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On Presentation Day, we came together as a school community, with our neighbouring school, Presentation Secondary, to reaffirm our commitment to making our schools a safe, welcoming, inclusive space for all, but especially for those most in need.

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We have buddy benches in our school, where children can go and sit if they are feeling alone, or left out in the yard. Students and teachers go over and check on students and help their find their way.

Our buddy benches are really useful tools!

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Students in our school have the opportunity to engage in a number of programmes, such as Creative Mindfulness, Resilience programmes and transitions.

Our school uses programmes such as Zippy's Friends, Zones of Regulation, Friends for Life & Get Up Stand Up tp teach social skills, self-regulation and emotional control.

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We got a school map designed, that can be marked for new students to show where their classroom is going to be & which entrances & exits they will use.

The doors in our school are colour coded, which is shown on the map to make things easier!

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We created a virtual tour of our school, to show people around!

Check out our video here :)

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Our monitoring visit is scheduled for February 21st, 2024.

We can't wait to meet our visitors and share the wonderful work that our school is doing.

We have a lovely day planned :)

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Our school has wonderful plans for another bake sale at the beginning of term 3, to raise funds for some charities, close to our hearts.

We will also be hosting a multicultural day to celebrate the wonderful diversity in our school in term 3. We are really excited about this, we can't wait to get planning it!

Our school newsletter is being launched in term 3, 2024, we can't wait to share all of our good news with our school community.

Ms McGovern is planning some more coffee mornings for parents in our school too!

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We are so lucky in our school to have SET teachers with excellent experience in teaching EAL students, who are always willing to provide advice and support to us.

As a staff, we have sourced a number of dual language resources from various websites, that we use to assist students during their first few days and weeks in our school

This dual language resource from Twinkl is one of the many resources we use in our school!

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A survey sent out to parents & students had the following results.

We are delighted that our school community thinks our school is a safe place to be!

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Students LOVE their drumming sessions with Cathy, especially when they are learning the Polynesian slap dance called Sasa (using vocal and body responses to rhythmical patterns on the drum) and the
Indonesian Kecak dance. (human voice and body percussion)

A key musical aspect to the course is the use of polyrhythms which involve two or more rhythms going against each other at the same time. This can prove a difficult task to undertake and pupils feel a great sense of achievement once this is accomplished.

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Students in our school are provided with the opportunity to explore and engage with other customs and cultures.

One of the favourite activities that classes participate in every year is drumming with Cathy from Rhythm and Shakes, where the children are exposed to an array of world music in a fun and educational way. Children are afforded the opportunity to learn about different cultures and musical forms from West Africa, Indonesia and Polynesia. The classes unfold over a four week course, with lessons exploring interlocking rhythms, unison rhythms while using percussion instruments, body percussion and vocal techniques.

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Parades are very popular in our school, from First Holy Communion students, to winning teams, to classes with best attendance.. we love cheering each other on and supporting eachother!

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Our Peace Proms choir sharing their beautiful singing with us!

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Students wanted to make sure the students we had starting in our school from Ukraine felt welcome and supported!

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Our school is delighted to participate in a number of programmes, such as Junior Achievement, Roots of Empathy, Smart Moves, Life Skills & Lust for Life.

These programmes strengthen our links with groups in our community and provide wonderful learning opportunities for children.

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Our school runs clubs throughout the year for students, free of charge.

We want our students to have the best opportunities during their time here.

Clubs include athletics, basketball, camogie, gaelic football, soccer, art, drama, wellbeing - to name but a few!

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Thank you to Homayoon for sharing your experiences with our school!

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We asked some students to share what they liked about our school and wanted to share their responses with you!

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Our 6th class students wanted to share their thoughts on our school!

We challenged them to choose only one word to describe it.

Student voice is very important to us!

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A beautiful poster by Layla in 5th!

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Take some time to read some of the lovely poems our students wrote.. we are so proud of them :)

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Here are some of the wonderful posters entered in to our competition.. well done everyone :)

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Students in our school have been learning about what a refugee, migrant, asylum seeker are and the differences between them.

We explored the emotions they feel at various points in their journey. Students within classes shared their stories with their classes too, which was a really special moment.

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2024 is the year that our school newsletter returns!

We can't wait to share all of the wonderful things that are going on in our school with the parents.

We are looking into using an online newsletter called Smore, which offers translations in to many different languages!

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Many of the students in our class have family members in other parts of the world.

On Grandparents Day this year, Miss Fortune & her class made cards their grandparents and went on a trip to the post office to post them!

There are cards being delivered to many different countries!

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Celebrating the languages spoken in our school!

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Celebrating the languages spoken in our school!

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Classes have been celebrating the various languages spoken in our school in many different ways!

Classes have compared sounds across languages in phonics lessons, words and meanings, learned a phrase a day & some art incorporating it!

Here are Mrs Cody's beautiful Valentines Love Langauges!

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We managed to fill 6 cars with donations for people and groups within our local community!

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Well done to Katie P in 5th class who designed our school logo!

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Our school has run DEIS summer camps for children over the last number of years. We are extremely proud of these camps and they are thoroughly enjoyed by the students!

Camps run for one week & focus on literacy and numeracy development through playful learning experiences, developing life skills, social skills and promoting students wellbeing.

Some of the camp highlights are the weekly trip on a bus & our adventure to the library, where every student is signed up for library membership.

Students loved making their own lunches.

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If everyone does something small, together we can make a big difference!

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Our 6th class students were so inspired by the book The Journey, that they decided to use it as a stimulus to teach our school community about the emotions people feel on their journeys when seeking sanctuary & some of the reasons for them having to flee their homes.

We are so impressed with them!

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Our teachers are very familiar with the idea of building restorative classrooms. Restorative practices & relationship building are key features!

A restorative classroom is a place where relationships matter. The better the relationships in a classroom, the better teachers can teach, the better the students can learn and the fewer challenges and conflicts there will be.

The five key themes are:

Unique and equally valued perspectives

Thoughts influence emotions, and emotions influence subsequent actions

Empathy and consideration for others

Identifying needs comes before identifying strategies to meet these needs

Collective responsibility for the choices made and for their outcomes

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Mrs O'Mara leads regular assemblies in our school, where we welcome new students, celebrate students achievements and focus on the theme of kindness, inclusion and support.

These assemblies allow students to share their thoughts, current practices and recommendations to Mrs O'Mara.

They are really enjoyable sessions!

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We are very lucky in our school to have some wonderful new areas, which really benefit our students.

Mrs Murphy & Mrs Willmott lead our school nurture room, which is in its second year.

We recently added a sensory room & movement break area to our school.

We renovated an old cloak room into a work space for our school art and play therapists.

We are very lucky to have such wonderful supports for our students.

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Our SoS teacher committee decided to build on the lists of books out there & we came up with our own list, based on books we have used!

This is the first list that was shared with teachers.

It is regularly updated with new books, as we come across them.

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Students in our school love researching for projects, these can can be on a variety of things - countries, issues, people etc!

Mrs Cody's third class were learning all about Brazil recently!

Ms Fortune's fifth class were learning all about famous women who have changed the world!

Ms Duke's sixth class are learning all about human rights activists at the minute.

Students love sharing their learning with their peers.

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Fourth class have been learning about connections and were discussing how we all rely on each other in some way! They linked this in with a lovely irish seanfhocal 'ar scath a chéile a mhaireann na daoine'.

The Irish phrase translates as we live in each other's shadows or we shade each other from the sun, or more generally that we depend on one another in various, sometimes hidden ways.

Themes of friendship, support and welcome can be seen in their beautiful posters!

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Students, when speaking about their own experiences, wanted to put some visuals around the school, to help new students who might not speak english find their way around!

With the help of Mrs O'Donoghue, they designed these posters and they are now all around our school!

We hope the pictures will help students!

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Our SoS & Wellbeing committees want to brighten up the walls of our school, so the idea of a positivity pathway was brought up.

Students researched and chose some appropriate, meaningful quotes for display in our school!

The positive & important messages really brighten up our days here in the Pres!

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Our SoS ambassadors love going on the intercom and going from class to class to share important updates and news!

Ehi, Sofia, Lily Grace and Aoife went on the intercom recently to announce the winners of our poster and poetry competitions!

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Miss Duke had the chance to meet with some other schools recently who are on their School of Sanctuary journey.

She attended a monitoring session in Ard Scoil and was so pleased to hear how other schools are getting on.

The advice and support offered by the teachers from Mount Sion & Ard Scoil was so helpful for our school!

We hope that one day, we will be able to share our experiences with other schools!

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We are very lucky to have some wonderful connections with other schools, some of which are on the School of Sanctuary journey with us!

We link in with the Presentation Secondary school & offer support to each other where possible.

Our committees are due to come together for a meeting in Term 2!

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Ms Landers keeps our website updated and we are really proud of it!

We love sharing our class & school news with everyone.

Our website is easily translated and available to everyone.

Check out our School of Sanctuary section, under School life!

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Welcome...

We are well into our new school year and everyone is working hard. It is great to be back with our friends again and enjoying school life too.

School Uniform

Details of our new school uniform can be found by clicking the link School Uniform. While the new uniform is being introduced this school year, pupils are not required to have purchased it for their return to school if their old one is still useable. We have the coming year to make the transition.

School Day

Junior and Senior Infants 8.50am to 1.30pm

First to Sixth Classes 8.50am to 2.30pm

Kind regards
Anne Marie O'Mara

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Presentation Primary School Waterford - A great tradition of education in Waterford since 1798

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We are well into our new school year and everyone is working hard. It is great to be back with our friends again and enjoying school life too. School Uniform Details of our new school uniform can be found by clicking the link School Uniform.

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Mrs O'Mara provides our parents with regular updates about what is going on in our school community.

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Ms McGovern is in regular contact with the parents in our school.

She offers support to all, but particularly to new families coming to our school, to support their transition.

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Ms McGovern, our HSCL, regularly updates our parents of courses and opportunities that come her way!

These include activities within our school community & further afield in the local community.

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On October 13th, we celebrated National Day of Prayer in our school.

We have students of many different faiths, who were encouraged to share their prayers with their classes.

We found a lovely message of thanks and adapted and added to it, to make our very own school prayer that everyone could participate in.

Students came up with lines that reflected our school community!

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We are so proud of our students! They are always willing to help out.

We have language leaders in our school, who are available to meet with and help new students who speak their language.

They act as a familiar friendly face for new students and a real support to them, particularly in their first few weeks here.

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Our school community works to ensure that every child sees themselves represented in the school, on posters, in toys that resemble, depict, and represent them.

Our school recently purchased diversity dolls, which are used in our infant classes and are really loved by the students!

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We are in the middle of our book tournament and we are loving it!

We can't wait for the books to go head to head & we can vote on them.

Ms Lyons has organised this wonderful idea - she chooses two books every week for us to read, with important messages & themes.

We read the books or listen to the read alouds, discuss them together & reflect on the messages and meaning behind them.

Week one:

Tunnel vs When Jessie came across the sea

Week two:

Malala's magic pencil vs It's a no money day.

Week three:

The Journey vs Martin's Big Words

Week four:

Anne Frank A retelling of the iconic story vs The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs

Week five:

Something Beautiful vs Click Clack Moo, Cows that type.

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We are so excited for Wellbeing week 2024.

Check out our weekly line up!

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Every class in our school has a 'buddy class'. Classes are linked up for the school year & enjoy lots of different activities together.

It really strengthens our school community and the students love working together!

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Friendship has been one of the main themes on our School of Sanctuary journey so far. In our school we are inclusive, we treat others with kindness and respect and we celebrate each other!

Friendship week is always a very enjoyable week, where our students were busy exploring the theme of friendship through lots of lovely activities and also working with their buddy classes.  Our classes are busy working on our school song ‘You’ve got a friend in me’ – we can’t wait to sing it together at assembly!

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Toy Story - You've got a friend in me - Randy Newman - Lyrics

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Our students love learning about real people!

Recently they have been exploring people who changed the world and they learned so much! Some of these people were Malala Yousefzai, Rosa Parks, Greta Thunberg, Martin Luther King Jr, Bob Marley, Nelson Mandela.

They researched in our computer room & also using the books in our library.

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Our students love learning about celebrations around the world.

Lots of classes are exploring the Chinese New Year at the moment - if you take a look around our school, you will see chinese dragons, writing activities, lanterns and lots more!

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We are so lucky that we have so many people within our community who are willing to share their knowledge and experiences with us!

6th class and our SoS ambassadors met with Homayoon recently to have a discussion about our school as a place of Sanctuary.

He spoke about his experience coming to Ireland and the practical things that can help students starting school here.

He spoke about the difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee.

He then invited the students to ask him questions and was really impressed by the insightful questions asked!

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Students in 5th and 6th class were really inspired by the map of our school, representing the countries where students have come from.

They decided that they would do a project on each of these countries, for a showcase in our school hall during Wellbeing Week, this is where the idea of 'Welcome to our world' came from!

Stay tuned for the finished projects :)

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Mrs McAra's 5th class are beginning their work on their 'Challenge to Change' project, for the showcase in April!

Challenge to Change is a development education project aimed at young people attending the Presentation Sisters primary and post-primary schools in Ireland. The initiative seeks to raise awareness and understanding of development issues and global inequality through the exploration and engagement in issues surrounding as (in)justice, human rights, fairtrade, racism, exploitation, etc.

The goals for their project are:

Students recognise, celebrate & become educated about other cultures and traditions.

To highlight the adversities and difficulties people from areas of danger may face and have to overcome (when seeking sanctuary)

Students will understand the advantages of a multicultural society and how equality impacts wellbeing.

We can't wait to share their progress with you.. stay tuned :)

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We borrowed some reader pens from our local library recently, to see would they be beneficial for our students, in particular those learning english. By passing the Reader Pen over the text you can have text read to you immediately.
You can also record readings and voice memos to help your learning and pronunciation and use the Reader Pen to look up the meaning of words.

Our students really enjoyed trying these out!

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Our SoS committee recently ran a poster and colouring competition for 3rd - 6th class.

The theme of the competition was 'Our school, a place of sanctuary'.

We were so excited to see the finished pieces!

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As a school, we wanted to enhance our resources and put it out to students for suggestions! Students came up with some wonderful ideas and were delighted to see them arriving to our school.

These resources included books for our library in lots of different languages, diversity dolls & Colours of the World markers, as well as suitable swimming costumes to ensure all students had the opportunity to attend.

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Our 3rd class students have been taking part in the Peace Proms for many years and it is definitely a highlight of their year. Peace Proms celebrates culture and diversity and promotes peace, unity and tolerance through music. Peace Proms is for everyone and shares important messages through song.

Check out the 2023 concert here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMToVE-Bv5o

Here are our Peace Proms group from 2022 singing a selection of their songs, they didn't get a big performance in WIT because of COVID, they were delighted showing off their moves in school!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE58HILO-Xs

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A massive thank you to Ms. Lyons for all her hard work in securing the ‘Free to be me’ books for our school library, in association with Childrens Books Ireland. Ms. Lyons put our school forward, sharing some of our journey to ensuring our school is a place where everyone is welcomed, supported and represented and we were awarded a wonderful set of books for our hard work!

The ‘Free to be me’ project is celebrates diversity, representation and inclusion in books for children and young people aged 0–18, to ensure equity and visibility in both school and public libraries, bookshops and shelves in the home.

We were chosen as one of fifty schools (out of more than 640 applications) to receive the Free to be Me Little Library from Children’s Books Ireland in November. We received a selection of more than 100 books.

The schools chosen to receive these books demonstrated an awareness of a need for diverse books in their libraries, and work towards giving those for whom English isn’t their first language a welcoming community in which to learn.

The books we received ensures that all students can see themselves and their situation represented. Our books explore stories based on having to flee war, living as a refugee, experiencing homelessness, living with disabilities, discrimination, celebrating differences and many more. Make sure and check our Free to be me section in the library!

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Thank you to everyone who supported our no uniform day. We were delighted to be able to donate the money collected to support children who are impacted by war.

Thank you to Ms McGovern for organising this!

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Well done to the students from 5 th and 6 th class for organising such a wonderful bake sale! Thank you to all of our students who supported this and helped raise over 1000 euro for two special charities – Barnardos and Pieta House. We are so proud to be able to help these charities!

Our students made some beautiful cakes and treats, they were delicious! We had cakes and dishes from Brazil, Slovakia, Brazil and Afghanistan too! We loved having the chance to try new foods!

Barnardos work with families, communities, and our partners to transform the lives of vulnerable children who are affected by adverse childhood experiences.

Pieta offers a free professional one-to-one, in-person, phone or video therapeutic counselling and 24-hour phone and text crisis prevention services to those who are going through a very difficult time.

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The boys and girls in the Presentation Primary School showed a red card to racism.

On March 31st, the students and staff in our school joined schools all across the country by supporting Wear Red Day. Classes had wonderful discussions on the importance of treating everybody with kindness and respect and also the importance of celebrating diversity and our differences.

Sixth class shared a lovely message on the intercom and we all took a kindness pledge, where we promised to be kind to ourselves and others. Students were very proud of the fact that our school is a kind, caring and welcoming place and that we work hard to make sure everybody is happy in our school.

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On Thursday 21st September, the students in our school celebrated World Gratitude Day. Every class has a place in our ‘school garden’ to share our gratitude flowers, where students could share what they are grateful for!

Senior classes had wonderful discussions about appreciating what we have and recognizing that people around the world might not always be as lucky as us.

Students identified some wonderful things they are grateful for such as their safety, access to health care, supportive people around them to help them, the opportunities they have and many more. Be sure to stop by our gratitude garden!

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Our school uses the wonderful Helping Hands programme, which is very informative, beneficial tool, used to gain an insight into the underlying dynamics and relationships of our classes, it is an award winning programme which promotes cooperative and psychologically safe schools.

Teachers can use this knowledge to:

Prevent bullying

Intervene early before bullying becomes entrenched

Create inclusive psychologically safe classrooms

Develop classroom teams that are welcoming to all

Build support networks around vulnerable students

Create conditions that make it safe for students to tell

Help empower students who are victimised

https://cooperation.ie/#programme

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We are so incredibly proud of our wonderful school community, for the amazing response to our school Christmas Appeal.

A massive thank you to everyone for coming on board and getting involved, your donations will go a long way to ensuring that lots of people in our community will have food this Christmas! Well done to our 6th Class pupils and our School of Sanctuary Ambassadors for leading this initiative! The season of goodwill is well and truly alive in the Presentation.

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Presentation pupils are spreading kindness this Christmas...

We are so incredibly proud of our wonderful school community, for the amazing response to our school Christmas Appeal.

A massive thank you to everyone for coming on board and getting involved, your donations will go a long way to ensuring that lots of people in our community will have food this Christmas! Well done to our 6th Class pupils and our School of Sanctuary Ambassadors for leading this initiative! The season of goodwill is well and truly alive in the Presentation.

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Presentation pupils are spreading kindness this Christmas... We are so incredibly proud of our wonderful school community, for the amazing response to our school Christmas Appeal. A massive thank you to everyone for coming on board and getting involved, your donations will go a long way to ensuring that lots of people in our community will have food this Christmas!

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Ms McGovern & Ms Power organised a wonderful coffee morning for parents in our school who are looking to improve their english!

It was a lovely morning, with delicious treats and lots of chatting :)

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Our SoS ambassadors thought about the challenges that some people are facing, when they are forced to leave their homes and travel to a new place.

They recognised that people often can't bring anything with them & thought this would be difficult for young children when they arrived to Ireland and were due to start school.

They made a list of items that new students would need & asked Mrs O'Mara could we create welcome bags! She thought this was a wonderful idea, that would reduce stress on families and would be something nice for students!

Ms Feighery's second class were busy bees and packed our welcome bags, which are kept down by the office, to be given to new students when they start here.

They include a lunch box, a bottle, a pencil case full of stationary, colours, copies and notebooks.

Thank you to Tesco who donated some wonderful boxes of stationary to our school.

We have spoken to our local libraries to see if they will donate some books for these bags!

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We wanted to create a welcome leaflet for parents, with the important information about our school. This is provided to parents when enrolling their child in the Presentation Primary School.

We have started getting this document translated into some of the languages spoken by the students in our school.

We are aiming to increase this by 2-3 languages a year.

So far we have had it translated into Portuguese, Ukrainian, Farsi/Dari & Pashto.

Parents are invited to come on board and share their expertise for this project.

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Our school is very committed in ensuring the needs of all of our pupils are met, especially those who are most in need.

Our DEIS Action Plan 2023-202 outlines ways in which our school will support students & our targets for the coming years.

Our DEIS plan can be viewed by following this link: https://www.presentationprimarywaterford.ie/assets/2023/11/DEIS-Plan-for-Presentation-Primary-School.pdf

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Christmas around the World - The Musical!

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Christmas around the World - The Musical!

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Mrs McAra, Ms McNamara and our wonderful Arts and Wellbeing Club are busy preparing for their performance of 'Christmas around the World'. We can't wait to share the videos with you!

Christmas around the World is a charming Christmas musical about different festive customs around the world.

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A very popular activity in our school is exploring how Christmas is celebrated around the world. Children love to share their experiences and knowledge about other traditions and countries.

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Students learn all about traditions and festivals from all over the world as part of their S.E.S.E curriculums.

These include Ramadan, Eid, Diwali, Hanukkah and many many more!

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Kindness and respect are at the centre of our classroom rules, which are decided by the students at the beginning of the school year. Student voice is so important to us here in the Presentation!

We treat others with kindness and respect.

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Our students learn to celebrate themselves and what makes them unique! Our 'I am art' is a very popular piece, that really shows off the students individuality!

It prompted a wonderful discussion on how different all of the art pieces were, but how beautiful they were in their own way. This led into a wonderful discussion of diversity!

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We love learning new languages in our school.

Our SoS ambassadors have been busy creating a 'welcome' display for our school reception, with the languages that our students speak!

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We are a DEIS 1 school, under the Department of Education's social inclusion strategy. DEIS stands for Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, it aims to help children and young people who are at risk of or who are experiencing educational disadvantage.

It focuses on targeting additional resources to those schools included in the programme to ensure every child has an equal opportunity to achieve their potential.

Information on the DEIS programme can be found at the following link:

https://www.presentationprimarywaterford.ie/assets/2023/11/Schools-in-the-DEIS-Programme-Note-for-Parents-and-Guardians.pdf

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As a school, we are very much inspired by the work of Nano Nagle, the founder of the Presentation Order. Nano devoted her life to serving the most vulnerable in society and we endeavour to continue her legacy in all that we do.

In the face of fear, she chose to be daring,

In the face of anxiety, she chose to trust,

In the face of impossibility, she chose to begin.

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Donate to Nano Nagle Place!

Your donation supports heritage, learning, social justice & community development.

The Story of Nano Nagle

"In the face of fear, she chose to be daring,
In the face of anxiety, she chose to trust,
In the face of impossibility, she chose to begin.
What will you choose to do?"
Woman of Hope - Sr Raphael Consedine (2001)

If Nano Nagle were alive today she would be the kind of person to win a Nobel Prize. Before her death in 1784, Nano had opened 7 schools for poor children across Cork city, founded an almshouse for poor women, and most notably, founded the Presentation Order, who continue her education and social inclusion work today. Born to a wealthy Catholic family in 1718, Honora Nagle was given the pet name Nano by her father. The Nagle family home at Ballygriffin, near Mallow, was on the banks of the river Blackwater.

Here Nano experienced an idyllic childhood with her younger siblings. The repressive Penal Laws meant that education for Catholics was not available in Ireland (unless they were willing to attend proselytising Church of Ireland schools) and Irish Catholics were forbidden from traveling to the continent to be educated. Despite this, Nano's family had Nano educated in France. Afterward she went to Paris to live with her relations.

A series of life changing events inspired Nano to devote her life to the service of the poor. On her way home from a ball in Paris she saw paupers mustering around a church door in search of alms. When Nano's father died and she and her sister Ann returned to Dublin to be with their mother, Nano began visiting poor families with Ann. Ann died suddenly, quickly followed by her mother. Nano decided she would devote her life to helping the poor. At first she thought this might be achieved by entering a religious order and she travelled to Paris and joined a convent. But Nano found that her life of religious enclosure allowed her little access to the needy. She felt her vocation was to offer poor Catholic children the chance to better their lives and engage in their religion through education. She made up her mind to leave the convent and return to Ireland to live with her brother Joseph and his wife Frances, who lived on Cove Street (now Douglas Street).

Since under the Penal Laws, operating a Catholic School could result in three months imprisonment, Nano had to work in secret. She began by opening a school for young girls next to our site at Nano Nagle Place in the early c. 1750s. This girls' school focussed on reading, writing, Catechism (Catholic religious instruction) and needlework.

Within ten years demand for the education which Nano provided was such that she was operating seven schools across the city of Cork, teaching both boys and girls. When Nano's family moved to Bath, Nano took a small cottage on Cove Street. By day she visited each of her schools, and by night she visited the poor of the Cork city. This was dark and treacherous work. The city streets were neither lit nor properly policed. Nano travelled by the light of the lantern she carried, and across the city of Cork she became known as 'Miss. Nagle, 'the Lady of the Lantern'.

In the 1760s Nano began to plan for the future of her educational mission. In 1771 she used money inherited from her wealthy uncle to build a convent for the Ursuline sisters, a teaching order, whom she invited from France. This convent survives as the oldest building at Nano Nagle Place today.

"I often think my schools will never bring me to heaven, as I only take delight and pleasure in them"
- Nano Nagle to Eleanor Fitzsimons, 17 July 1769

Nano's tireless work in her schools across the city and for the poor of Cork could never have been done if she were a sister in an enclosed order, as the Ursuline sisters were. Thus, she founded her own order 'The Institute of Charitable Instruction of the Sacred Heart of Jesus' in 1775. She and three followers promised poverty, chastity and obedience to God until death, but they did not take enclosure and continued to teach and care for the poverty stricken where they lived. For five years, the small cottage near Nano's first school, on modern day Douglas Street, just south of Cork city centre, was their first convent. Nano then built a small convent on the same street, where sisters from the order are again living today (albeit in a newer building on the site).

Nano's long days and constant walking across the city took a toll on her health. She died at the age of 66 in 1784. During her life full of such remarkable achievement, she had wondered if there could be any greater joy in heaven than she had gained from teaching the children of Cork. Her order, the Presentation Sisters, have continued her mission across the world and into the present day.

If you would like to learn more about Nano's life and the work of the Presentation Sisters, book a guided tour to our museum.

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Skip to content Donate to Nano Nagle Place! Your donation supports heritage, learning, social justice & community development. "In the face of fear, she chose to be daring,In the face of anxiety, she chose to trust,In the face of impossibility, she chose to begin.What will you choose to do?"

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All staff were furnished with the SoS Primary School activities pack to explore.

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Elmer the Elephant teaches us that everyone is unique and has something that sets them apart from everyone else, and that there's no point in trying to hide or disguise this. We should embrace our differences and always be true to who we are.

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Our students love learning about the flags of the world, so we purchased this wonderful large flag for them to explore.

We set challenges such as 'flag of the day' and they love learning about the meanings behind flags too.

Students love sharing a flag that has a special meaning to them, such as the country they were born in or somewhere significant to them.

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Some lovely art work by our senior infants! The girls loved talking about what makes them special and unique.

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The following list are some of the many topics and themes that are explored in our school that link with our School of Sanctuary journey.

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We were delighted to welcome Funmi Young to our school for a talk with 3rd – 6th class during World Refugee Week. Funmi is a wonderful ambassador for School of Sanctuary and she shared her wonderful story with us. She spoke about her decision to come to Ireland, the difficulties she and her children faced at first and her life now.  Funmi led a very engaging discussion on how we could support new students coming to our school and opened our eyes to the challenges some students face.

We are so grateful to Funmi for coming in to us and sharing her story, she is truly inspirational!

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Students from 1st - 6th class had a wonderful workshop with Kensika Monshengwo, author of Okani and the Crocodile Queendom, on Friday September 29 th – he was absolutely amazing to listen to!

We explored the concepts of diversity and inclusion with him and we learned lots of different languages too! We loved his analogy of the euro coin - there are many different variations of the euro coin (e.g. the harp in Ireland and the King in Spain) but no matter where you are, they still hold the same value!

He was delighted to hear all of the ways we celebrate diversity in our school and we told him all about our School of Sanctuary journey! He agreed that our school felt like a welcoming, safe, inclusive space!