WELCOME TO ALL CHILDREN’S INTEGRATED PRIMARY SCHOOL WEBSITE

We are proud to have received the following awards and continue to strive towards excellence in all areas of the curriculum….

                                

Reception and Primary 1 applications for pupils starting September 2024

Online applications for a Reception or Primary 1 place for September 2024 open today (9th January) at 12noon via EA Connect.

Applications close at 12 noon on Friday 26 January 2024, and it is important to note that applications are not considered on a first come, first served basis.

Visit https://connect.eani.org.uk/parent/ to apply and see EA’s website for more information on the admissions process: www.eani.org.uk/admissions

New Prospectus (2023-24)

To see our new prospectus click here… ACIPS PROSPECTUS 2023-24

All Children’s IPS Movie

Click on the video below to watch a 6 minute movie to get a flavour of life at our school.

Integration

Please click on the picture below to learn more about Integrated Education.

Latest News

February 2024

P3 Assembly
Congratulations to our P3s (and the P3 staff) who put on a lovely assembly all about their current topic on the planets. The audience enjoyed singing, jokes as well as plenty of interesting facts about our solar system. We hope everyone who was able to come along enjoyed themselves and thanks as ever to our PCC who looked after teas and coffees.

NSPCC Speak Up Stay Safe
Lovely to welcome Trish from the NSPCC into All Children’s this morning. Trish has been helping deliver important safeguarding messages to three classes this morning and all children have attended related assemblies over the last week. The NSPCC mascot ‘Buddy’ has been helping as well!

Confirmation and First Confession
Congratulations to those boys and girls from P7 & P3 who recently celebrated their Confirmation and First Confession.

January 2024

UEFA Disney Playmakers Soccer Programme for our P2s and P3s

We were delighted to welcome Amy McGivern from the Irish Football Association to All Children’s earlier today. Amy will be running 8 soccer workshops for our P2s and P3s starting at the end of January. The workshops will actually combine Disney stories and football as a way of helping engage everyone. Watch this space for further details in the weeks ahead.

Primary 1 have been finding out about the Weather

Primary 1 have been studying Rainbows and the Weather during January. Incy Wincy Spider has also been making quite a few appearances. The photos show many of the classroom experiences in P1 and how they help develop so many different areas of learning.

Latest WAGOLL winners

Congratulations to the boys and girls whose work was selected as WAGOLL (What a Good One Looks Like) winners. Here they are proudly presenting their certificates and work. Great work everyone!

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December 2023

Choir Christmas Carol Visits

Our Choir made various visits to local care homes and churches to sing Christmas Carols. We were immensely proud of the children both for their brilliant singing and their exemplary behaviour. They are pictured here at Newcastle Methodist Church with Mrs McConnell (our choir co-ordinator)

Christmas Plays

We hope everyone who was able to come along to ‘The Sleepy Shepherd’ and ‘The Inn-Spectors’ had a great time enjoying our wonderful Reception to Primary 4 children perform their nativity plays.

Down Primary Schools Cross Country Race – 6th December

A report from our cross country coach Mr Rodgers!
29 spirited souls descended on a damp and cold Donard Park on Monday morning to participate in the 2nd round of the Down Primary Schools Cross Country League. Four races took place: girls’ and boys’ Fun Runs and girls’ and boys’ main race. Everyone finished strongly and returned to school upbeat to thaw out.
Morning athletics training continues each Wednesday morning at 8.00am for P6 and P7 children and we hope to participate in a ‘parkrun’ event when the warmer days return.
Congratulations to everyone who took part in very testing conditions.

Life in Reception & Primary 1

It’s been another busy few weeks in Reception & P1 with plenty of topic work on ‘People Who Help Us’ and of course getting ready for Christmas. Next week is a big week for many of the children when they perform their nativity play. Hopefully these photos show just how engaged the children continue to be with their learning and development.

October 2023

P7s at Tollymore Outdoor Centre
We are so fortunate to be close to our National Outdoor Centre. This means that our P7s can travel up once per month for a half day workshop helping them foster a wide range of outdoor skills, develop resilience and teamwork skills all in our wonderful local environment. The workshops also help them get ready for a three day residential (at Tollymore NOC) in May. Today the class had a Leave No Trace workshop following trails in Tollymore Forest and enjoying some bushcraft including hot chocolate and marshmallows! We particularly hope that these experiences will help them care for our beautiful local environment. Thank you Tollymore National Outdoor Centre for a great afternoon.

Afterschool Clubs
We are delighted to be able to offer a wide range of after-school clubs here at All Children’s. With two weeks of this term’s programme nearly over we also have lots of photographs to show the Ninja, Irish Dancing, Drumming/Circus Skills, Football, Tennis, Arts & Crafts, Gardening, Mountaineering at Tollymore NOC and Multi-Sports Clubs in action! Thank you to all our coaches and leaders for doing such a great job.

Halloween Disco 
On Friday 27th October our Parents Council ran a Halloween fancy dress disco for the children as well as a Pumpkin competition.
Thank you to everyone who helped the children with their wonderful Halloween/Autumn costumes. Well done as well to Jack from P2 who came in as Tom Cruise from Top Gun and to Jack’s grandad who did such a great job with the plane! We hope the children enjoyed the discos and thank you to our PCC, Mrs Cowan and to Tesco (who donated some of the tuck) for doing such a great job. Below are a some class photos of the children in their fancy dress outfits as well as a few photos of the fantastic pumpkin designs….

September 2023

First Assembly of the new School Year
Thursday Assembly & Pupil of the Week

Each Thursday at our school assembly we love to present small certificates & pencils to one child from each class who has done really well during the week. We like to reward not only good work but also great manners, showing respect to others, showing kindness, a willingness to help others and even offering to help tidy up after art! Well done to our first set of winners! We also make a point throughout the year to ‘catch everyone being good’ to ensure all the children get a chance to be celebrated.

Starting School Resources from CCEA
Photos show our P1s fully engaged in play during lovely weather last week.

P7 Visitors

Primary 7 have had several visitors running workshops today. This morning they welcomed Campbell and Onya from Hope 4 Life NI. Hope4Life is a mental health charity that uses comics to help aid discussions on a range of issues to help promote better wellbeing. Today the workshop focussed on dealing with cyber-bullying as well as the difference between hate speech and free speech. During the year Hope4Life will run a number of these workshops with our P7s.
Then this afternoon we welcomed back Claire Hardy from Tollymore National Outdoor Centre. Claire came into All Children’s to speak to the P7s about the outdoor programme we run for them with Tollymore. Once a month on Thursdays afternoons throughout the year we bring them up to the Centre to develop their mountaineering /teamwork skills, mountain biking and kayaking skills as well as introduce them to climbing either on the climbing wall at Tollymore or outdoors. They also learn about the wonderful variety of habitats in the Mournes and the importance of ‘Leave No Trace’ principles. The club has been a great success in previous years and we are planning to run it again this year.

P7 Three Churches Project

During the school year our P7s visit three local churches in Newcastle including Our Lady of the Assumption (Parish of Maghera D&C), St. John’s Church of Ireland (St John’s Parish Church Newcastle Co Down) and Newcastle Presbyterian (Newcastle Presbyterian Church). They do this as part of their Key Stage 2 (P5-P7) RE programme which also includes workshops on Humanism, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism.
Today the class attended a Beginning of Year Mass for local primary schools and then had a tour of the church. We hope that these visits will help them deepen their understanding of the connections between all the churches and other faiths. Thank you as ever to Our Lady of the Assumption for making them feel so welcome.

June 2023

P7 Leavers
It is almost time for us to say goodbye to our P7s. They spent the day on Friday working with Trudy Burke from “The Ash Galleries and Studio” making their copper hands. This has been a tradition in All Children’s IPS for many years and the hands are framed and given to the children at their Leavers Assembley on Tuesday (27th). Thank you as always to Trudi for leading this activity.

P7 Donard Trek…from Classroom to Summit
Very well done to our P7s who walked from the school to the summit of Slieve Donard on Wednesday (21st). This is no mean feat for 11 year olds and we were all very impressed with their determination to reach the top. The weather was kind for most of the day and hopefully the children will have some fond memories of their last days in All Children’s. Thank you to Tollymore Outdoor Centre for facilitating the walk.

NI Children’s Hospice
It was super to welcome Michael Nugent from the Northern Ireland Children’s Hospice to our assembly to receive a cheque for £1150.00. This amazing amount was raised through our Elmer work which our current and last year’s P1 and Reception were involved. Activities included a Tea Party, making and selling decorative stones, and selling plants. Thank you to everyone who supported this very worthwhile charity throughout the year

YeHa
Last week our P5, P6 & P7 classes put on 3 amazing performances of “YeHa”. The children (and staff) put alot of work into these perfomances and it was a pleasure watching the children enjoy entertaining the audiences. The standard of acting and the children’s attitude towards the play has been superb and they all seemed to genuinely enjoy themselves…they made us laugh and smile everytime. Well done everyone!

Sports Day & Summer Fete
On Friday 9th June we held our annual Sports Day in the morning and this was followed by the Summer Fete. A great day was had by all and the weather was very kind. Thank you to Mr Rodgers for organising Sports Day and to our wonderful Parents Council for organising a very successful Summer Fete.

May 2023

P2 Drumming and Music Workshop
It was wonderful to have one of our P2 parents, Mr Dumangane return to All Children’s today to run an outdoor drumming and music workshop. Mr Dumangane also ran a cookery workshop before Christmas. The P2s were clearly having a fantastic time having brought their own drums and percussion instruments. Thank you Mr Dumangane

Cricket Coaching
Thanks to a grant from the Integrated Education Fund, we are able to offer Cricket coaching to our P4-P7 classes during the summer term. The P6s and P7s have been thoroughly enjoying their coaching sessions with the coaches from Dundrum Cricket Club.

P7 Residential – Tollymore OC

Our P7s enjoyed a great few days on their residential to Tollymore Outdoor Centre. After an unsettled start the weather finally turned and the children had a great day out on Strangford lough where they canoed to Salt Island and back…well done to all. The residential finished on Friday and the kids are back safe and sound with great stories and memories of their time away!

April 2023

Happy Easter from All Children’s IPS
Great to be able to bring some of our choir to River House yesterday to sing for the residents and thank you to them for making us so welcome and for all the lovely treats for the children. Easter is almost here and it has been fantastic seeing the Easter art being made around the school. Here are Cara, Tom and Tilly showing off the beautiful work they have produced.

Good Friday Agreement Workshops
With the 25th anniversary of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement next week, our older children have been finding out about how it came about and its importance for everyone who lives here.
The small drawings were made by our P3s only last week when they were asked to imagine going to the moon and planting a flag just like Neil Armstrong. Lots of the flags showed off the children’s own designs while others represented the two main communities in Northern Ireland.
As an integrated primary school we feel strongly that everyone’s beliefs and culture should be celebrated and valued to ensure all our pupils grow up to be at ease and interested in the backgrounds of everyone who lives here.

Hope4Life Awards
Fantastic evening last night at the Hope4Life Acts of Kindness Awards at the Stormont Hotel. Hope4Life is a mental health charity working with 28,000 children and young people across Northern Ireland and have been delivering mental health & wellbeing workshops to our P7s for a number of years.
Two of our fabulous P7s, Lucy and Sean were nominated for an award and we were delighted that they both received highly commended prizes for a number of generous deeds and acts of kindness they have shown towards others both in and out of school. Well done to Sean and Lucy; we are very proud of you!
Here they are with Mr Houlahan, enjoying their big night out.

A copy of the Board of Governors Annual report 2022/23 is available from the school office.

Excellence in Integrated Education Award

We are delighted to announce that NICIE (Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education) have awarded All Children’s IPS an Excellence in Integrated Education Award. This award recognises if a school has a highly developed integrated ethos and can demonstrate the essential elements of being a good integrated school including promoting equality, promoting respect for those of different beliefs and none, high levels of parental involvement and promoting social responsibility. Since it began in 2010 there have only been a handful of schools recognised for this prestigious award.

The award comes at the end of a four-year project to ensure all the key areas were developed across the school. A particular thank you to Mrs McConville who has led this work. We will receive a detailed report on our work later in January and there will also be a special presentation ceremony later in the year. Congratulations as well to Shimna IC who were also given the award just before Christmas.

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