Since October 2019 the pupils in fourth class have been set STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematics) challenges ranging from crossing an imaginary river with paper boats, to building the highest book tower to support a weight, investigating sound, building their own tin phones and becoming shoe makers for a few days to list but a few. It has been wonderful to see and hear the continuous discussions, disagreements, consolidations ( the majority of pupils on task almost always !)   and the difference of opinions leading to resolutions in 99.99% of cases.

Mr Frawley has been attending STEAM training sessions in the Clare Education Centre from Michael Browne.  These exciting challenges were then brought back into the classroom for the children to undertake.  It normally involved reviewing a certain topic in science and then a challenge or problem being selected with a few criteria.  The pupils would then work in groups/pairs to best resolve the problem.  The ingenuity and originality was a joy to observe as well as those that were highly motivated.

The skills they developed included interpersonal, practical, problem solving, presenting, exploring, investigating, estimating, recording and working in groups.