On Friday past, the 8th March 2024, over 250 teachers gathered in the Mullingar Park Hotel in Westmeath on Friday night for an All-Ireland awards ceremony. Our school had entered the 'small school of the year' category for schools with less than 200 children. Schools of similar size to ours and smaller, from all around the island of Ireland, entered the category with the standard of entries being described as "excellent" from the judging committee.
We were awarded joint second in the very prestigious and much coveted Allianz National Cumann na mBunsol small school of the year award !
Our video entry was a joint effort from staff, pupils, and governors to demonstrate how we promote Gaelic Games in our school and during the 2022/23 school year when we celebrated 25 years of Our Lady’s, Tullysaran. Our Primary 6 and 7 pupils led the presentation of our video which included Kevin Curran, Chairperson of our Board of Governors, and Aidan Forker, our Vice-Principal and captain of Armagh. The children focused on the theme of ‘Tullysaran Ballers’ to place emphasis on the main GAA sports played in our school and the enjoyment the children experience from participating in Cumann na mBunscol activities. Mr Oran Darragh, Primary 6 teacher, directed and collaborated the video which is a fantastic example of the excellent work being done in our school which benefits our children and the whole GAA community.
We would like to acknowledge the huge support we receive from O’Connells Tullysaran GAC and Tullysaran Camogie Club. We have full access to Tullysaran GAA facilities and coaches from the club have always actively supported our school with Kevin Curran being the Chairperson of our Board of Governors and Helen Donnelly training our Camogie team every Wednesday in the Community Centre. We would like to thank the committee of the Tullysaran Community Centre for use of the hall for our PE lessons and afterschool activities. We wouldn’t be able to provide an extensive range of PE and afterschool activities without the use of the hall. We would also like to thank Cumann na mBunscol Armagh for all the work they do in promoting Gaelic Games in our County which enables our pupils to represent our school at blitzes, quizzes and Armagh half-time games.
Last year was a very successful year for our school with the girls’ football team qualifying for the Malachy McGeeney County final and the visit of Sam Maguire with locals Colin Trainor and Jason McGahan being heavily involved. This year is already proving to be an even more successful year with our hurling, football and camogie teams making it the County Armagh indoor finals, with our girls winning the county camogie title. They will represent our school, Tullysaran community and Armagh in the Ulster Championships later this month. Our quiz team also won the Armagh Cumann na mBunscol quiz and performed superbly in the Ulster quiz; finishing joint sixth in a competition which included over 25 teams.
We look forward to further success and providing our pupils with the opportunity to represent Our Lady’s Primary School in the future. Thank you to all our parents, dedicated staff, and governors for all their support and congratulations to our brilliant pupils on achieving an All-Ireland award.
Please view some photos from the National Awards Night and our fantastic video ‘Tullysaran Ballers’ - and please share far and wide!
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