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Newsletter 30.4.18

Newsletter

30^th April 2018

Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,

News last week

On Thursday, Ms. Collins’s 2^nd Class visited the Natural History Museum and had a great day learning all about the animals on display.

Also on Thursday, Ms. Graham and Ms. Lougheed’s Classes were invited to the Gate Theatre to watch a special performance by ‘Theatre Lovett’. We’re told they were the best behaved audience in the theatre for years – well done!

First Holy Communion

Well done to the twelve 2^nd Class children who made their First Holy Communion on Sunday in St. Joseph’s Church.

The children looked beautiful in their special outfits. They were very well prepared, walking beautifully in the procession, presenting their gifts and reading with great confidence. The art work in the Church was beautiful too. We were so proud!

Thank you to Ms. Collins and Ms. Graham for all of their hard work preparing the children for their special day. Thank you to Fr. Pat who helped us prepare and celebrated Mass for us. Thank you to Amy, Audrey, Liz and Ms. Brophy for supporting the children on their big day.

Special thanks to the children from the school choir who sang beautifully and to Ms. Marron who played the piano to accompany them.

News from our Anti-Bullying Team

Last week, our team of Anti-Bullying Ambassadors challenged each class to write their very own rap, with an anti-bullying theme. We are encouraging the children to be ‘upstanders’ and stand up to bullying behaviour when they see it. This is the opposite to being a ‘bystander’ and saying nothing when you see someone else being hurt. Our children can speak really clearly about the importance of being an upstander and talking to an adult if someone is being unkind.

We had a very special assembly on Friday where each class or group performed their rap. We were so impressed with the creativity of each one – they were great! You can see a small selection on our Twitter page @stmarysdorsetst, or ask your child to give you a demonstration! Thanks to our Anti-Bullying Ambassadors and to Ms. Devereux and Ms. Shortall for organising it all!

Science Fair

Our 4^th, 5^th and 6^th Class Science Fairs were a huge success last week. 4^th Class kept us busy with their brilliant cardboard challenge games they designed and made. Meanwhile, in 5^th and 6^th Class, there were volcanoes, light bulbs, solar systems and LOTS of slime and sticky experiments! Thanks to our teachers again for supporting the children’s creativity.

Mr. Kerr has collated all of our Science and Maths learning over the year and submitted our application for a special award – we have our fingers crossed!

Active Schools

It was national Active Schools Week last week and while we intend to celebrate fully in May, that did not stop us being active this week!

We had a visit from Stephen who gave us an introduction to playing rugby. The children from 2^nd to 6^th Class really enjoyed it. On Tuesday, 5^th and 6^th Class learnt the skills of tug-of-war with Cathy and the girls’ team proved the strongest! No doubt a re-match will be on the cards when we have our full Active Schools Week at the end of May.

Dates for your diary

Week of 30^th April – Careers Week

30^th April – 6^th Class to Lir Theatre

2^nd May – Young Achievers’ Awards

4^th May – 6^th Class to DIT

7-11 May inclusive – Mid-Term Break – school closed

18 May – 4^th Class to the Ark

22 May – Green Schools Award Ceremony

22 May – Santry Athletics

23 May – Junior Infants to Newgrange Farm

Week of 28 May – Active Schools Week

Careers Week

This week, we welcome a whole host of special visitors for Careers Week. We will be talking to the children about lots of different kinds of careers and our visitors will explain about their jobs and the kind of work they do. Our older children will have the opportunity to visit Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) to visit a university campus and find out what it is like to study at third level.

Attendance and punctuality

Our top attenders last week were Ms. O’Donovan’s Senior Infant Class with a very impressive 99.1%! They were so excited and proud to take our attendance cup back to their class.

And finally…

We are working to confirm the term dates for 2018-2019 and we will share them with you shortly. Please note that we intend to return to school on Thursday, 30^th August. If you are booking flights etc. please ensure you are back in time for the first day of school.

Best wishes,

Éadaoin Kelly

Principal

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First Communion

Well done to the twelve 2^nd Class children who made their First Holy Communion on Sunday in St. Joseph’s Church.

The children looked beautiful in their special outfits. They were very well prepared, walking beautifully in the procession, presenting their gifts and reading with great confidence. The art work in the Church was beautiful too. We were so proud!

Thank you to Ms. Collins and Ms. Graham for all of their hard work preparing the children for their special day. Thank you to Fr. Pat who helped us prepare and celebrated Mass for us. Thank you to Amy, Audrey, Liz and Ms. Brophy for supporting the children on their big day.

Special thanks to the children from the school choir who sang beautifully and to Ms. Marron who played the piano to accompany them.

Science Fair

We held our annual Science Fairs this week to showcase some of the fantastic science learning that happens in our school. We were delighted to see so many parents/carers joining us for lots of fun experiments.

Newsletter 20.4.18

Newsletter

20^th April 2018

Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,

News this week

On Tuesday, our Doodle Den children had a very exciting visit to Airfield farm with their Doodle friends from other local schools.

On Wednesday, our ‘Time to Read’ children in 2^nd Class visited the ‘Business in the Community’ offices to have a look at where their volunteers work every day. They had lots of fun!

The children in 5^th and 6^th Class took part in ‘Feis Átha Cliath’ on Wednesday, an Irish dancing competition. The children practised really hard and danced beautifully.

We were delighted to meet a group of new parents of children coming to Junior Infants in September. We look forward to welcoming them to our community in the coming months.

The first session of ‘Doodle Families’ began this week. There are still places available if you have a child in 1^st Class and a parent is free to come along too. Remember – sessions are on Tuesdays between 3.00 and 4.00 p.m.

Today, 6^th Class visited the Ark Cultural Centre to see traditional Irish music band ‘Moxie’. The children enjoyed a scavenger hunt in the sunshine on their walk to the Ark and had a great time at the gig!

Science Fair

As usual, our annual Science Fairs have been a huge success, with more amazing experiments to come next week in 4^th, 5^th and 6^th Class.

Yesterday, our Infant children were delighted with their activities and it was lovely to see so many parents and carers here to support their children’s learning.

Today, it was the turn of 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Class. The children have been working so hard to prepare for the day, planning, testing and improving their work so it is ready to show you. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Thanks to Mr. Kerr for coordinating the days and to our teachers for their hard work and creativity.

Dates for your diary

26 April – 2^nd Class to Natural History Museum

26 April – 2^nd/3^rd and 3^rd Class to Gate Theatre

Sunday, 29^th April – First Communion

Week of 30^th April – Careers Week

30^th April – 6^th Class to Lir Theatre

2^nd May – Young Achievers’ Awards

4^th May – 6^th Class to DIT

7-11 May inclusive – Mid-Term Break – school closed

18 May – 4^th Class to the Ark

22 May – Green Schools Award Ceremony

22 May – Santry Athletics

23 May – Junior Infants to Newgrange Farm

Week of 28 May – Active Schools Week

Attendance and punctuality

Well done to 2^nd and 6^th Class who shared our top attendance prize with an outstanding 100% attendance record in both classes!

And finally…

What lovely sunshine we have today! Let’s hope it stays around for a while. I hope you all get outside and enjoy it! Have a lovely weekend,

Éadaoin Kelly

Principal

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Newsletter 13.4.18

Newsletter

13^th April 2018

Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,

Welcome back! We hope you had a lovely holiday. It is great to have the children back at school looking well-rested and ready for an exciting and very busy term of learning and fun.

Green Flag Award

We heard today that we have been awarded our first Green Flag by An Taisce. We have been working hard to reduce our waste, pick up litter, use our compost bins, and remembering to reduce, reuse, recycle. It is a big achievement and one we should be very proud of.

Our thanks to all of the children who have worked so hard and have learned so much about caring for our environment and of course, their wonderful teachers. Special thanks to our Green Schools team – children from each class who have led the project and the adults who have supported them, especially Ms. Todd, Ms. Palmer, Ms. Sheridan and Ms. Marron. Thanks also to Colm our caretaker who has supported all our Green Schools work and to Laura Mulligan, our parent representative on the Green team.

Four members of the team will go to a special award ceremony in the Helix in May to receive the flag and we hope to invite you all to a special flag-raising in June.

News this week

Julianna, our Reader in Residence, returned to work with Senior Infants, both during school and with an after-school club.

All our after-school clubs are back up and running. Most are full, but do contact the office if you’d like a space and we’ll let you know if there’s availability.

We welcomed several student teachers this week from the Institute of Education in DCU. Ms. Quinn is working with Ms. Todd in Junior Infants, Ms. Burke is working with Ms. O’Donovan in Senior Infants. From Monday, Ms. Collins will have Mr. Finnegan and Ms. O’Sullivan in her class and Ms. Conlon will welcome Ms. Finn and Ms. Halfaoui.

Doodle Families

We have been offered the opportunity to run the ‘Doodle Families’ programme this term. This programme is aimed at families with children in 1^st Class who have already taken part in ‘Doodle Den’ in Senior Infants. It will run on Tuesdays from 3.00 – 4.00 p.m. and work on supporting parents and children with English literacy.

It is a family programme, so both children and their adults from home attend. We will look after the children between 2.30 and 3.00. A parent/carer must come to the programme in order for your child to take part. If you’d like to find out more, have a chat to the Doodle Den team or call in to see Síle, our Home School teacher.

KPMG Bold Girls workshops

From next week, Ms. Graham and Ms. Lougheed’s Classes will welcome volunteers from KPMG for special workshops on the ‘Bold Girls’ initiative of Children’s Books Ireland. The sessions will look at gender stereotypes and help the children to see that girls can do just as much as boys! KPMG have donated a large number of books that explore strong female characters, books that are written by female authors and illustrators and books that tell the stories of strong women in history, science and sport – to name but a few! This is a really exciting project and we can’t wait to get started!

Dates for your diary

17 April – Doodle Den children on farm visit

18 April – ‘Time to Read’ 2^nd Class children to visit ‘Business in the Community’ offices

18 April – Feis Átha Cliath – 5^th/6^th Class

18 April – Meeting for new parents of children coming to Junior Infants in September

18 April – First session of ‘Doodle Families’

19/20 April – Science Fair

20 April – 6^th Class to the Ark

26 April – 2^nd Class to Natural History Museum

Sunday, 29^th April – First Communion

7-11 May inclusive – Mid-Term Break – school closed

Attendance and punctuality

Great to see so many families back to school on time after the holidays.

Well done to Ms. Graham’s Class who had top attendance of 98.2% this week – super!

Let’s keep it up now and work hard to see a minimum of 95% across each class each week in May.

Our annual Science Fair is happening next week. Classes are inviting parents and carers to join them for some very exciting learning. Check out the dates for your child’s class below:

Junior and Senior Infants:

Thursday, 19^th April from 1.00 – 1.30 p.m.

1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Class:

Friday, 20^th April from 1.15 – 2.00 p.m.

4^th, 5^th, 6^th Class:

To be confirmed

And finally…

Our condolences to the parish community and especially the priests of the parish on the death of Fr. Peter Cryan this week. Fr. Peter lived in St. Joseph’s Berkeley Road for many years until his recent illness. May he rest in peace.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend,

Éadaoin Kelly

Principal

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Newsletter 20.3.18

Newsletter

20^th March 2018

Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,

News this week and last week

We had two teams attending soccer tournaments last week. The girls were up first on Monday and the boys had their turn on Thursday. Both teams performed really well and showed great sportsmanship. Thanks to Mr. Carney for organising and accompanying the teams.

On Tuesday we welcomed a large group of parents and carers to a special meeting to learn more about the ‘Stay Safe’ programme. It was great to see so many of you there – thank you very much. If you have any questions about the Stay Safe programme and keeping your child safe, come and have a chat with your child’s class teacher and find out what your child is learning in school.

Our older children have been taking part in six weeks of swimming lessons in Belvedere College. We hear they’re doing very well!

On Thursday, a reporter from RTE’s News2Day programme came to speak to some of our younger children about St. Patrick. They appeared on Friday’s programme and spoke really well – well done children!

This week and after Easter, we are welcoming some student teachers to classes across the school from the Institute of Education. They will work alongside our class teachers for several weeks.

Confirmation

Congratulations to the children in 5^th and 6^th Class who had their Confirmation last Friday. The children worked very hard to prepare for the ceremony. It was a lovely family occasion and the children looked wonderful.

Thank you to the parish team who supported the children over the last few months and especially to Mrs. Fay and Ms. Kilkenny who prepared the children so well. Big thanks also to our super choir who sang beautifully.

Dates for your diary

Attendance and punctuality

Another great week of attendance.

Have a look at these percentages:

Junior Infants – 97.3%

Ms. Marron Senior Infants – 98.3%

Ms. O’Donovan Senior Infants – 97.3%

Ms. Sheridan’s 1^st Class – 98.2%

Ms. Collins’s 2^nd Class – 96.4%

Ms. Graham’s 2^nd/3^rd Class – 96.7%

4^th Class – 96.5%

5^th Class – 98.3%

6^th Class – 99.2%

Well done everyone!

Best wishes,

Éadaoin Kelly

Principal

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Confirmation 2018

We were so proud of the children in 5th and 6th Class who made their Confirmation on Friday. The children have been preparing for the special ceremony where they received the fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit for several months.

Our thanks to Fr. Paddy Madden, who joined us to confirm the children, to Fr. Martin and Fr. Pat, the priests of our parish, to John Graham, parish pastoral worker, and especially to Mrs. Fay and Ms. Kilkenny, the class teachers.

It was lovely to see the children joined by their classmates for this celebration.