Each year a decision is made regarding which charity the school should support. For this Christmas, the Charlestown conference of St Vincent de Paul and Noeline Hayletts Ghana Appeal were the chosen charities. 
The food donated has been delivered to the VdeP conference.The Ghana raffle was extremely generously supported by all the school community. As the prizes were all donated, the entire proceeds of the raffle will will go to Noeline's charity.
​Thanks to all who supported the raffle, particularly the children who bought tickets using their own pocket money.

The lead up to the Christmas holidays has once again been a very busy and enjoyable time in school. We had our Christmas concert on Monday with a performance at 1pm and another at 7pm. There were lots of people at both shows and we are very grateful to everyone for coming to support us.

​The audience was treated to fantastic singing (with actions), poetry recitals, tin-whistle and some acting from the pupils in Mrs Michael's room.

Mr McGuire's class had their own take on the classic Christmas poem 'The Night Before Christmas' by Clement Clarke Moore complete with Santa and all eight ​reindeer- Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen not to mention a host of elves and other Christmas characters. Song and verse entertained the attentive audience.

The senior room wrote and performed their own drama based on ‘Coming home for Christmas’. The piece, set aboard Cloon Air, bound for Knock airport, eavesdrops on the passengers as they pass the time aboard and chat about their lives before coming together in the festive spirit as one in song.
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Congratulations to all the pupils on the production which truly embraced the meaning of Christmas and heralded the Christmas cheer with the very moving finale of ' Do you hear what I hear?'.

Below is some of the artwork created by pupils and staff especially for the show.

​Pupils and staff were also busy creating Christmas themed artwork throughout the month of December. With snowflakes, paper chains, painted windows, Rudolph handprints, chalk drawings and much more, the pupils did a fantastic job of bringing a Christmas feel to the school. Have a look at just some of the artwork below.

Santa made a surprise visit to Cloonlyon NS to the great joy and excitement of the children. Santa came laden down with goodies for all and was regaled to his delight with music and song. Santa left in good spirits keen to confirm to Mrs Claus that all had made the nice list!

For many years requests have been coming into the school for copies of the schools centenary video recorded in September 1987 on VHS tape. Unfortunately all attempts to find a watchable copy have failed until very recently. 
The video has now been transferred into DVD format which will play on computers and DVD players. The quality has suffered just a little over time but  people are still easily recognisable.
The DVD makes the ideal gift for people of all ages, more than thirty years after it was first recorded. It is divided into four sections for easy viewing-the Mass, the school celebrations, the dance and finally still photographs taken from the video.
It is available from the school from 18th December for €10. All proceeds go to Cloonlyon NS Parents Association. As there are only fifty copies available, it is advisable to order early!

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The children from the junior room made a trip to the local library today where they enjoyed a reading from Santa Writes Back by Eilis Tracy. Eilis Tracy is a local author based in Castlebar. This is her first book, which is a collection of interesting letters that Santa writes back to children in different situations. The final letter is one for all the children in the world carrying a message of love. The letters are heart-warming and meaningful. The book is beautifully presented with colourful vibrant illustrations. Eilis gave a charming reading to her attentive audience.  All the children joined in a Christmas sing a long which was a lot of fun! Eilis presented a signed copy of her book dedicated to the children of Cloonlyon NS. Santa made a surprise appearance with letters for the children and a goody bag to bring home. Thank you to Sean McCann for getting all the children safely to and from the event.