Newsletter
22nd April 2016
Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,
What a busy week! We have a bumper edition of our newsletter for you, there has been so much happening. Have a look at our website or Twitter page for photos: @stmarysdorsetst
Young Achievers
Congratulations to the winners of our ‘Young Achievers’ awards for this year. These children are nominated in eight categories by the other children in the school and school staff. Each child showed exceptional talent and strength in their winning category. They received special certificates at a ceremony at the Lighthouse cinema on Wednesday. Well done to you all, and thanks to Claire Shortall, our Home-School teacher for coordinating!
Award Winners for 2016:
Amelia, 6th Class: Drama
Sid, 6th Class: Academic
Darius, 6th Class: Community
Briana, 5th Class: Helping Others
Haroldas, 5th Class: Art
Denisa, 4th Class: Bonus award for personal academic achievement
Matrida, 4th Class: Music
Maureen, 3rd Class: Dance
Leighton, 3rd Class: Sport
Rebeca, 3rd Class: Creativity
Science Fair
We have had two fantastic afternoons showcasing science learning across the school. Last Friday, our Infant classes invited parents to come in and help with their experiments. We had a great turnout and we were amazed by the range of different activities. The space stations in Senior Infants were super and the Junior Infants had great fun blindfolding their adults to guess different kinds of food and describe if they were sweet, salty or bitter!
This afternoon, it was the turn of the older children. Again, we saw a wonderful range of topics on show, everything from volcanoes to photosynthesis and electrical circuits.
We will be submitting all of this learning for a special award for ‘Science Excellence’ shortly. Our thanks to Mr. Kerr who has coordinated this work.
Mission
Our thanks to Sr. Mary, Frances and Pasi, our school mission team this week. They have worked with all of our classes in assemblies and in class. The children performed beautifully on Thursday evening in the church, sharing the songs and stories they had worked on during the week – we heard the story of creation, the story of Noah and the ark and some lovely singing, including an Irish blessing. Thank you to the parents and carers who came to support the children at this special event. The final event is our family Mass on Sunday at 11.45 a.m. in the church. The children will be singing and involved in the readings, so please do come along.
SAVE THE DATE – Wednesday, 1st June
On Wednesday, 1st June, the school will close at 12 noon for staff training. The government are introducing a new language curriculum for English and Irish and this half-day will allow our teachers to have time to prepare for this change. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
ABC Showcase
This afternoon, several teachers attended a special showcase event in the DIT Grangegorman. This event was organised by the ABC programme, which has been given several million euro to run education programmes in the local area.
In our school, the Doodle Den programme for Senior Infants and the Incredible Years parenting programme are all funded through ABC. Miss Kelly spoke at the event about the positive impact the programmes have had on the children in our school.
We hope to continue these programmes next year and take on some new ones too.
Attendance and Punctuality
Attendance has been excellent again this week, with 96.5% of children attending across the school. We were particularly thrilled to have 98% attendance on Thursday – our highest so far this year!
Well done to the following classes who have attendance above our target of 95% for this week:
6th Class (Miss Graham) 95.1%
Junior Infants (Miss Brophy) 96.7%
3rd Class (Miss Collins) 97.4%
4th Class (Miss Kilkenny) 98.1%
Senior Inf/1st (Miss Todd) 98.5%
Junior Infants (Miss McDonnell) 98.8%
1st Class (Miss Palmer) 98.9%
Congratulations to 5th Class who are winners of our attendance cup for the third week in a row with 99.1% – amazing!
Dates for your diary
Sunday, 24th April – Family Mass at 11.45am
27th April – 5th/6th Class to Feis Átha Cliath
28th April – Scratch Finalists to RDS
2nd – 6th May – Mid-Term Break
12th May – Confirmation at 11.00am
29th May – First Communion at 11.45am
1st June – School closes at 12 noon for staff training in new language curriculum
6th June – Bank Holiday – school closed
10th June – International Day
30th June – School finishes at 12 noon
Community News: Opening of Centenary Garden at Hardwicke Street – 1916
On Sunday, there is a special opening event of the new centenary garden on Hardwicke Street. The garden remembers especially the children involved in the 1916 Rising. The project has been completed by a local gardening group in the area and the opening will take place this Sunday, 24th April at 1.30 p.m. Stop by and take a look!
Ozanam House – summer camp
We have application forms for a summer camp run by Ozanam House during the holidays. If you are interested in your child attending, please see Claire.
We are receiving lots of information about other summer camps – if you are looking for an opportunity for your child, please let Claire know and we will also post information on the Parents board on the ground floor corridor.
Have a lovely weekend – let’s hope the sun stays out!
Éadaoin Kelly
Principal
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