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Newsletter

6^th September 2019

Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,

Welcome back!

With one week already done, it is great to see the children back at school, so ready to learn! Our staff have worked very hard to prepare the school and classrooms to be welcoming and inviting spaces for the children.

A special welcome to the children and families who are new to the school this year, especially our new Junior Infant children who are settling in so well.

Look out for a letter inviting you to our ‘Meet the Teacher’ meetings, which for most classes will happen during the week of the 16^th September. This meeting will give you the chance to meet your child’s new teacher and find out more about their learning in their new class and we can work together to keep our children happy, safe and learning!

Morning Time – come on in!

We have made a small change in the morning time. Children are welcome at school from 8.40am and wait in the yard or go to breakfast club. School officially starts at 8.50am.

We want to give parents/carers more time to visit classrooms, so from now on, teachers will be waiting for the children in their classroom and parents/carers are invited to come into school and walk their child up to their classroom. We hope that this will give you a chance to see your child’s classroom and learning, have a quick word with the teacher if you need to and have a better feel for the building and our community.

School Books and Tracksuits

Thank you to all families who have already paid the €60 for books, copies and school resources. If you have not made this payment, please call into the school office or pay online. We are happy to take money in instalments if this is easier for you.

Tracksuits can be ordered with Liz and cost €22 each, or €24 for larger sizes.

Having spent so much money on new uniforms and tracksuits – please make sure your child’s name is clearly marked. Every day we find jumpers with no names and it is a challenge to return it!

Parking and Traffic

The small streets outside the school can be very busy before and after school. With lots of very small children, buggies and families coming in and out, I would like to remind all parents/carers to drive slowly and carefully around the school to ensure we keep our children safe.

Parent Classes

Síle, our Home-School-Community Liaison (HSCL) teacher has asked me to let you know that Cookery Class for parents/carers will be starting again in Mount Carmel Secondary School on Tuesday mornings. Any parents/carers who are interested, can call into Síle at 8.50 a.m. and she will show you where to go.

On Wednesday morning next week, we are hosting a ‘Roadshow’ for families. We have invited a number of local after-school clubs, family agencies and adult education support services to the school in the morning at 9.00 a.m. If you want to find out information about what is available for you and your child in our local area – this is your chance!

Secondary School Transfer

Parents/carers of children in 5^th and 6^th Class have been invited to a ‘Meet the Teacher’ meeting with their child’s class teacher in the classroom on Tuesday, 10^th September.

Immediately afterwards, our local secondary schools will be available to talk to parents/carers in the school library about the choices available for children’s secondary school places. Open days are taking place in secondary schools this month – all of the information will be available for you on Tuesday so please come along.

If you are a parent/carer of a younger child but are interested in finding out more about our local secondary schools – please feel free to come to the library on the top floor on Tuesday morning.

Attendance and punctuality

We want all children at St. Mary’s to have excellent attendance and our target is at least 95% for each child (this is no more than 9 days of absence across the year).

Please let us know if your child will not be in school by calling the school office on (01) 8300841, emailing office@stmarysprimaryschool.ie or filling out the absence form on our website.

Dates for your diary

10^th September – 5^th and 6^th Class ‘Meet the Teacher’ and ‘Secondary School Open Morning’ at 9.00 a.m. on the top floor

11^th September – Roadshow for Adults at 9am

11^th September – 6^th Class to National Museum – Egyptian exhibit

Week of 16^th Sept – Meet the Teacher

25^th October – School closes for Mid-Term Holiday

4^th November – School re-opens at 8.50 a.m.

Supervision in the Morning

A reminder that children are welcome at school for breakfast club and to wait in the playground from 8.40 a.m. Children should not arrive to school before this time and we ask that children are not left waiting unsupervised at the gate before this. We have staff available to look after the children from 8.40 a.m. but the school cannot take responsibility for children before then.

Updating Information

If your contact information has changed over the summer, please ensure we have your new address, telephone number or other details. This is particularly important if we need to contact you in case of emergency. You can update this information on the Aladdin app yourself, or call in to see Liz in the office.

…and finally…

It has been a very busy few days at school. I want to thank Colm our caretaker for his hard work over the summer, Liz our secretary who is finally emerging from a pile of tracksuits(!), and all our teachers and SNAs who have come back with their smiles, energy and enthusiasm. It’s going to be a great year!

Have a lovely weekend everyone,

Éadaoin Kelly

Principal

Newsletter

28^th June 2019

Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,

End of Year – Thank You

As we come to the end of the year, we must take time to thank all those who have supported us throughout the year.

The children have had a fantastic year of learning, led of course, by our wonderful team of creative, inspiring teachers and SNAs who make sure learning in our school is fun and exciting every single day. You are all simply wonderful and we are so lucky to have such a great team. Enjoy your well-deserved break!

Thank you to all the parents/carers who support us with everything we do. Particular thanks to those of you who have generously donated uniforms over the last few weeks.

Well done to our children’s teams who do so much to involve us in so many initiatives and projects. You’ve done amazing work!

Thanks to Liz and Colm who do so much in the office and around the building – we couldn’t do it without you.

Thank you to Parents’ Association and Board of Management – you do such great work.

My thanks to Síle, our HSCL teacher, who works so hard for all of us to help and support families and our community.

What a wonderful year it has been with so much to celebrate! Congratulations to all!

Summer Concert

What a lovely summer concert we had on Wednesday. Thank you to each class for their contribution to a super show. We were so proud of the fantastic singing, poetry reciting, rapping and dancing from each one of you. Thank you to our teachers who prepared the children so well.

Celebration Assembly

Today, we came together for our celebration assembly. We celebrated the children who have had excellent attendance and met our target of 95% with certificates and medals.

We also awarded our Class Citizens plaques to children who have made an outstanding contribution to their class this year. Congratulations to all of them! Special congratulations to our School Citizen, Dilan Ramnarain, who will chair our Student Council next year.

Yellow Flag

We were thrilled to hear we have been awarded our Yellow Flag for our work on inclusion and diversity this year! The assessors praised the ‘fantastic’ students on our Diversity team, the adults who led the programme, especially Ms. Nolan, the ‘welcoming and encouraging approach’, the ‘fun and interactive’ learning opportunities, and how well the children could articulate their understanding of their learning and what they knew of inclusion and diversity.

Huge congratulations to everyone – we look forward to receiving our flag at a special ceremony in the autumn term.

6^th Class Graduation

We had a lovely graduation ceremony for our 6^th Class children who graduate today and move on to secondary school. The children have been wonderful ambassadors for St. Mary’s and we spent time talking about special memories and saying thank you. We wish them all the best!

Recent news

It has been a busy few weeks, with 2^nd , 3^rd and 4^th Classes visiting the aquarium in Bray. 5^th Class had a great day at Harbour Splash in Dun Laoghaire.

We had two very successful sports days – thank you to Mr. Carney and Ms. O’Callaghan for organising the activities.

Yesterday, 5^th and 6^th sang beautifully at the One Family graduation day in the Human Rights Commision – well done children!

Staffing next year

We welcome Chloe Carrick to our staff team next year and I’m happy to let you know there will be lots of familiar faces too:

Class Next Year:                     New Teacher:

Junior Infants                                        Ms. O’Hare

Senior Infants                                        Ms. McKelvey

1^st Class                                                                       Ms. Lougheed

2^nd Class (ex Ms. McBride)            Ms. McBride

2^nd Class (ex Ms. O’Hare)               Ms. Yeates

3^rd Class (ex Ms. McCaughey)      Ms. Carrick

3^rd Class (ex Ms. Yeates)                                   Ms. O’Donovan

4^th Class (ex Ms. Lougheed)          Ms. McCaughey

4^th/5^th Class (ex Ms. Graham)      Ms. Nolan

5^th Class (ex Ms. Glynn)                   Mr. McGuire

6^th Class (ex Mr. McGuire)             Ms. Staunton

Support teachers: Ms. Kilkenny, Ms. Graham, Ms. Collins, Mr. Kerr, Ms. Palmer, Ms. Brophy, Ms. O’Callaghan and Ms. Hayes.

Saying farewell…

We say goodbye and thank you to Ms. Glynn, who has worked at St. Mary’s since 2007.  Ms. Glynn is off to teach under sunnier skies– we wish her all the best and look forward to hearing about her new adventures! Our thanks and best wishes to Mr. Carney who leaves us on career break for a year of travelling the world – we are envious!

Congratulations…

We send our congratulations to Ms. Oppermann, Ms. Kilkenny and Amy who are all getting married over the summer – we know you will join us in wishing them every happiness on their special day. Congratulations also to Mrs. Fay who is expecting a baby very soon and will be away on maternity leave next year.

And finally…

We close today for our summer holiday. We look forward to seeing you all back at school on Thursday, 29^th August at 8.50 a.m.

Our very best wishes for a happy and healthy summer holiday!

Éadaoin Kelly

Principal

The whole school came together today to celebrate another successful year.

We started by congratulating all of the children who had excellent attendance this year. All children who met our target of 95% received a special certificate. We had medals for children who missed just 1 or 2 days and gold medals for those who missed 0 days!

We awarded a special group of play-leaders in 5th Class who have led our playground games as part of our Active Team for two years. These children have been exceptional leaders and brought lots of fun and energy to our lunchtimes. Thank you!

One child in each class was chosen as ‘Class Citizen’ of the year for their outstanding contribution to their class. We listened to the positive attributes of each child and how their kindness, friendship, warm smiles and positive work ethics have brought so much to their classes and classmates this year. Look at those proud faces!

Our final award was for ‘School Citizen’ of the Year. This is awarded to a 5th Class student who has demonstrated an exceptional attitude to learning and leadership. Last year’s School Citizen spoke about her experiences of chairing the Student Council, about the privilege of the role but the weight of responsibility too! We are so proud of our new appointee – a very well-deserved winner who we know will represent us very well in 2019-2020.

Check out these fantastic claymations from 5th Class based on their learning about the Romans this term!

Newsletter

14^th June 2019

Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,

Diversity Showcase – Yellow Flag

This week we have been amazed by the wonderful learning displayed at our Yellow Flag showcase. The ‘Yellow Flag’ programme has given us an opportunity to celebrate inclusion and diversity in our school. We have done this in lots of different ways and on Tuesday, we gathered all of the learning together for a visit from the Yellow Flag Programme assessors. Our visitors met with the children’s Diversity team who explained the work they have done over the last few months. Representatives of the Young Interpreters, Anti-Bullying Ambassadors and Friendship Keepers were also there to talk about how their work supports inclusion and diversity. We spoke about how we have learned about our ethnicities and how to tackle racism and discrimination.

After the children’s presentation, the assessors visited the hall where we held a showcase of learning. Each class created a celebration of what they had learned. There were posters, paintings, podcasts and lots more! Children from all over the school, from Junior Infants all the way up to 6^th Class, carefully explained their learning to the adults, speaking confidently and clearly about issues that they felt very strongly about.

Our visitors were very impressed. We have to wait for the official letter and feedback to arrive before we can confirm if we have been awarded the Yellow Flag – but I think we can be quietly confident. We were very, very proud of each and every child who took part this week.

Thank you to the parents/carers who came along to see the children’s learning – I know you were just as impressed as we were. Thank you to all of our staff who have supported this programme from the beginning and enabled the children to take part in such rich and thought-provoking learning.

Thank you to our children’s teams who lead us all so well and to the teachers who support them. Special thanks to the Diversity team – children, teachers and parents who have worked so hard and especially to Ms. Nolan who has coordinated the programme this year. It has been a huge piece of work and we have our fingers crossed that we’ll need a new flagpole very soon!

National Children’s Choir

Nine children from 5^th and 6^th Class represented our school as members of the National Children’s Choir singing at the National Concert Hall. This is a huge honour and a definite once in a lifetime experience! The children were excellent ambassadors for St. Mary’s – singing beautifully and receiving lots of compliments for their impeccable manners and behaviour. Make sure you check out the videos of their performance on our website – you won’t be disappointed!

Recent news

6^th Class went to their first opera on 23^rd May. They saw a performance of Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’ at the Gaiety Theatre. Last week, they had a great day at Carlingford Adventure Centre, ziplining through the trees!

All of the 4^th Class children were invited to a special sports day in TU Dublin Grangegorman by the local Community Garda team, based in the Bridewell station. The children had a great day of games and fun with children from other local schools.

3^rd Class visited TU Dublin Aungier Street last week to take part in the ‘Knowledge Festival’, a great day of coding and fun activities.

Yesterday, 1^st Class had an exciting day at Dublin Zoo. The children have been learning all about Africa and animals from around the world so were thrilled to see lots of animals up close!

Today, Senior Infants have visited Dublin Airport as part of their learning about the airport this term. Lots of future pilots!

End of Year Reports

Today, your child’s end of year report is available for download from our Aladdin app. If you haven’t yet set up the app and need help, please come and ask us. If you would prefer a printed copy, please let us know and we will arrange it for you.

Visitors

We were delighted to welcome a group of student teachers from Towson University USA last week. They really enjoyed seeing the children’s learning and comparing our school to schools in America.

Last Friday, we hosted a group of visitors from a range of EU countries who were visiting Ireland with the Sirius Network, who are funded by the EU Commission to research the experiences of migrant families in EU countries. Our visitors were really interested to meet our Young Interpreters and Diversity team and hear about the children’s experiences in school.  They also met with me and Sile to talk about teaching and learning in Irish schools and how we support children and families. Our thanks to Sevak, from New Communities Partnership, who coordinated the visit.

Sr. Anne Neylon, from the Dublin Diocese Education team, visited on Monday to support our 3^rd and 4^th Class teachers with the ‘Grow in Love’ Catholic schools programme. She commented on the lovely relationships and kindness she saw in each classroom.

Time to Read Celebration

We had a lovely morning on Thursday celebrating the eight super children in 2^nd Class who have taken part in the ‘Time to Read’ programme this year. The children have spent 20 weeks reading with volunteers from ‘Business in the Community’ and were presented with lovely certificates and bookmarks to celebrate their achievements. The volunteers spoke about their experiences and praised the children for their efforts and progress over the year. Thank you to Ms. Yeates who has facilitated the volunteers each week and to Sile who, as always, liaises with parents/carers and organised the lovely event this morning.

Soccer Success

Congratulations to our girls’ soccer team who won gold at the Blackhall Place soccer blitz at Kings’ Inn last week. The girls played brilliantly and we are so proud of them! Well done to the boys’ team who also took part and played really well. Thank you to Mr. Carney and Mr. Kerr who supported the children on the day.

Doodle Den Graduation

Well done to all our Senior Infant children who graduated from their year of Doodle Den learning last week. Our thanks to Gillian and James who have worked with the children throughout the year.

New Junior Infant children

We welcomed our new Junior Infant children for September 2019 this week for a special play session. It was lovely to meet the children for the first time and they are all very excited about starting school! Sile is meeting with families this month to make sure everyone is ready for the big move and our ‘Stepping Up’ programme with Grangegorman ABC allows us to visit the children in their pre-schools and get to know more about their learning before they arrive.

Attendance and punctuality

Well done to Ms. Graham’s 3^rd/4^th Class for top attendance this week.

Dates for your diary

17 June – 2^nd Class to Bray Aquarium

18 June – 5^th Class to Harbour Splash

19 June – 3^rd/4^th  and 4^th Class to Bray

26 June – End of Year Performances

27  June – 6^th Class Graduation at 1.00 p.m.

28 June – School finishes at 12 noon

29 August – School re-starts for new term

Best wishes,

Éadaoin Kelly

Principal

We were very proud of the nine children who represented St. Mary’s Primary School as members of the National Children’s Choir at the National Concert Hall on Saturday, 25th May. The children worked so hard to prepare for this concert and performed beautifully.

Have a look at them in action!

Newsletter

22^nd May 2019

Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,

Anti-Bullying Week

The highlight of last week’s Anti-Bullying week was our assembly on Friday where each class shared a special rap they had written during the week. Each class performed their rap together and we were amazed with the quality of the performances. Well done to everyone, our Anti-Bullying Ambassadors and Diveristy Team, and thank you to the teachers who led the learning, especially Ms. Kilkenny and Ms. Nolan.

News last week and this week

Last Wednesday, 6^th Class represented our school at ‘Feis Átha Cliath’ an Irish dancing competition. The children practised very hard and showcased their dancing beautifully. Thanks as always to our Irish dancing teacher, Aedin.

Well done to the children in Ms. McBride’s 1^st Class who took part in a workshop with authors and illustrators Aga Grandowicz and Rob Maguire and featured on RTE’s News2Day.

Thank you to all the parents/carers who joined our Junior Infants for their visit to Airfield Farm last Thursday – it looked like a wonderful day!

5^th and 6^th Class were thrilled to meet author RJ Palacio who wrote the book ‘Wonder’ as part of the Dublin International Literacy Festival on Monday. She was very impressed with our budding writers and their excellent questions.

Athletics Success

Our athletics team took part in two days of events at Morton Stadium, Santry this week. The children trained hard and everyone gave it their all. Well done to Isaac in 6^th Class who won a silver medal in the high jump, Nicola in 6^th Class who won a silver medal in the long jump, Laura in 6^th Class who won a bronze medal in the hurdles and Simon in 5^th Class who won a silver medal in the U11 sprint. A super result! Thank you to Ms. Lougheed and Mr. Carney who prepared the children for the events.

Assessment Tests

Over the coming days, the children in 1^st to 6^th Class will be sitting our annual standardised tests. Remember – these are a snapshot of what the children can do. We take lots of different kinds of information about children’s learning into account when we assess them. You can help at home by making sure they get lots of sleep and come to school on time each day. We want the children to be relaxed and confident. We talk to them at school about taking the opportunity to show us all they know and remind them that they can only do their best. This is a helpful message for you to give them at home too. We will share the results with you in the end of year reports in June.

Attendance and punctuality

Attendance could do with a big boost over the  next two weeks. Well done to Ms. McBride’s 1^st Class for top attendance last week of 98.8%.

Dates for your diary

23 May – 6^th Class to ‘Magic Flute’ opera

24 May – School Closed for Polling Day

Saturday 25 May – National Children’s Choir

27 May – 4^th Class to Garda Sports Day

30, 31 May and 3 June – June Bank Holiday

7June – 6^th Class to Carlingford

11 June – 3^rd Class to Howth

13 June – 1^st Class to Dublin Zoo

14 June – Senior Infants to Dublin Airport

17 June – 2^nd Class to Bray Aquarium

18 June – 5^th Class to Harbour Splash

19 June – 3^rd/4^th  and 4^th Class to Bray

28 June – School finishes at 12 noon

29 August – School re-starts for new term

Best wishes,

Éadaoin Kelly

Principal

Our 6th Class children performed at Feis Átha Cliath today, showcasing their hard work in their Irish dancing classes this year. Well done to all!