St. Brendan's Boys Primary School

Easter 2024

VEX Robotics 2024
An amazing performance at the Offaly championships in February saw the St Brendans team win the Offaly title for the 2nd year in a row! The 6th class boys then travelled to Cork in March for the All Ireland finals where they came 3rd overall out of 24 teams who were champions in their county. Massive credit to Mr Cunningham and Ms Makim who gave so much of their time to support the boys in teaching them programming and design of the robot and to the boys for a great performance on the day!

Teacher artist programme success
Fantastic finale to our TAP ( teacher – artist – programme ) this week as artist Monica O Meara came to school to organise the display of the children’s work – Here’s a photo of the ‘Sculpting Smiles – Clay-laborative Wellbeing’ artwork collaboration under the TAP programme with support from Laois Education Centre – The boys in 3rd and 4th classes had an amazing time over the past number of weeks and great credit to class teachers Ms Wyer and Mr Kennedy for their work supporting this –
It’s a fantastic piece of art which all the boys can view each day and see their work and little initials in engraved in the hands – We are proud that this pupil art creation is displayed proudly at our school and will hopefully inspire generations to follow—
Thank you so much Monica O’Meara ( Artist) and Laois Education centre.

Dance with Lisa
Thanks to Gravity Dance Academy for our final dance session with Lisa Hogan- huge thanks to Offaly County Council Arts Department for their grant support with this programme. The theme of this years programme was called “ Dance boost” “ and was designed especially for our boys, we aimed to provide them with a unique opportunity to explore a different form of self-expression and physical activity.

Jan 2024

Dear Parents,
Please not the new procedures for every national school in Ireland.
These outline a clear pathway to ensure continued good home-school relationships at our school.
Kind regards,
Niall Crofton
Principal Teacher
12370c Parental_Complaints_Procedure_2024

Dear Parent / Guardian.

Just a short email to provide some further detail regarding the implementation of the RSE programme at our school. 

These lessons take place in January and February as per our 2 year SPHE cycle is for the RSE Programme.

This is a mandatory programme like Stay Safe. It must be taught in all mainstream classes and special classes. Parent have received an email already about the programme starting.

Like Stay Safe last year, all teachers will email the parents each week letting them know title and topic of lesson (s) for the following week.

In terms of the content in these lessons please click on the website link https://pdst.ie/primary/health-wellbeing/RSE

This programme is the same as previous years and indeed has been taught in our school since 1998 when printed.

The media may mention new RSE curriculum changes in relation to identity and other areas but this has not been drafted / issued to schools. 

Should any parents have concerns over the content in relation to identity / language used ;we ask them to click on the link and read from the programme.

It is a parents right to withdraw their child from any RSE lesson and there is a procedure for doing so as schools must ensure parent-teacher meeting and written record as per our school policy.

Our RSE policy is available on website and upon request along with parent withdrawal forms ( After meeting with teacher) .

Kind regards,

Niall Crofton

Principal Teacher
12370C RSE School Policy Parental Withdrawal from content record

12370c RSE policy St. Brendans

Medal Presentation night at our school hall
Wow ! Thanks to Offaly Dual star Cormac Egan for presenting the Offaly Cumann na
Mbunscoil football winners medals to our school panel this week ! ⭐️ Parents Association St. Brendan’s Boys School, Birr Gaelscoil na Laochra Cormac got a great entrance
with “ The boys of Offaly “ blaring out in the hall which brought back great memories !
Cormac spoke so eloquently to the large crowd and to the panel of players .The boys all
received their winner medals and got the photo with Cormac too .
Both school principals Mr Crofton and Ms Ni Chlerigh spoke and thanked the coaches
Mr Kennedy / Mr Carroll and Mr Crofton for their time and congratulated the panel of
39 boys on their achievement
Mr Crofton also thanked the parents and staff of the boys school for their support along
with BOM chairperson Pat Teehan for his support of GAA in the school –
What an absolute role model to all young players- Cormac did a QnA with Mr Crofton
about balancing the demands of dual games along with making sure your studies and
future are focused also – very wise words from such a young man who has a bright future ahead of him both on and off the field
Birr boys / Gaelscoil na laochra Gaelic Gaelic season by numbers :
2 schools 39 players 3 coaches 100% support from all staff / parents
3 matches / 2 challenge matches / 1 final = good game time for all players ( 5 bus trips
paid for by BOM / player contributions)
10 training sessions ( mostly after 3pm) Lunchtime catch and kick league supporting
Gaelic with 40 boys over 4 weeks 19 players who lost last years final = resilience
1 trophy and gold medals = memories for a lifetime

Christmas newsletter 2023