Griffeen Valley Educate Together National School

Griffeen Valley ETNS

 info@gvet.ie   (01) 6219819   Roll no. 20166W

Awards and Achievements

SFI STEM Curious Minds Gold Award Winners

Well done to Melanie and Michelle for all their hard work in organising this year’s entry. Our students made a fantastic effort yet again! Here’s the feedback we received:
“Congratulations to all in Griffeen Valley Educate Together NS on achieving your SFI Curious Minds Gold award. Your log was clearly laid out and contained a comprehensive mix of activities across all classes. Such fantastic work going on by your Green Schools Committee so that pupils have lots to admire and eat. Your school entered some extremely interesting projects into Science Blast and I am sure they will never forget the experience. What a fantastic way to incorporate technology into real life during your school elections. Great idea. Your learners created some wonderful bridges and then visited a local bridge to again link their experiences to real-life. The Design and Make activities were of a very high standard. A wonderful entry full of many fun investigations Well done.”

INTO 'Different Families, Same Love' competition

We began our project by looking at the INTO poster for Different Families Same Love. We have looked at this poster in the past but it was very interesting to revisit it with our fourth class eyes. We discussed all the different types of families we could see and we enjoyed doing a drama activity based on dilemmas that families sometimes face.  For our next lesson we had great fun reading through a variety of picture books featuring different types of families. We did this individually and in pairs, then we recorded and discussed our thoughts in circle time.

We decided that we would like to create a piece of art to represent the different families in our lives and our community.  We had been having great fun using fabric and fibre for our Gaeilge theme of eadai, so we tried to think of a way we could incorporate fabric and fibre into our creation.  We came up with the idea of a patchwork quilt featuring individual families, all connected in one beautiful collaborative piece of art.

Before we began, we discussed all of the different types of families we could think of that we are part of, we had met, seen or read about. We came up with 40 different types of families and we could have kept going! (please see document attached to our entry). From this list we each chose a different family to draw. We drew our families onto a piece of fabric, which we then sewed onto a larger patch we had chosen for ourselves. Many of us had never sewn before, so this was a really fun challenge for us! We laid all of our patches out in an order that we all agreed upon and our teacher helped us to sew them all together. Finally we each stuck a letter of the title onto the top of the quilt. Luckily ‘Different Families Same Love’ has 25 letters, the exact number of children in our class!

Table Tennis

What a fantastic year 2023 has been in Griffeen Valley Educate Together National School.

In early 2020, the school, after winning both leagues, was on course to compete in the All-Ireland National Schools competition, but this was not to be due to the COVID19 pandemic. After a long break of two years, table tennis returned, and we had 5 teams competing over 4 leagues. After many matches, both home and away, our Girls team and Boys A team won their respective leagues.  This qualified them for the All-Ireland National Schools Finals which took place in the National Indoor Arena in Abbotstown on April 27th, 2023.

The final match of the day was against Ballydown Primary School from the North of Ireland. Our Girls team won 5 – 1 while the Boys match was a closer affair needing a deciding doubles, after the match ended 3 – 3. The final result was Griffeen Boys won 4 – 3. It was a fantastic day of table tennis with Griffeen Valley winning both Girls, and for the first time the Boys U13 competition.

In May, 2023, the Girls team then added the Leinster Schools Cup title to the Griffeen Valley ET winning streak.

Blue Flag For Europe

GVETNS love to celebrate all the cultures and nationalities represented in our school. One of the ways that we do this is through the Blue Star programme, where children learn all about the EU- specifically about European history, geography, art and culture, and the EU as an institution. We had such a fun day at our European concert where all classes showcased songs and dances from Europe. The older classes got to meet Frances Fitzgerald MEP who taught all about how the decisions are made in the EU.

Amber Flag for Wellbeing

Students’ and staff wellbeing is something our school is celebrated for. We achieved the Amber Flag Award during a time when COVID was in all of our minds. During the award year we established a Student Wellbeing Committee to examine what we were already doing, and how we could improve. The SWC had some amazing ideas which we put into action. Among the many initiatives, we held a Wellbeing Week aimed at providing our students with ideas and knowledge to manage their feelings and mental health. We have continued this special event and it is always a success. It is based on The 5 Ways to Wellbeing, which are Connect, Get Active, Be Mindful, Keep Learning and Give to Others.

GAA Honours

GVET has a proud history of success in GAA sports. We pride ourselves in promoting GAA among the students. There have been many memorable moments for both the girls and the boys in Camogie, Hurling and Football. With the help of nearby Sarfields GAA Club we facilitate GAA training for students of all classes to foster enthusiasm and talent within our school community. 
Some of the recent successes:
2016, 2017, 2018- Lucan/Adamstown GAA League
2017- Cumann na mBunscol Football Winners
2018- Cumann na mBunscol Hurling Winners
2018- Cumann na mBunscol Camogie Winners
2018- Dublin Hurling School of the Year Award
2019- Cumann na mBunscol  Hurling Winners