Students in Year 10 at St Paul’s High School had the opportunity to attend a special retreat at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, which culminated with the celebration of the Eucharist, with His Eminence, Cardinal Seán Brady, Archbishop of Armagh.

Cardinal Brady, welcomed the students and their form teachers to St Patrick’s Cathedral, and encouraged the students to work hard at their studies over the next few weeks and months.

The annual Year 10 retreat to St Patrick’s Cathedral is part of a series of retreats offered to students at St Paul’s High School.

Pictured above St Paul’s students along with a resident who they visited recently at Avila Nursing Home

In order to demonstrate their communication skills, Health & Social Care students recently made two visits to Avila Nursing Home where they had the opportunity to interact with the older residents there.

The students spent two afternoons with the residents talking, playing bingo & bowls and providing musical entertainment & dance.

This interaction enabled the students to put into practice effective communication skills they had learned about in their Communication Module. Each student had to demonstrate their use of direct eye contact, tone, pace of speech, open body language, active listening etc the visit provided a unique opportunity for them to do this.

Ms Christine Fearon and the students involved would like to thanks the staff and residents for giving their time so freely and facilitating them.

Over 100 Year 8 and Year 9 students travelled to the Odyssey Area in Belfast to see Ice Hockey team Belfast Giants take on Sheffield Steelers in the final game of the Elite Championship.

We had a great night, and were delighted to help cheers the Giants to success and the championship title.

Some photos are below.

Thanks to Mr Burns, and friend of St Paul’s, Mr Tom Mallon, who organised the event.

We hosted a football tournament for our local primary schools recently – and we all had a great day.  Photos below.

St Patrick’s Primary School, Cullyhanna

St Peter’s Primary School, Cloughreagh

St Joseph’s Primary School, Poyntzpass

St Michael’s Primary School, Newtownhamilton

St Mary’s Primary School, Mullaghbawn

Clonalig Primary School

St Joseph’s Primary School, Bessbrook

 St Brigid’s Primary School, Silverbridge

Below are a few action photographs taken from the tournament:

Those wishing to travel to Lourdes on St. Paul’s Pilgrimage can book by leaving their name and €100 deposit with Fr. Dermot or Kathleen Moore at St Paul’s High School.

For further details please contact Fr. Dermot or Kathleen at St. Paul’s (028) 3083 0309 or Fr. Dermot at Jonesborough (028) 3084 9345.

Students from St Paul’s pictured before heading off on their  Swedish exchange trip, accompanied by staff members Mr Tony McParland and Mrs Mary McMahon

Eight Year 13 pupils accompanied by Mr Tony Mc Parland and Mrs Mary Mc Mahon have travelled to Sweden for the second leg of this year’s exchange, returning home on Monday 12th September.

St Paul’s students from Year 13 who are taking part will be hosted by a Swedish student in their own home for the six nights of the exchange.

The programme is designed to help students to appreciate the richness of their own culture while experiencing the cultural heritage of others; the programme allows students to experience in a unique way family, school and community life in a foreign country and is a valuable opportunity for participants to develop their communication skills.

The students will take part in a range of activities in Nystromska School and various outings have been arranged including a visit to Stockholm and a boat trip to the Swedish Archipelago.

Throughout the month of May Year 8 students accompanied by their form teachers attended the Good Shepherd Parish Centre, Cloughreagh, where Fr Dermot Maloney conducted their retreat.

The students thoroughly enjoyed their experience and thankfully we were also blessed with good weather.

Fr Dermot and Mrs Graham would like to thank all the form teachers for their invaluable assistance in this year’s programme.

The group of AS students from St Paul’s High School, Bessbrook who are participating in a Spanish Exchange trip to Granada accompanied by Miss L Mulholland (Spanish Teacher and Trip Co-ordinator)

On Tuesday 12^th April a group of Spanish A Level students from St Paul’s High School headed off to the south of Spain as part of an exchange programme. Accompanying the group from St Paul’s High School were a further 36 students from St Catherine’s College, Armagh, St Patrick’s College, Armagh, St Michael’s Grammar School, Lurgan and Loretto College in Coleraine.

The students will stay with host families in the beautiful city of Granada and during their 10 day stay, they will have an opportunity to visit the very many cultural attractions and historical landmarks which this region has to offer. They will attend classes in a Spanish secondary school and experience life as a typical Spanish teenager.

Their Spanish counterparts with whom they will be staying whilst in Granada will travel to Ireland in September on a reciprocal visit.

On Thursday 24th June the Year 9 students from St. Paul’s High School travelled to AWOL in Monaghan. A great day was had by all who attended the day away.

Throughout this year, Year 8 students from St. Paul’s High School along with, primary 7 pupils from Bessbrook Primary School; St.Joseph’s Primary School, Meigh; St. Malachy’s Primary School, Ballymoyer and St. Peter’s Primary School Cloughrea, worked jointly on a project organised by Science Expressions and sponsored by Astrazeneca. The theme we chose as a group was “Building Bridges”.

Science Expressions is a curriculum support programme related to science KS2 / KS3 transition. It is designed to enhance the enjoyment and achievement of key stages 2 and 3 pupils through enabling outside experts to work with primary pupils in the areas of health education and engineering and enabling primary and secondary pupils to present their science and technology to their peers at pupil conferences and exhibitions.

For the pupils taking part in this project it;

-  made science more relevant, exciting and enjoyable,

-  raised student motivation and interest in science,

-  improved pupils’ achievement in thinking skills and personal capabilities,

-  eased the transition from primary to secondary education and

-  showed how school science is related to the outside world, and possible careers.

For the teachers taking part in this project it:

-  enabled primary and secondary teachers to understand one another’s concerns,

-  helped teachers to shift their emphasis from content to process learning,

-  enhanced teachers’ management skills in unfamiliar situations

-  provided an opportunity for continuing professional development (CPD) and

-  provided resources to enable teachers to implement the revised curriculum.

The climax of the year was a day in W5 presenting all of the work that was carried out by the schools throughout the year. Our presentation consisted of a display of all of our work including numerous brilliantly made model bridges, a five minute film outlining our activities and a drama based on “The Billy Goats Gruff”. The pupils involved from all of the schools were outstanding and did all of our schools proud.