You can read the principal's welcome to our website by clicking. 
​A Word of Welcome       
Admissions Policy. 
Our school's Admissions  Policy and   Annual Admissions Notice are available in our School Information above. 
( or if you click the highlighted words they will bring you to the documents. )

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​Our Happy Classes

Don't our 1st and 2nd classes look so happy.
(and their teacher of course) 
Thank you to Rory Geary from the Northern Standard who came out to photograph Ms. McCague and her classes. 
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​Summer Reading Challenge. 
Look at all our marvellous readers. 
Monaghan Library ran a very successful 
Summer Reading Challenge and our school 
produced some amazing reading stars. 
Well done to our readers 
​and thank you to Monaghan Library. 
Our Exciting Mural Art Project. 
Our artist friend, Éimhin, came to our school to see if we would like to do an artistic project with him. 
We voted to do 'something about books' because we all love reading. 
After thinking about it and talking to our teachers, we decided to put a mural on the steps of our school so they'll look like a pile of books. 
We were planning today. 
​We can't wait to get started. 




Maths Stations with Mrs. Ferguson. 
Our Junior Infants had lots of fun sorting and matching today. 
Thank you to Mrs. Ferguson for the great fun at our Maths Stations. 
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AstronoMine Project. 
Our school are so delighted to have been selected to take part in this exciting EU wide project. 
Details of this project can be found here. 
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Promote Ardaghey
We had so much fun joining the community at this brilliant event in the community centre. 
It was great to see so many of our families coming together to see all the activities on our doorstep. 
Making the Most of our Resources. 
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Our pupils get to make the most of
our excellent ICT resources and
​our super Special Education Teacher, Mrs. Ferguson,  as they engage with literacy in the Senior Room. 
Ms. King kindly volunteers her time to help the older class. 
First Day of School. 
Thank you to our First and Second Classes who performed a lovely poem, "First Day of School" at our assembly today with their teacher Ms. McCague.
​You can watch their performance here: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7rNu2CnKN8
Our School is celebrating our 90th Birthday this year. 
Keep an eye out for some of our celebration ideas. 
The theme of our celebrations is:
 '90 years at the heart of the community; 90 years in the community's heart'. 
We are proud to be Ardaghey's Community School. 
and if you have an idea for something we could do let us know. 
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Well Done
To our fabulous students who performed in front of a packed crowd in the community centre on Sunday 25th June.
To see the show just click here. https://vimeo.com/846380638/5658734bb0  
Learning from the Extremes Animation


Please click here to view the video of our brilliant local history project. 
Our school website is regularly updated by the school staff. 
If you see a photo of your child you would like; please email us and we'll email the photo back to you. 
Our school calendar is available HERE. 
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For copies of our most recent newsletters click here. 
Music Generation Showcase
The Video of our Music Generation Showcase in available here. 
So put on your dancing shoes and watch.
25 minutes of toe tapping tunes. 
A Great Day Out.
Thank you to our friend, Ross Mac Donald, who gave our whole school a great day out. Ross took us to see the lake which is the source of the water for Stranooden Group Water Scheme. We checked water samples for signs of life and learned which invertebrates like clean water and which can tolerate 'poor' water. After that we went to Stranooden Group  Water Treatment plant and saw the work that goes into making sure we have plenty of good, clean water coming from our taps. 
Thank you to Paddy and Ethan who drove us around the back roads and down lanes without getting lost.
​Poor Mr. Grundy hadn't a clue where we were. 
World War 1 and 1916 in the Senior Room. 
Thanks to our friend and historian, Dave Swift, we had a great presentation on World War 1 on Wednesday and then a  brilliant presentation on 1916 on Thursday. 
Dave brought lots of artefacts from the time and we were able to handle the helmets, hats, belts,  hand grenades, guns and gas masks.
It was a great way to learn about this terrible period of history. 
Thank you to Heritage in Schools who part sponsored Dave's visit. 

Local History Project. 
Our 'Learning from the Extremes' local history project is going really well. Lots of community members are sending in resources and calling in with stories. Our good friend and neighbour Francis, called in to answer lots of questions about our local area. Francis was very impressed with the level of questions and the amount of research our pupils had already completed. 
Cross Country Running
Well done to our runners from the Senior Room who came 3rd in the
​Monaghan Athletics Schools Cross Country. 
The children braved very cold and wet conditions and it was great to see so many of our pupils complete the course.
​Some runners only decided to run on the morning of the race and can feel very proud of themselves. So many parents and grandparents came to cheer us on. 
5th Class pupil, Ryan, was first in the Small Schools Boys' race which is an amazing result. 
We were delighted when we got back to school to see that Ms. King and Mrs. Ferguson had the heat on full blast and lovely hot chocolate and marshmallows waiting for us. 
And then Daithí and Rián's parents sent in sweets, crisps and goodies to celebrate our run. 
Thanks to everyone. 

A Successful Weekend in the Senior Room
Our Senior Room pupils came to school on Monday with a lot of metal. 
From an Ulster Champion and Ulster Silver Medalist at Swimming. 
To football stars. 
And not forgetting the successful Glaslough Road Race Winners. 
It was a great weekend of sports successes. 


​Lunchroom
We are lucky in our school.
We all get to eat our lunch in the lunchroom. 
All the pupils, and some teachers,  join together to
eat and chat. 
If the younger pupils need help opening a
​lunchbox or a banana 
there is always a teacher or older pupils to help. 
​( Just don't ask Ms. King to peel an orange!) 



​Change of staff..
This morning, Miss King got to rest her voice. Some students asked could they call out the words in Irish. It's great to see such enthusiasm. 
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​Postcards for the Principal
The Junior Room were learning all about the post and Ms. King had a clever idea. 
The children made and wrote cards to the principal. 
Mr. Grundy was so lucky to receive 20 postcards with lovely messages. 
On the front of the card each child drew a picture of a time Mr. Grundy had helped them. 
Mr. Grundy will treasure these for a long time. 


​Drama Workshops
We had so much fun on Tuesday when our 'Creative Schools' coordinator came to visit and conducted two drama workshops with the classes. 
Mary had so many brilliant games and activities. 
Even the teachers were getting ideas from her. 
We are hoping she comes to visit us again. 
Hopefully all these tips will pay off when we take to the stage in June. 
Our Runners
Thanks to Ben and Ryan's mum we have   a culture of running in our school. 
Many of our pupils run with different clubs in Monaghan. 
On Sunday 12th February three of our 5th and 6th class pupils took part in the All-Irelands. 
Well done to all three and especially to the new National Champion. 
Scientists calling ..
This past few weeks, the junior room have focused on our locality and working in Ireland. First class learned about Alexander Graham Bell (the man who invented the telephone) and the work of a scientist. Today, we decided to roll the two topics into one lesson and create our own 'phone'. We had a fantastic time talking to each other through a string and paper cups. 
Maths stations 
It's been a busy few weeks. The children in junior and senior infants have been learning  all about the numbers 5
and 9, how to weigh, how to use a   balance scale and how to combine numbers. You can see the fun they had below.
Did you notice Mrs. Ferguson's great invention? And adding up machine. 

Magnificent musicians
This week, Rachel had a real treat for the children. She brought in boom whackers to demonstrate the various pitches.  Thanks to a very observant first class boy, we were actually able to provide more boom whackers that had been found amongst all the school resources. 

Everyone had great fun and Miss King went home with a headache..

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​Battle of Clontibret
We are lucky to have our school so close to the site of one of the most important battlefields in Irish history. 
The Battle of Clontibret of 1595 was one of Ireland's few victories in the battle against the English in the Elizabethan era. 
Historian, Dave Swift, came to visit our Senior Room with lots and lots of artefacts of the era and told us all about the battle and why it was so important. 
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World International Rubbish-y Car Challenge
Today the Senior Room attempted to build cars. 
This was part of their STEAM ( Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths) work. 
The challenge was to use the kit ( kindly provided by Monaghan Libraries) to build a car that could travel. 
The lesson was going well and then the element of competition crept in and a challenge was issued. 
The naming of the challenge took some time and some imagination. 
The competition was now on to see whose car would travel the furthest. 
In the end there was a clear winner, who is pictured with his specially commissioned trophies. 
The school phone is ringing constantly with calls from Formula One teams offering positions to our engineers. 
Easons Spelling Bee
Well done to our Sixth Class pupil who beat off stiff opposition to become our
St. Michael's Rackwallace Spelling Champion. 
She will go on to represent our school in the next round of the 
Easons Spelling Bee. 
She won a prize of a fabulous dictionary. 

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Spórt agus spraoi
We have lots of fun  in irish lessons each day. Usually, Miss King calls out the words but today, we decided  it was time that the children called out the bingo words.  Bingo has become a firm favourite in this class!!
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ICT Grant
Well done to our deputy principal, Ms. King, who has secured a place for our school on the Learning from the Extremes Pilot Programme. 
This EU scheme has provided a grant of €10,000 which our school will use to update our existing ICT infrastructure and to up-skill our staff and pupils to better prepare them for their digital futures. 
Ms. King spent a long time preparing our application and together with our staff and the wider community is planning for an exciting project in the new year to make full use of our new resources. 
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​New Running Tops
Our beautiful new running tops arrived today and we can't wait to wear them when we compete in the cross country and track and field in the new year. 
Thank you to our generous sponsor. Tommy Martin. 

​Work of Our Hands
We all have gifts and talents. 
In St. Michael's we like to give the pupils a chance to show their abilities. 
Each year we run a 'Work of Our Hands' display where pupils get to make 
something that interests them. 
This year we had a painting, some musical tunes, and so many more. 
Rather than name them have a look at our slide show. 
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Artist in Residence
One of our very talented 1st class pupils brought this masterpiece
​into school today to show us. 
Well done!
​ Grace's Art lessons are having a great impact on our students. 


​Our Greenfingered Pupils. 
On Thursday some of our pupils came to school in their gardening clothes and spent a few minutes weeding our school yard.
​Previously,  some of our pupils planted Yellow Rattle in our school's wildflower meadow to keep the grass down and to give our wildflowers a chance to grow. 
​Well done to all our gardening pupils. 
Famous Author (virtually) visits St. Michael's N.S. 
The pupils in the Senior Room had a 'virtual' visit from a world famous author, Robert Muchmore. Robert has sold over 15 million books but still found time to chat to us about his inspiration and the amount of hard work that goes into writing and publishing a best selling book. 
The visit was arranged by Karen McCague from Monaghan Library.
​Thanks Karen. 
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Our New Furniture. 
Thank you to our parents and our grandparents
​we installed our new furniture on Saturday afternoon. 
The children are already making good use of it
and were a lot more comfortable at lunch today. 
Mé  Féin
The children in  the junior room know how much Miss King loves Irish. This month's theme is 'Mé Féin'. Every child from junior infants to first class can now name several body parts in Irish. If you ask the children how they learned this, they'll say 'by playing games'. They aren't wrong!!  Have a look at the craic we all had during our Gaeilge lesson. 
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Maths Fun
Senior Infants had great fun jumping up and down the number line today. They were learning how to add/subtract  numbers and solve Miss King's word problems.



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​Music Generation
Here is a link to the video of the children's performance in Ardaghey Community Centre on
​Monday 30th May 2022. 
We are delighted to announce that Rachael is back!
She was here on Thursday September 15th with her friend Mikey and we had a great time singing. 
Stone Age Builders in 3rd and 4th. 
When the pupils in 3rd and 4th heard that the Stone Age builders who built Newgrange used 'corballing' to make the tomb they wanted to try this building technique themselves. 
They borrowed some of the Ardaghey Community Childcare's blocks and got to work.
​You can see the results of their efforts in the slideshow. 
Well done to them all.
​( but I wouldn't want to be depending on any of these buildings to keep the rain out!) 

Science in the Senior Room
What do you get if you add an alkaline to an acid? 
If you're not sure ask anyone in the Senior Room. They added an alkaline bath bomb to an acid vitamin C tablet in a test tube and watched as the test tubes shot into the air because of the carbon dioxide that was produced. 
Well done to our young scientists. 
Here is a link to our experiment: SCIENCE

Photos on our website. 
In order to keep our website current we regularly delete articles and photographs.
​Remember if you would like a copy of any photo of your child that featured on our website simply contact the office.