Unique Hat-trick for 6th Class Girls

Last week, like many other pupils throughout Ireland, 20 girls from the St. John of God Primary School, The Faythe, 6th Class bade ‘good-bye’ to their teachers and fellow pupils after eight years in school there. However the graduation ceremony, which took place in front of parents / guardians and teachers on Wednesday evening last, celebrated two other significant milestones in these young students’ lives.

Since Easter the girls have been studying under Betty Dempsey, Genesis Business College, for a FETAC Level 3 Computer Course specifically designed to help students’ integration in Secondary Schools. The girls followed a structured course focussing on MS Word and Excel together with sourcing and presenting information and data safely sourced from the Internet. At the ‘graduation ceremony’ the girls were thrilled to be told that all 20 of them had successfully met the criteria required and will begin in their Secondary School of choice next September with their FETAC accredited Level 3 Certificate.

On May 21st two of the 6th class, Emma Busher and Molly O’Hanlon travelled to Croke Park, with ‘green school committee member, Ms Aisling O’Connell and school principal, Liam Turner, to collect the school’s fourth ‘Green Flag.’ On each of the three previous occasions the ‘flag raising’ ceremony was performed by a local dignitary or celebrity and the girls expected nothing less this time. However behind the scenes changes were afoot, as the ‘Green School Committee’ under the guidance of Deputy Principal, Ms. Anne Griffin-Jones, wanted to mark this particular class’ contribution to the Faythe School’s ‘green heritage.’

Each green flag takes two years ‘to earn’ and the eight years taken to be awarded the fourth flag, perfectly mirrored the girls’ time at the school. Resultantly the pupils who worked on all the ‘green school initiatives’ since Junior Infants were invited to raise the flag. The ‘Roll Book’ from 2004 was examined and the first two girls to enrol for September 2004 were identified. To round off a lovely evening Jade Foley and Jodie Phillips, representing the Faythe girls of 2004 – 12, raised the flag at the front of the school in front of the assembled crowd.

While this particular group of students will not be returning in September, ‘their flag’ will fly proudly over the purpose built bicycle shelter, that will be installed, over the summer holidays, by An Taisce, as reward for the school’ on-going commitment to the ‘Green Schools’ programme.

'Look out of my eyes'.....song composed by 6th class

Since January, a music student called Kevin Murphy has been coming into sixth class to explore all elements of music with us.

He brought in instruments for us to try out. We loved the guitars, especially the baby guitar.

 

 Our aim was to write a song that said something about us. After brainstorming and putting lyrics together, we drafted and edited before editing some more and then some more. In the end our song finally came to be.

 We recorded the song in the PE room on Friday 22nd June. Kevin brought in a friend, Tommy who had loads of recording equipment. They brought the recording away and will produce it over the summer. Maybe next year's 6th class will produce a sleeve / CD cover for it and sell it a fund-raiser for some charity.

 We have learned loads with Kevin, we have learned about different musicians, different types of music and different instruments. It was great fun and we wish we could do it again. We did our first live performance of our song on Wednesday 27th June at our Graduation Ceremony. Kevin said he was never as nervous performing for an audience as he did that night performing for all the parents / guardians. He also said he remembered being sent up to our classroom on messages when he was a pupil in the Faythe.....'way back when!'

Here is a video of us singing our song in our ''Recording Studio''!!!!!!!!

Faythe School Rock Choir

On Monday 6th February 2012 the first meeting was held in the Faythe School of a new choir. The meeting was attended by Ms. Mullins, Mr. Turner, a past pupil named Ian Grey and his wife Louise Jones and twenty two girls from 4th to 6th classes. Ian and Louise told the girls that they would try to form this new choir and the only thing they wanted from the girls was that they would enjoy themselves.



The girls obviously enjoyed themselves because the following Monday evening twenty eight girls turned up, with six more on the third Monday. At this stage Ian and Louise had decided that the Choir would be called "The Faythe School Rock Choir" and the girls were really enjoying the choice of songs.

Ian told the girls that he hoped they would be ready to sing at the School Mass on Thursday. Every night they rehearsed under the watchful eyes of both teachers as Ian played the guitar and Louise played the keyboard. This was the first night Louise asked for any volunteers who wished to sing solo. The girls were all very nervous but after many tried out, Ian and Louise picked out a few girls to sing together and one or two to sing parts on their own with the Choir backing them.

On the Thursday morning of their first ever performance, they girls walked down from school to Bride Street Chirch with Ms. Mullins and Mr. Turner. They were obviously nervous as most of them couldn't stop chattering. By 10 o'clock there was much bigger than normal crowd in Mass and after the first song the entire Church burst into applause......the girls were on their way.

At the end of Mass there was a standing ovation from the entire crowd and many people came forward to the Altar rails to congratulate the Rock Choir.


Rehearsals continued and the adults knew that the Choir was now on a firm footing when over the May and June 'Bank Holiday weekends' the girls themselves voted to practise and on each Monday over twenty five turned up.

By this stage Mr. Turner had organised hoodies for the Choir but was insisting that they would be 'dunfunty grey with brown embroidery'....yeeeuch!

The second performance was at a Sunday morning Children's Mass on Sunday 17th June. By this time the hoodies had arrived and just as well (for him) that Mr. Turner took Ms. Mullins'  'fashion tips' as the hoodies were 'baby pink with petrol blue enbroidery.' Not only did the girls look the part but they also sounded great too!!


The final performance of the year took place in the school hall on Tuesday 19th June when the 'Rock Choir' joined up with the 'Golden Oldies' from the South End Family Resource Centre for a show named 'Golden Rock.' The hall was full and the audience were treated to an hour and a half of top class singing from two very different groups firmly based in, and around, the Faythe.

The Choir are currently enjoying their summer break but all concerned are looking forward to 2012 - 13......ROCK ON !!

Huge thanks are due to one of our Dads, Darren Fortune, for taking the vidoes shown above.