Newsletter
24th March 2017
Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,
International Day – Thank You!
What a fantastic week we had last week! We began celebrating ‘Seachtain na Gaeilge’ or ‘Irish Week’ with our céilí dances and a tricky table quiz for the older children all in Irish!
Then on Thursday we had our International Day which began with performances from 1st and 2nd Class with our super music tutors from Masamba Samba School. The children were fantastic and had learnt so much so quickly. We were really impressed. Next, we had our sean-nós after-school club with a traditional Irish brush dance.
Later in the afternoon, lots of parents and carers came to join us for a family Céilí outside and then we had our annual International Food event in the hall to finish off a great day.
If you haven’t had a chance to see the Family Learning Project, a beautiful tapestry of all the countries represented in our school, then do pop into the hall to have a look.
All of the action from the day was filmed by RTE’s ‘News2Day’ programme – you can see a video on our website or Twitter account @stmarysdorsetst! It gives a great overview of the day, of our school spirit and how we celebrate our diversity.
Our thanks to all of the families, children and staff who contributed to our events in many different ways – bringing food, dancing, contributing to the intercultural project, made projects or flags or came to an event.
Kindness Week
This week was ‘Kindness Week’. We have all been doing ‘random acts of kindness’ for one another and the children have been learning about our invisible buckets that you can fill with kindness by saying or doing something nice to someone!
News this week
1st Class visited the Ark, cultural centre in Temple Bar on Thursday for a workshop on self-portraits using charcoal. I hear they were beautiful!
Sports News
The children in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Class have begun their six weeks of swimming lessons at Belvedere Pool. I hear they are already making great progress and having lots of fun!
Last week, a team of 5th and 6th Class children went to a basketball tournament in the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght Mr. Carney and Ms. O’Callaghan were so impressed with the children’s focus, attitude and sportsmanship. They ran the games themselves, played with children from other schools and represented our school with pride. Well done!
Next week, another of our sporting teams will take part in a football tournament at Irishtown Stadium. Good luck!
Visit from Department of Education
We received a letter this week from the Inspectorate of the Department of Education to let us know we will be visited by two inspectors as part of a review of our DEIS programme in the week after Easter.
The inspectors will spend three days with us, looking at the teaching and learning in classrooms, talking with staff, Board of Management members, parents, carers and children about their experiences at school.
They will be looking particularly at programmes we use to teach literacy and maths, how our Home-School-Community Liaison teacher supports families, how we work with the School Completion Programme to provide things like free after-school clubs, Doodle Den, Incredible Years and Life Skills sessions and the ways we promote good attendance.
We are looking forward to sharing all of our exciting learning with the inspection team. They will give some feedback to us at the end of their visit and then publish a report which we will share with all families.
Mr. Kerr for INTO President!
We wanted to let you know that Mr. Kerr, who is a support teacher in 5th and 6th Class this year and who many of you will know as one of our very experienced teachers, is running as a candidate in an election for President of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO). The election is coming up very soon and Mr. Kerr has been campaigning hard all over the country to encourage teachers to vote for him.
If he is successful, Mr. Kerr will leave us for a short time, on a one-year secondment after Easter. Luckily for us, the INTO offices are on Parnell Square – so he won’t be too far away and hopefully he will come and visit us!
For now, we wish Mr. Kerr the very best in his preparation for the election and we will have our fingers crossed for his success.
Dates for your diary
Wednesday, 29th March – First Penance service for children making First Communion
Sunday, 2nd April – Family Mass at 11.45am
Tuesday, 4th April – National Spring Clean Day!
Wednesday, 5th April – Feis Átha Cliath (Irish Dance Competition) for 5th and 6th Class
Friday, 7th April – School Closes at 12.00 p.m. for two-week Easter Holiday
Monday, 24th April – School Re-Opens
Visiting teachers
For the next few weeks, we will have two teachers from Dublin City University’s Institute of Education working with us. Mr. Allen will work alongside Ms. King in 5th Class while Ms. Lougheed will work with Ms. Brophy in Senior Infants. We look forward to welcoming them.
Attendance and punctuality
Well done to 3rd Class with 100% attendance this week! Not far behind were Ms. Barry’s Senior Infants on 99%! We’re seeing really impressive attendance figures across the school this month – let’s keep it up!
And finally…
We’ve been speaking to lots of children and parents about staying safe online. We hope to organise a speaker for parents and carers in the summer term. In the meantime, if you are looking for advice on how to keep your child safe when they are using a computer, tablet or phone, there are some great tips, videos and fact-sheets for parents on www.webwise.ie. I would recommend you take a look and if you have any concerns, please come and talk to us and we will do our best to help.
I’m told the sunshine is here for the weekend! Enjoy it!
Éadaoin Kelly
Principal
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