We are delighted to welcome visiting Erasmus+ teachers from Istituto Barbarigo Venice to St Joseph’s Special School during their visit to Ireland. The Barbarigo Institute is part of Venice’s long tradition of international and cultural education, with strong involvement in Erasmus+ programmes promoting collaboration, learning, and cultural exchange.
As part of their visit, staff and pupils enjoyed a wonderful trip to Spiddal, taking in the beauty of the Connemara coastline and sharing time together outside the classroom. 
Our pupils were proud to showcase life and learning at St Joseph’s, and it was lovely for everyone to share experiences, ideas, and plenty of laughter along the way. Erasmus+ partnerships create valuable opportunities for schools to learn from one another and celebrate inclusion, creativity, and collaboration across Europe.

A busy time at school while we worked on preparing our Butterfly Garden for its new residents! We've been carefully feeding and taking care of over 100 caterpillars 🐛  learning all about what they like to eat and how they grow so big so fast! 

Soon they will all make their cocoons and become beautiful butterflies 🦋🦋 

We hope they will stick around in our beautiful butterfly sanctuary..  either way we're all learning loads about the butterfly lifecycle, growth and food  
🐛🥬🤞🌺🤞🌷🤞🦋

Day 1 of our Bike Week was a fantastic success! The TY students from the JES School cycled to our school and brought great energy and excitement with them. They proudly showed off their bikes to our pupils and encouraged them to label the different bike parts using flashcards. We definitely had some budding bike experts among us — many pupils were superb at identifying every part!
Pupils, staff, and JES students also enjoyed delicious refreshments from the Barista Bus, whose staff were incredibly patient, friendly, and welcoming to everyone throughout the day.
To round off the event, the JES students helped choose winners for our colouring competition in each class, which created plenty of excitement. Some classes even gathered outside to wave off the JES students as they began their cycle home.
It was a lovely, wholesome day filled with fun, learning, community spirit, and friendship between our two school communities.

Please see posters below of our planned events for Bike Week 2026. An exciting week ahead at school. Hopefully the sun will shine for the planned activities!