Today saw the "Foxrock General Election Special 2024" where candidates from the local constituencies were invited to the school to debate issues and answer questions from our students. 

Candidates faced questions this morning submitted from all year groups, provoking lively and interesting debate in areas such as education, housing, immigration, local transport and disability access.

Congratulations to all the student volunteers who organised and ran today's event - particularly to TYs, the Student Council and the Senior Debaters. Many thanks also to the teachers involved - Ms Early, Ms Giblin, Ms McGinley and Ms Lea.

We look forward to tomorrow lunchtime when Student Council will run our own mock election at lunchtime in the Concert Hall. 

Please click the attached link for the latest newsletter from Loreto Rumbek, our sister school in South Sudan, Africa. 

National Stand-Up Week 2024 is being celebrated this week in Loreto College Foxrock. The theme for this year is Standing up in our Communities by challenging prejudice and discrimination wherever it is encountered.

Our student Anti-Bullying Ambassadors (ABAs) have developed this further by presenting our own theme for this school year – Inclusion is the Conclusion. This links to the foundation of our ABA designed whole-school pledge which is to treat everyone with real kindness and respect.

Our ABAs have designed a range of educational and fun Stand-Up activities to foster awareness and empathy. Their badge competition has been a huge success, and students and staff are enjoying wearing different student designed badges each day of Stand-Up Week 2024. The creators of the winning badge designs will be announced on Friday.

Our corridors provide a Stand-Up educational Walkabout with definitions of key terms and facts visible as the correct and respectful use of language is the cornerstone of kindness and inclusion in every context. Our ABAs are presenting each day this week on different aspects of what standing up against prejudice, being an ally and what inclusion involves. They have also arranged a fabulous balloon Rainbow Arch at the entrance to our school, adding further to the bright colour and positivity of this week.

This Friday, we plan to make our school a living ‘Rainbow School for a Day’ by asking each year to wear a top in a particular colour: 1st Years – red; 2nd years – orange; 3rd years – yellow; 4th years – green; 5th years – blue and 6th year – purple. All other items worn must be school uniform.

We look forward to our school being a rainbow of colour on Friday!

Friday marked the end of the first term of 2024/25 at Loreto Foxrock and what a way for it to end!  The talent show was truly astounding. As a parent for a few years at this stage and now also a staff member I was lucky enough to experience the talent show first hand!  To say it blew my mind probably sounds a little strong but it’s true!

The girls performed as solo performers, duos, small groups, class groups and everything in between.  And what a talented bunch! – singers, violinists, guitarists, pianists, dancers, storytellers, comedians…  And even better than the talent on show was the support from the student body for each other! The cheering and whoops of appreciation could be heard by our neighbours in Springfield Park I’m sure! I loved it, the confidence of the girls and the ability to laugh at themselves, all at once.

And then there were the staff, who knew there was so much hidden talent! I won’t name names but whoever it was, they should have put a ring on it!!!  There were shivers down the spine for the beautiful rendition of Fairytale of New York and no-one knew where to look when One Direction took to the stage!! I could go on and on…

They are lucky girls. 

In musical parlance, 2024 that’s a wrap!!

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a happy and healthy 2025 from all at Loreto Foxrock.

Congratualtions to Grace Carty in 1 Babthorpe who has qualified for the BT Young Scientist Competition.  This is a huge achievement as over 4000 students enter each year and only 550 are shortlisted to represent their schools on a national level.  The comptition will take place in January 2025.

Her project aims to investigate if there is any difference in age or gender in determining if a photo is real or has been produced by AI.  The more responses that she gets to her survey the better.  We would be grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete the survey on the link below.

Many thanks to Ms Hourican who has been supporting Grace with her project.

www.surveymonkey.com/r/356GBR5