in €2 that will be donated to Pieta House.

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For the third year Our Lady of Lourdes and Colaiste Nano Nagle are collaborting with one another for Buddy Reading sessions between third class pupils and transition year students. This is a great way to encourage and motivate children to engage in reading and to partake in discussions with a buddy from secondary school.

Since 2021 Our Lady of Lourdes has been involved in a literacy buddy reading initiative in collaboration with Túsla. The buddy reading initiative is delivered using the Accelerated Reading Programme. The children involved meet and collaborate in shared reading with their buddy readers from Colaiste Nano Nagle Secondary School in Limerick. As a result of the buddy reading initiative, the school was awarded ‘The investing in Children’s Award’ by Túsla in 2021 and 2022.

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Finding your voice and knowing that your voice is important at the fun, wild and engaging Punk Alley.

Children from 1st to 6th class went to Mary Immaculate College and got to participate in the Punk Alley show.

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Ms. Kiely and Junior infants read our community book Lubna and the Pebble. In an unforgettable story that subtly addresses the refugee crisis, a young girl must decide if friendship means giving up the one item that brings her comfort during a time of utter uncertainty.

Lubna's best friend is a pebble. Pebble always listens to her stories. Pebble always smiles when she feels scared. But when a lost little boy arrives in the World of Tents, Lubna realizes that he needs Pebble even more than she does.

This emotionally stirring and stunningly illustrated picture book explores one girl's powerful act of friendship in the midst of an unknown situation.

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In February 2023 Ms. Fitzgerald OLL HSCL, Aine Lyne EDNIP and Ms. Histon set up the Intercultural Parents Committee.

The parents, teacher and HSCL collaborated and devised the School Inclusion policy. The policy has been approved by the Board of Management and shared with the school staff.

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Ms. Maguire our vice principal has displayed a kindness tree in front of her room on our reception corridor. When children across the school show kindness to one another class teachers bring the children to the kindness tree to write their act of kindness to record it on the tree. Children are showing so much kindness to one another.

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Senior Classes completed this finding freedom collaborative colouring project for world refugee week 2023

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Our amazing 5th Class organised a STEM exhibition for the other children in the school. They shared their knowledge and showed their leadership skills and were so kind and understanding to the younger pupils. Superstars!

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Fourth Class explored an extract from Letters to Rifka during world refugee week. We were learning about writing to socialize.

Letters from Rifka is a first-person description of a child's journey of leaving her country to move elsewhere during a war, informed by Hesse's memories of her own great-aunt. The novel positions America as a land of hope and opportunity, with the intention of realistically representing what motivated waves of immigrants to come to the US in the early 20th century

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On world refugee week 2023 4th and 5th class read the picture book 'The Journey'.

This book explores what is it like to have to leave everything behind and travel many miles to somewhere unfamiliar and strange. A mother and her two children set out on such a journey; one filled with fear of the unknown, but also great hope.

Based on her own interactions with people forced to seek a new home, and told from the perspective of a young child, Francesca Sanna has created a beautiful and sensitive book that is full of significance for our time.

This book explores the unimaginable decisions made as a family leave their home and everything they know to escape the turmoil and tragedy brought by war. Children engaged in class and group discussions and it really helped them to develop empathy and understanding for refugees and asylum seekers.

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Students in OLL celebrated International Dot day on September 15th. Dot day encourages children to appreciate the differences and originality in everyone around us. Children read the picturebook 'The Dot' and created beautiful art pieces in response to the text.

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Our Lady of Lourdes were invited to share their work on World Refugee Day 2023. News reporters came to our school and children spoke about their knowledge of Refugees and Asylum Seekers. We were so proud of all of our amazing pupils!

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4th Class Hunt Museum trip organised by EDNIP. The Made of Earth Exhibition. Chidlren learned about the history of clay throughout the centuries, the different uses and elements
involved in clay. They also made their own clay plates and got to experience VR technology.

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We have been ensuring to make our school
library more inclusive with the addition of a wide
range of Dual Language Books. We have ordered a
wide variety of dual language books appropriate
across all class levels. For world book day we had a
book exhibition, where we presented all these books in
our school halla and all the classes had the opportunity
to explore these dual language books in that covered
the themes of acceptance inclusion and diversity.
Children were so excited to see books in their home
language and loved sharing their language with their
peers and acting as a teacher as they read and
translated the book to younger and older pupils. We
will ensure to add new dual language books to our
school library each year to ensure children are given
the opportunity to experience literature across many
different languages.

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Our Lady of Lourdes hosted the ‘Cooking for
Cohesion’ project in February 2023 in collaboration
with Mary Immaculate college. The project gave
teachers, parents and school and opportunity to
informally share the stories of migrant families and
their journey to Ireland. It also gave the parents an
opportunity to share traditions and food from their
culture. It was a successful event, and we hope to
continue it and invite more parents to come to school
to share their stories.

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100th Investing in Children award presented to students of Our Lady of Lourdes National School

Children from OLL were presented with an ‘Investing in Children’ Award for their participation on ‘Buddy Reading Mentoring Programme’, a virtual programme aimed to support and encourage primary school children with their reading. The award was the 100th Investing in Children award to be awarded in Ireland.

The ‘Buddy Reading Mentoring Programme’ involved six Transition Year students from Laurel Hill Colaiste/Colaiste Nano Nagle who teamed up with Tulsa’s Prevention, Partnership and Family Support Department to support and mentor third class pupils from Our Lady of Lourdes National School with their reading

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The Active School Flag is an initiative of the Department of Education and Skills supported by Healthy Ireland. The Active School Flag is awarded to schools that strive to achieve a physically educated and physically active school community. We have been working very hard in Our Lady of Lourdes to achieve our flag in 2022.

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Children from each class are asked to learn about a different country. It would be great if a child from the class was from the country you chose but if not, whatever country will interest the class/integrates with your SESE.

·     Children learn facts about the country

·     Learn about games/pastimes

·     Learn a song/dance

·     Learn about school life

·     Create an art piece related to the country

·     Learn some words from the language – words such as welcome, hello, belonging etc.

·     Learn some words from the language – words such as welcome, hello, belonging etc.

·     Learn about foods/traditions at holidays

Once each class has an art piece/small project for the halla that is plenty! Celebration is on November 23rd.

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Our School Inclusion Policy

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Our Lady of Lourdes School Intercultural and Inclusion Policy (1)

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The School of Sanctuary Committee presented this powerpoint to children in the school explaining our school of sanctuary journey and how we could work together to make our school a more inclusive and safe place

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TEAL Presentation Mary Immaculate College

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TEAL Presentation Mary Immaculate College

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Ms. Histon shared the work of OLL with fellow teachers and lecturers in Mary Immaculate college involved in the TED project.

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Our Lady of Lourdes took part in Peace Proms on January 21st 2023. Peace Proms is a choral education project for Primary Schools. Peace Proms engages children and young people in music and enriches their lives through exceptional musical experiences and performances. Peace Proms celebrates culture and diversity and promotes peace, unity and tolerance through music. Huge thank you to Ms. Carr, Ms. De Brún and Ms. Neville for all their hard work!

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TO: All Principals, for sharing with parents, guardians and staff

FROM: Dr Eamonn O'Moore, Director National Health Protection;
Dr Abigail Collins, National Clinical Lead Child Health Public Health

RE: Significant levels of Flu, Covid-19 and RSV currently circulating

DATE: 6th January 2023

Significant increase in viral infections

We have seen a very significant increase in the usual winter viral infections. This includes an increase in flu, RSV and now Covid-19. This is because we are all mixing together more.

We would like to thank you for supporting the dissemination of these important messages and thank the whole school community for their efforts in following public health advice. As schools and other activities re-open it is timely to remind the school community of the key measures outlined below.

Important messages for families and children regarding any infections:
1) The most important measure is to stay home if you are unwell.
Many children might have a runny nose or a slight cough in winter season. However, if a child is feeling unwell they should be at home. For example, they may have:

· Fever

· cough, and

· sore throat

They should stay at home until those symptoms have finished. Children unwell with symptoms of one infection are more likely to get 'co-infected' with another infection which might make them more unwell, if they are exposed.

Staying home when unwell will help prevent spread to other children, families and staff.

2) Infection, prevention and control measures

- Cover coughs and sneezes

- Keep hands clean

Many of the measures that we all got used to with Covid-19 are still important. Hygiene measures such as these should be encouraged for everyone. These measures help stop the spread of infection.

3) Vaccination

Making sure your child is up to date on all recommended vaccinations will help:

- stop your child getting an infection and

- make them less likely to be unwell if they do get an infection

Routine childhood vaccinations protect against many significant viral and bacterial infections.

More information is available at https://www2.hse.ie/babies-children/vaccines-your-child/

Flu vaccine

Children and young people with underlying conditions, are at increased risk of severe complications from flu and are recommended the flu vaccine.

It is important that all adults and children recommended the flu vaccine receive the vaccine. Check if you are recommended the flu vaccine at hse.ie/flu

It is not too late to get your free flu vaccine.

More information is available at

The most important ways to prevent the spread of all infections are making sure:

anyone unwell stays at home

children and adults are up to date with their recommended vaccines, including flu

4. If you are concerned about your child

If you are concerned your child may be unwell, please check https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/colds coughs-children/ There is information on coughs, colds, fever, rashes and symptoms of concern. Advice on when to contact your GP or go to a hospital emergency department is available at

Typical symptoms of viral infections

Symptoms of viral infections typically include:

runny or blocked nose

mild fever

cough

lethargy (tiredness)

Many children with viral infections also have a generalised rash.

Most children with viral infections can safely be cared for at home.

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Our Lady Of Lourdes Rosbrien - Our Lady of Lourdes

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TO: All Principals, for sharing with parents, guardians and staff FROM: Dr Eamonn O'Moore, Director National Health Protection; Dr Abigail Collins, National Clinical Lead Child Health Public Health RE: Significant levels of Flu, Covid-19 and RSV currently circulating DATE: 6th January 2023 We have seen a very significant increase in the usual winter viral infections.

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In Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School, we use the Incredible Years program. It is a Universal Classroom Child Social, Emotional and Problem Solving Curriculum. This Dinosaur School curriculum is designed for children aged 3 to 10 years. It is taught in Early Start, Junior Infants, Senior Infants, First and Second classes. The content of the Dinosaur curriculum focuses on 7 units: learning school
rules and how to be successful in school; emotional literacy, empathy, or perspective taking; interpersonal problem solving; anger management; and friendship and communication skills. We use comprehensive manuals, with lesson plans, DVD vignettes, small and large group activities. These lessons are co-taught by 2 teachers, in
the junior classes, with the help of child-sized puppets once a week, throughout the school year. Another essential component, contributing to the success of Incredible Years is that the teachers praise, coach and reinforce curriculum social, emotional and academic skills taught during other times throughout the day. This program was created by Carolyn Webster-Stratton, an educational psychologist, University of Washington, who for twenty years has
been developing and evaluating interventions to help children with behaviour problems.

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The mission of Blue Box is to provide psychotherapy services to vulnerable children, young people and their families to realise their full potential through research-based, innovative, professional, accredited Creative Arts Therapies. Priority is given to the most socially & economically disadvantaged children in Limerick.

We are here to support the well-being & mental health of vulnerable children and young people (3-18 yrs) who are marginalised and traumatised by domestic and environmental factors. Through the Creative Arts Psychotherapy model as a research informed practice, we address the emotional, cognitive and developmental needs of vulnerable children and families living in Limerick by developing therapy interventions in response to the mental health and well-being needs of children in schools and community settings. By partnering with HSE, Mental Health, TUSLA, Youth Services and Schools/Education services, as well as other community organisations, we are responding to the growing need for child appropriate psychological intervention services for traumatised children.

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Our Global Welcome by Fourth Class

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On the 13th of January 2023, Our Lady of Lourdes began our journey to become a School of Sanctuary. Mr. Jennings proposed the School of Sanctuary Award to the Board of Management and it was approved. We sent our pledge form to Karen Dervan of Schools of Sanctuary Ireland. We will set up our committee in February of 2023. The students, staff and community are enthusiastic about the project to make our school a safe place for all and to educate ourselves further on migrants and refugees.

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5th to 9th of December 2023

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Collaborative Art Project with senior infants and 4th Class for Friendship week. We all belong and we all fit together to make one.

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Loving Language Sessions ABC Start Right

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Loving Language Sessions ABC Start Right

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In Our Lady of Lourdes school, we understand that helping our children to understand the world around them and communicate is essential. We work with Speech and Language Therapists from ABC Start Right/ Little Voices to ensure our kids get the opportunity to understand and communicate well.
Together, we run programmes such as Little Voices, Family Storytime and Loving Language. The goal of Loving Language group is to develop am improve the oral language skills of children which improves literacy and reading skills.

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On February 13th 2023, students from 3rd to 6th class voted in class elections to set up a Student Council and a School of Sanctuary Committee. Three children from each class are on the School of Sanctuary Committee based off the votes. The children meet termly to discuss different initiatives and share ideas on how we can make our school more inclusive.

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Our Lady of Lourdes celebrated Random Act of Kindness week from the 13th to 17th February 2023. Children in fourth class created a 'Bunch of Kindness' display and third class created the 'Key to Kindness' display. Teachers and children's discussed different ways we can spread kindness in school, at home and accross the community.

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In January 2022 Our Lady of Lourdes joined the TED  (Transforming Education through Dialogue) Project in collaboration with Mary Immaculate College. This project is a language learning initiative launched in September 2019 supporting children of migrant families in Limerick city. Teachers and principals from nine primary and post-primary schools meet once each term to share resources and discuss different methodologies to promote a multilingual school environment.
The aim of the project is:

To increase teacher knowledge and confidence in teaching EAL Learners in mainstream schools.

To increase culturally and linguistically responsive teaching in mainstream schools.

To develop an online and face-to-face EAL professional learning community, moving towards a Community of Practice (CoP)

To maximize EAL pupils’ potential in learning English as well as preserve their own heritage languages.

To tap into the benefits of linguistic diversity for all school pupils.