We have just received the great news that our school has been awarded its ninth ‘Award of Science and Maths Excellence’ for the school year 2020/21.

We are extremely proud of this award, as it once again demonstrates the work done in Science & Maths throughout the school.

This is some of the feedback that we received for this year’s award,

“Excellent work Knockskeagh NS. You are deserving recipients of the DPSM Plaque Award for your STEM work this year. You engaged with a very wide range of activities as illustrated comprehensively in your submission.

I really liked that you also documented your STEM activities on your Web Site thus sharing with the community outside the school – an excellent showcase opportunity.

Your video presentations for the Sciene showcase must have been watched by many.

You did trojan work, 4th class establishing a school garden and a pond – I’m sure the wildlife in Knockskeagh will be delighted with you.

Well done on getting local engineers on board with your STEM activities too, I’m sure the engineer was pleasantly surprised with “Lorky Bridge” construction and its weight-bearing potential during the Bridge Building event.

You should also be very proud of your Environmental awareness project “Lights Out”.

Keep up the good work”

Congratulations to all staff and pupils who participated in the programme especially second class teacher Mr Denis Murphy who compiled our submission.

Please check out our dedicated Discover Primary Science and Maths page on the Awards section of our website for more information on our submission.

Bridge Building

Knockskeagh recently hosted a bridge building competition. The competition this year involved all 6th class pupils.

The students’ task was to work in teams against one another to build the strongest bridge. They were provided with just lollipop sticks and glue guns.

The teams used their engineering skills to design and construct each bridge.

After the completion of the construction of each bridge, the testing of the bridges began. Each bridge had weights applied to it, to establish each bridge’s “Failure Load”.

The overall winners were eventually announced as pupils Olive O’Connell, Kerry Coombes, Leah Egan, and Riona O’Toole.

Their bridge named “Lorky Bridge” was able to hold 20kg which was just over 39 times its own weight. This was an amazing achievement in engineering design and construction.

Along with their name now being etched on the engineering challenge trophy,  the winning team also won a number of small prizes. Well done to all who participated in this project.

We’d like to thank Declan O’Shea Engineer in Dunmanway who sponsored the “Engineering Challenge Trophy” a few years ago. 

Please see our gallery below for a sample of the excellent design and construction of this year’s bridges.

Beach Day

Our 1st and 2nd class visited Red Strand Beach on Monday the 21st of June.

They completed a number of science investigations including;

• Sorting man-made and natural objects
• Measuring wavelength
• Is there iron in the sand?
• How is sand made?
• What’s in the water?

After this, they explored the rockpool areas at the beach known as the intertidal zone. They found and learned about limpet, dog whelk, mussels, barnacles, kelp, anemone, and 3 different types of seaweed. Also, each class was shown how to identify the low tide and high tide marks. They learned about the tides ebbing and flowing too.

After lunch, they had a visit from Mairéad O Donovan from the Scoil an Mara video series. Mairéad was greeted with great excitement. Thank you Mairéad for taking the time to visit and being so patient when chatting to pupils and answering their questions.

Each class finished the day by engaging in a number of games on the beach and sand art. Also, they took the time to pick up some litter around the beach. At Knockskeagh National School, we are advocates of “Leave no trace”.

It was a very enjoyable day for all, made all the better by the beautiful sunshine.

Please see our gallery below for a sample of the fun had by the classes on their beach visit.

We marked ‘Tech Week’ from Monday 19th of April to Friday 23rd of April this year.  We are presently working towards the Discover Primary Science Plaque of STEM Excellence which is awarded to schools in recognition of their extensive work in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.  

There were many technology-related activities throughout each class during the week.

IPADS

Our school is very lucky to be in a position to have a set of 30 IPads. Each class had their usual IPad class during the week, where pupils engaged with many educational applications to help with numeracy, literacy, and other areas throughout the curriculum. 

Some Tech Week Activities from around the school

5th Class were busy coding during the week creating their own “Dance Party using code.org. This proved a great hit with all pupils.

Also, 5th Class designed their own parachutes and tested them to find the time they took to hit the ground from a specific height. 

3rd Class planned, designed, and executed their experiment to move a range of model vehicles using battery power fans. Also, they completed projects on interesting inventors from history. Well done 3rd Class!

2nd Class designed their own Pet Apps, there were some amazing design suggestions from these budding app developers. Also, they completed some problem solving and literacy-based activities using Ipads. 

Check out the pictures below, more will follow very soon.