Abalta Special School

A superstar past Abalta mom running for an awesome cause ❤️🧡💛💚🩵🩷

Meet Colette Flaherty, proud mum to Paul, who attends The Hub in Portumna and receives respite support through Ash Services. Paul has been part of the Ability West family since 2023.

This October, Colette will take on the incredible challenge of the Irish Life Dublin City Marathon, running a full 42.195km to raise funds for Ability West's Portumna Services.

A seasoned marathon runner, Colette admits there was a time when she never believed she could complete a marathon. With encouragement from her running friends, determination, and plenty of hard work, she achieved that goal and has never looked back.

When she's not training on the roads around Portumna, Colette is busy with family life alongside her husband and their six children. On marathon day, they'll be there at the finish line cheering her on every step of the way.

We're incredibly grateful that Colette has chosen to support Ability West through this challenge.

Funds raised will directly benefit our Portumna services, including St. Dympna's, The Hub, and Ash Services, helping to provide equipment and resources that enhance the lives of the people we support. These include sensory equipment, communication technology, and specialised resources that promote independence, wellbeing, and inclusion.

As Portumna prepares to welcome a new residential home for four residents, support from fundraisers like Colette has never been more important.

Please support Colette's marathon journey and help us continue creating opportunities for the people we support to live their very best lives.

Good luck, Colette. We're all behind you!

You can make a donation on the idonate link below:

https://www.idonate.ie/fundraiser/coletteflahertyfundraiser

And that's a wrap! ✅

July Summer camp 2026 over and out, and we went out in style with a big party in the gym! 🎉

The students all celebrated together a super successful July with each other, and lovely to see some of our wonderful Abalta families join us too! 🫂💕

Thank you to the amazing staff over our full 4 weeks of July camp! We literally could not do it without your hard work and dedication to our kiddos! 🌟

Wishing our wonderful Abalta families a happy and healthy summer, and to our school leavers we wish you all the luck, love and laughter on your new adventures! 🥰 And you know where to find us, don't be strangers! 😘

Happy summer everybody ❤️🧡💛💚🩵🩷

The weather may have taken a turn, but it certainly didn't dampen our spirits at camp!

Rain or shine, you can't beat an ice cream from Mr Whippy Ice Cream ! 🥰 Always so good to us, patient while we decide our order, and will happily take back a cone deemed too small and add an extra scoop! ❤️🍦

Our wonderful Noel was busy bussing us around today, with the butterflies 🦋 heading off for a coffee and a snack at the delicious huntsman, and the ladybirds 🐞 throwing on their raincoat and heading for the playground! They also has a lovely party to celebrate our wonderful Elin and her new adventures 🥰

Hard to believe it is the last day of our camp tomorrow, but I'm sure we will finish in style ❤️☀️

Happy Friday! 🙏🏻🥰

It was a magically musical day in Abalta today, with a visit from the always wonderful Emma Lohan Music Education 🎶🎸

She delivered a colorful and engaging music session that we all really enjoyed! 😊😊 We got to explore some more awesome instruments, and enjoy some fun parachute play songs! 🥰

It was our final swim session of the year, for the caterpillars 🐛. All of our classes love our swim sessions, and the caterpillars are no exception! Diving and splashing their way into the weekend! 🥰

Today we were treated to a magical sensory adventure from the AMAZING artist Sam Warmington! 😊 He visited each of our classes, with the help of wonderful Molly, with a sensory exploration of a magical forest, and what a treat it was! 🍄🌳🍃

Everything was adapted to suit the needs and likes and dislikes of our students, and all of the props and musical instruments were so engaging! 👐🏻🎶 We explored different weathers, different sights and different sounds! 🥰

It was the Hedgehogs 🦔 turn to take a dip at Kilcornan Leisure Complex, where they relaxed and showed off their amazing swimming skills that they have been practicing all year! 🏊🏻‍♀️🙂

Jumping into our final week of summer camp! ☀️

We were back in our happy place with another amazing bouncy castle from Jumping Jacks Bouncy Castle Hire! We made sure to jump all our sillies out and had so much fun playing with our friends on the slide!

We love the bouncy castles so much, it can be hard when it's not our turn! So we made sure to get out and about while we waited! 🚶🏻‍♀️ We went to the shop, made awesome art and playdough and enjoyed the good weather 🥰

The pixies 🧚🏻‍♀️ had their turn for swimming today, in the ever wonderful Kilcornan Leisure Complex! We always love our swim days, and so cool to see they hadn't forgotten any of the awesome skills they learned during their swimming sessions during the year! Swim🏊🏻‍♀️

Marching to the beat of our own drum! 🥁

If you walked past Abalta today you would have felt the rhythm coming from inside, as we got to enjoy the always amazing drumming session with Drumadore!

The super Cormac was back with us this year to deliver the sessions for the kids! And he is always so amazing in meeting our kids where they are and in whatever way they want to explore the drums! 🥁

Our ladybirds took to the great outdoors for our final Forest schools session with the lovely Siobhan from Creative by Nature.ie! They enjoyed learning all about their environment, taking part in different activities, and even made a stop off at the playground on the way back too! 😊☀️

Our July camp is just flying by! 🥰

With all the sporting events this weekend, we here in Abalta stuck to the theme with our own day of fitness and fun! 🥰

The butterflies headed off to the always fun Flying High Fitness Galway for some jumping, swinging, flying and bouncing!

Back at school, we were once again put through our paces with the wonderful Michael from School Fitness Ireland! He set up an amazing obstacle course for us in the garden that focused on key fundamental movement skills, in a fun and engaging way!

Was so cool to see everyone get stuck in and give everything a go! Michael was also super for letting our kiddos explore the equipment and lead their own engagement too! 🥰🥰

A fun day for all! 💪🏻🤸🏻‍♀️

It was another bright, sunshiney day in Abalta Special School and what a start to our weekend! ☀️

It was all go here as we headed off to the gorgeous Ballyloughane Beach for some utterly wonderful water sports! 🌊 🚣🏻‍♀️🏄🏻‍♀️

The brilliant Johnny and his team of volunteers from Galway Bay Sailing Club had an unbelievable selection of body boards, stand up paddle boards, surf boards and kayaks for us to try out! ☀️🌊 It was so amaIng to see the kiddos be so confident in the water and trying new things! ❤️

Honestly, the pictures speak for themselves of how much our kiddos enjoyed their day at the beach! It has been a highlight of our camp the last few years, and already looking forward to our next session!

Have a wonderful weekend!

☀️🌊🏄🏻‍♀️

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! ☀️🍦

Our knight in blue armour, Mr Whippy Ice Cream, arrived today to save us from the heat with delicious ice cream cones! He is always so good and patient with us, giving each student the chance to make choices and gain independence in making requests! 🍦☀️ And he kept the staff happy and cooled down too with well earned cones for themselves! ❤️

Pixies 🧚🏻‍♀️ headed off on the bus to the wonderful Busy Bees - Children's Activity Centre where they always have such a wonderful time! It is a major favourite spot of ours 🥰

Another sunny and sweet day ☺️☀️