Newsletter
30th June 2016
Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,
Thank you!
I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every member of our community – children, parents, carers and staff for your support and commitment to our school this year.
It makes a huge difference to the success of a school when the parents and carers are so supportive of the school and work with us to get the very best for each child. We really appreciate how much you do to help us in our work and thank you for bringing the children to us each morning and trusting them to our care. Thank you especially to those who helped with visits, volunteered, came to meetings and attended parent classes.
I also want to thank the wonderful staff, who work so hard every day. They are always so full of energy and enthusiasm and the children benefit so much from their creativity and hard work. We simply could not have such a successful school without their determination to see every child do well and their commitment to making this school the best it can be. It is a privilege to work with you – thank you all. Have a wonderful holiday and get lots of well-deserved rest!
Performances last week
What fantastic performances we saw last week of ‘Never judge a book by its cover’, a play written by our 6th class children. It was wonderful to see every single child on the stage, singing, dancing and acting so well. They made us very proud! Thank you for your lovely feedback and comments, we’re delighted you enjoyed it so much. Our thanks to Ms. Graham and the whole staff team who worked so hard to put the show together. Thanks also to Aedin our dance teacher for her choreography, to Colm our caretaker for his work on the beautiful sets, to Ms. Devereux for organising the wonderful lighting and Mr. Carney and Ms. Shortall who organised the sound. Well done to everyone!
Home-School Liaison Teacher
In our last newsletter, we shared all our staffing news and changes and left out a very important person!
As you know, Claire Shortall will be job-sharing next year and will move back to a teaching role. We must say a huge thank you to her for the wonderful job she has done as our Home-School Liaison teacher over the last number of years. Claire’s kindness and calmness are unparalleled and I know you will all want to wish her well. Thank you Claire!
We welcome Sile McDonnell to the role of HSCL from September. Sile has been working with Claire over the last few weeks to learn the ropes and I know she is excited to work with you.
Achievement Assembly
Yesterday, we had a special award ceremony for the children. Certificates and medals were presented to children with 95% attendance or more, with medals for children who missed only 1 or 2 days, and a Gold Medal to eight children who were at school every single day!
We congratulated 5th Class on their Certificate of Participation in the ‘Give Racism the Red Card’ competition. We also gave special awards to our national ‘Scratch’ competition winners and thanked Pirooz, who has volunteered his time each week to tutor our older children in computer programming.
We were also delighted to receive a special award for ‘Excellence in Science and Maths Learning’. Congratulations and thanks to Mr. Kerr who coordinated our application for this award.
We also presented ‘Class Citizen’ awards to Catalina, Charles, Muntaqa, Carl Shane, Jennifer and Briana for their exceptional attitudes to learning, kindness and helpfulness.
Our ‘School Citizen’ award was given to Eric Tran in 5th Class for his outstanding contribution to school life. He was chosen by the whole school staff and we were delighted his family were able to join us for the ceremony too. Well done Eric!
Active Schools Flag
We have been working hard all year to achieve the ‘Active Schools’ Flag, by being more active at home and at school. We had a visit last week from an assessor who met with teachers, parents and children to talk about our progress. She was very impressed with what we had achieved in a year and we have our fingers crossed that we will hear some good news soon about whether we have achieved the flag. Our thanks to Ms. O’Callaghan, Ms. Kilkenny and the Be Active team for their hard work this year. We have made big changes for the better and we are very proud of all you have done!
Graduation Ceremony
Yesterday, we said our final goodbyes to 6th Class at a special Graduation ceremony. The children read us their memories of their time at primary school and sang for us. We read a special poem written by their teacher Ms. Graham and presented special certificates.
They have been a wonderful group to work with and great role models for our younger children. We wish them all the very best as they move on to secondary school. Make sure you all come back to visit us!
Congratulations…
to Miss Graham, who got married at the weekend! We wish Patricia and her new husband Davide every happiness together.
And finally…
I send my very best wishes to every family for a restful and happy summer holiday. We are seeing lots of you next week for our summer camps! They run Monday to Friday (4th-8th July) from 10.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m.
For everyone else, we look forward to seeing you back with us on Thursday, 1st September at 8.50 a.m.
Happy holidays!
Éadaoin Kelly
Principal
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