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St Mary’s High School Newry received the Welcoming Schools Award during a presentation ceremony hosted by the SELB and the International Fund for Ireland. Since September 2012, St Mary’s has been involved in the Welcoming Schools project. The project is organised in conjunction with Southern Education and Library Board and the International Fund for Ireland.
The Welcoming Schools project aims to develop, within schools, a welcoming ethos and atmosphere built on the principles of inclusivity, respect for others and an embracing of diversity within their own school culture.
The goal is to make school a more exciting, satisfying and enriching experience for everyone – all students, all staff and all visitors.
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Last week over 60 students from a number of post primary schools across the Newry and Mourne District heard Holocaust surviver Joanna Millan tell her story.
Joanna was born Bela Rosenthal in August 1942 in Berlin, Germany. In June 1943, Bela and her mother were taken from their home and sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto. In 1944 when Bela was two, her mother contracted TB, leaving Bela orphaned and alone in the camp. Some of the women working in the kitchens would take food to the orphans. On 3rd May 1945, the Red Cross took over control of the camp and Bela was liberated by the Russians.
After liberation Bela, along with five other surviving orphans, was flown to England. After living in a series of children’s homes, Bela was adopted by a Jewish couple living in London. They decided it would be better for Bela to have a less German-sounding name so it was changed to Joanna. Joanna was told not to mention that she was Jewish or that she was born in Germany and to pretend that she was their natural daughter. Growing up and hiding her identity was hard for Joanna, but she believes that the scale of antisemitism was such that Jews were discriminated against in all sections of society, even in England. Joanna went on to marry a Jewish man and has three children and eight grandchildren. She is a magistrate and today speaks regularly about her experiences during the Holocaust.
Students from St Paul’s High School, Newtownhamilton High School, Newry High School, St Joseph’s High School, Crossmaglen, St Mary’s High School and St Louis Grammar School, Kilkeel heard the testimony of Joanna as part of a visit organised by Newry and Mourne District Council and the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET).
The Mayor of Newry and Mourne, Councillor Michael Ruane said “It is a privilege for us to welcome Joanna Millan to the District and her testimony will remain a powerful reminder of the horrors so many experienced. We are grateful to the Holocaust Educational Trust for co-ordinating the visit and we hope that by hearing Joanna’s testimony, which is one of tremendous courage during horrific circumstances, we will have the opportunity to learn where prejudice and racism can ultimately lead.”
This event has been organised by the Council’s Good Relations section and is supported by the Office of the First Minister and Deputy Minister. It is part of a series of workshops that focus on the theme of ‘Dealing with the Past’ which seek to encourage all of our local communities to use the lessons we have learnt from the past to make a positive difference in our own lives, ensuring that we can all work together to create a shared future.
The Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) was established in 1988 to educate young people from every ethnic background about the Holocaust and the important lessons to be learned for today. HET works in schools, universities and in the community to raise awareness and understanding of the Holocaust, providing teacher training, an Outreach Programme for schools, teaching aids and resource materials. Among HET’s earliest achievements was ensuring that the Holocaust formed part of the National Curriculum for History. Since 2005 the Holocaust Educational Trust has received Government funding for its flagship Lessons from Auschwitz Project, which gives two young people from every school and college in the country the opportunity to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. HET also played a crucial role in the establishment of Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK and continues to play a key role in the delivery of this national commemorative event.
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Pupils from St Joseph’s Boys High School Pioneer Centre recently made the trip to Dublin where they were awarded the Gradam na Readoiri Award from the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association.
This special award was presented to the pupils in recognition of the outstanding achievements the Pioneer Association has been responsible for, over a decade of work involving young people.
To commemorate the presentation, a special mass took place at St Joseph’s, in which representatives from local schools took part.
Mrs Una McCourt expressed great delight at the special honour and thanked all the staff who are involved in ongoing work of fundraising, supervising morning meetings and arranging extra curricular activities for the pioneer pupils.
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St Mary’s High School, Newry, has joined forces with Buttercrane Shopping Centre to create the centre’s new youth team of ‘Roving Reporters’ for its social media channels.
Over the past two months, the year 11, 12, 13 and 14 students who are studying media (aged from 15 -18) from have been carrying out interviews, sourcing stories and editing packages for social media.
Principal Mrs Margo Cosgrove said: “This is a golden opportunity to partner with the Buttercrane and the local business and retail community to explore current issues through the very popular Twitter platform.”
The girls, who operate through Twitter on social media as @SMaRT_6_, report on what is interesting to them in the local area and things they feel are of interest to their peers.
Recent topics have included Halloween, Faces of the Buttercrane as well as carrying out research on the cherry blossom trees in Newry. This in particular helped rouse the public's interest toward extending the life of the existing trees along Buttercrane Quay which leads to the centre.
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Pupils from the Sacred Heart Grammar School recently presented a cheque to Newry Samaritans following their walk along with the Newry Canal Towpath with pupils from St Mary's High School.
The cheque for over £900 was presented to Eileen and Paddy, Volunteers with Newry/Dundalk Samaritans.
Samaritans are very grateful to these young ladies for their efforts, as the organisation is entirely dependant on contributions from the public and is in urgent need of funds. This walk helped raise some of the funding needed to keep the local branch going.
Samaritans, who this year are celebrating their 40th year in the area, are located at 19 St Coleman's Park, Newry and offer emotional support 24 hours a day. They are always available to receive your phone calls at 028 (048) 302 66366, or your emails at jo@samaritans.org if you need to talk, or your financial contributions if you want to help.
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Members of the Newry Neighbourhood Policing Team recently visited the Southern Regional College in Newry to rasie awareness of the dangers of alcohol and drug misuse. Write a comment
Pupils from St Joseph's Boys High School presented a cheque for £700 to the Macmillan trust.
The funds were raised at a series of fund raising activities including a bake sale and sponsored walk.
Principal Mr Hugh Mallon expressed his delight at how staff and pupils contributed together in the support the Macmillan and commended the Pioneer Association for its efforts of arranging the recent Coffee Morning in school.
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It's been a very busy couple of weeks for musicians and the music department from St Joseph’s Boys’ High School in Newry who brought their musical skills to Dublin, the Buttercrane as well as the School Christmas Concert.
St Joseph’s held their annual Christmas Carol Service on the 4th December in the school assembly hall with a great turn out of pupils, teachers and a Liturgical service celebrated by Fr Corr. The beautiful service included reflections about the true meaning of Christmas whilst the school choir sang carols and hymns accompanied by the String ensemble. The wind ensemble concluded the service by playing Christmas music and filling everyone with the Christmas spirit.
The school choir travelled to Dublin on the 5th of December to participate in the ‘Young Voices’ concert in City West Hotel. The 40 choir members were part of a 3000 children’s Hallelujah choir which sang their hearts out to friends and family. A great time was enjoyed by all with long lasting memories.
The wind band attended the annual Christmas event in the Butter Crane shopping centre on 11th December. Every year the pupils provide Christmas music for the shoppers and also raise money for a worth while children’s charity ‘Barnardos’.
St Joseph’s Head of Music, Mrs Sharon Byrne, expressed her absolute delight at the level of dedication that the pupils have shown over the last number weeks in making all the musical events such a success and on behalf of all the staff at St Joseph’s would like to wish all the pupils, parents and extended school community a very Happy Christmas.
For more photographs please see: www.stjosephsnewry.com
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Eoin Lane and Oisin McKinley from Abbey Christian Brothers School, Newry took First Place in the Junior Group Award in the Biological and Ecological Science section at the BT Young Scientist of the Year Exhibition in Dublin last week. The pair also received a Junior Display Award.
Their project entitled A study of the Resource Holding potential of the Red Beadlet Anemone attracted a lot of interest at the Ballsbridge event.
The pair were the only Newry representatives at this years 50th Anniversary Young Scientist Exhibition.
In all, almost 1,165 students from 32 counties covering 550 projects from 210 schools nationwide competed for the title of BT Young Scientist of the Year won this year by Paul Clarke, aged 17, from St Paul’s College, Raheny in Dublin who took home the top prize for his project entitled “Contributions to cyclic graph theory.
Paul was presented with a cheque for €5,000, the opportunity to represent Ireland at the 26th European Union Young Scientist competition taking place in September and a brand new trophy. As this year’s winner, Paul will also win a once in a lifetime trip to Silicon Valley in California, home to some of the world’s biggest technology corporations, to meet BT’s Innovation team, and will enjoy a hosted tour of leading enterprises and meet business leaders from the world of science and technology.
Colm O’Neill, CEO, BT Ireland said, “When we set out last year to plan for the 50th BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition we wanted to make sure that this was our most exceptional event to date. I’m delighted to say that it has exceeded all of our expectations. Over the past three days we have had some of Ireland’s brightest, most creative and positive young people astound us with their ideas for a better future and we have been greatly impressed by the high standard of these entries.
He added, “Over the years the exhibition has proven to be an important launch pad for the next wave of entrepreneurs, academics, scientists and technologists; people who will be fundamental in addressing the global skills shortage. For that reason, we cannot underestimate the importance of this exhibition in encouraging our young students to pursue careers in science and technology. I would like to congratulate every single student who participated this week and of course to Paul on his enormous achievement. If our past winners have taught us anything, it’s that this award could change his life.”
Speaking about the winning entry, Professor Tom Laffey, judge in the Chemical, Physical & Mathematical Sciences category said: “Graph theory is an area of pure mathematics which studies properties of linkages and networks. It has applications in several areas including computing, molecular structure, neuroscience, search engines, engineering etc. In this project Paul makes a profound contribution to the study of graphs. He identifies key concepts and provides the methodology to apply them to some long-standing major problems in the subject with great success.”
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