Newsletter
5th October 2018
Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,
World Teachers’ Day
Today is World Teachers’ Day and at our assembly this morning, we took the time to say thank you to our fantastic team of teachers for all they do! Earlier this week, our staff wellbeing team organised a lovely breakfast for all our staff to celebrate our great team.
News this week
On Wednesdays, our resident Irish dance teacher, Aedín, worked with several classes to teach traditional Irish folk dances.
On Thursday, Julianna, our ‘Reader in Residence’ visited Senior Infants. Fr. Pat, our school chaplain, also visited us and held some lovely prayer services to celebrate the opening of the school year.
Later on Thursday, 5th and 6th Class were invited to visit the Gate Theatre and watch an open rehearsal with Lovett Theatre. The children were excellent ambassadors for the school and asked some excellent and insightful questions – well done children!
Today, Ms. Graham’s Class visited the Hugh Lane Gallery to see an exhibition.
Kindness Missions
We introduced our new team of ‘Anti-Bullying Ambassadors’ at assembly on Monday. They surprised us when they gave us all a ‘top-secret kindness mission’ to do this week. With the James Bond theme playing, they quickly darted around the Hall giving each class teacher a special envelope with a mission for each class.
All week, we have seen children smiling on the stairs, giving high-fives, sharing compliments and showing kindness to one another in lots of different ways. The teachers also had their own personal missions to do a kind act for one another! What a lovely week it has been. Thank you to all who have participated and especially to Ms. Kilkenny and the Anti-Bullying Ambassadors for organising such a great activity for us.
Language Explorers
We are very proud to be one of the first schools to have the ‘Language Explorers’ programme. The programme is designed to raise children’s awareness of different languages and to be proud of the languages they speak. It is delivered by experts from Trinity College, including Dr. Francesca LaMorgia, who also kindly came and spoke to a group of parents/carers on Thursday about raising bilingual or multilingual children.
Today, Francesca and her team, visited each class to start the programme. The children will have four sessions this month and hopefully will be coming home with lots of news about how they are getting on – and maybe asking for your help in sharing your home language.
After School Clubs
Our after-school clubs are all now up and running. There has been huge demand for places. I would ask that if for any reason your child no longer wishes to attend a club, that you let the office know as soon as possible so that we can offer their place to another child on the waiting list.
A reminder also to please collect your child on time from our after-school clubs.
Schools’ Excellence Fund: Digital Learning
The Department of Education and Skills have chosen our school to take part in a three-year digital learning project with four other local primary schools. Last week, all of our staff met with teachers from Gardiner St., Georges’ Hill, St. Paul’s CBS and Dublin 7 Educate Together, to talk about our plans for the project. It is very exciting to be involved and our thanks to Mr. Kerr, who is coordinating our part of the project with the other schools. We will share more information with you as we go along.
Dates for your diary
11 October – 3rd and 4th Class to Liberty Hall
14 October – Family Mass at 11.45
18 October – Meeting for parents of children in 2nd Class making their 1st Communion
26 October – Annual Sponsored Disco
26th October – School closes for Mid-Term Holiday
5th November – School re-opens at 8.50 a.m.
New Menus
Thank you for returning the new menus. The new food choices have been returned to our suppliers and we hope that we will start to see the new menus in the coming weeks.
Secondary School – Transitions
Thank you to the many families who attended our secondary school transition morning on 18th September. I know many of you are also taking the time to visit our local secondary schools too.
For children in 6th Class, it is important that you make a decision soon and ensure your child’s name is put on the enrolment list for a school for next year.
If you have any questions or need any help with this, please come and talk to Síle and she will be happy to help.
‘One Family’ – a support for parents
Thank you to the parents/carers who came on Tuesday morning to meet Geraldine from the ‘One Family’ support service. ‘One Family’ have recently started working in our area and run excellent courses for parents. If you are interested, please talk to Síle, who can give you more information.
Attendance and punctuality
What a fantastic week of attendance! We are very proud of the big effort everyone is making to come to school each day.
We had a huge list of classes to celebrate in assembly today. Particular well done to Ms. McCaughey’s 2nd Class, Mr. McGuire’s 5th Class and Ms. Graham’s 3rd/4th Class who all had 99% attendance.
Our winners this week were Ms. Glynn’s 4th Class with a phenomenal 100% – amazing!
…and finally…
School will be closed to children on Friday, 23rd November as we have a staff training day for the Primary Language Curriculum. We apologise for any inconvenience and hope that giving you the date well in advance will help parents who need to make alternative arrangements.
Have a lovely weekend!
Éadaoin Kelly
Principal
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