Celebrating Grandparents’ Day at Monastery NS

Monastery National School celebrated Catholic Schools Week from Monday January 20th to Friday January 24th 2025. The theme for Catholic Schools Week 2025 was Catholic Schools: Alive in Christ.

In his recent exhortation Christus Vivit, Pope Francis tells us, ‘Christ is alive! He is our hope, and in a wonderful way he brings youth to our world, and everything he touches becomes young, new, full of life. The very first words, then, that I would like to say to every young Christian are these: Christ is alive and he wants you to be alive!’

Pope Francis reminded our school community that at the heart of each of our Catholic schools is Jesus Christ. Monastery NS strives to ensure each pupil reaches their full potential, irrespective of class, creed or ethnicity. Each person is welcomed and included because we share a common humanity, each made in the likeness and image of God. During our annual Catholic Schools Week, we recognised and celebrated the unique contribution our Catholic school makes to the well-being and flourishing of our pupils. As in previous years our pupils celebrated a different theme in their class on each day of Catholic Schools Week.

The highlight of our celebrations of Catholic Schools’ Week 2025 was the hosting of our annual Grandparents’ Day on Wednesday January 22nd. Over 200 Grandparents from Ardee and all indeed from all over Ireland travelled to our school to visit their Grandchildren in class. They were welcomed by Principal Jim McGee and staff to our gym afterwards for refreshments and old friends had a chance to meet up and talk of school days gone by. This annual event is getting bigger every year and is an important event in our school community calendar.