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3rd Class Viking Visit

3rd Class have been learning all about the Vikings this term. Today, they had a great morning aboard the Viking Splash, before visiting the National Archaeology Museum to see the Viking exhibit, including a Viking longship and skeleton! 3rd Class amazed their museum guide Annie with their knowledge.

Active Schools Week

Active Week 2018 took place from 28th May to 1st June. We started with yoga sessions for children, parents and teachers on ‘Mindfulness Monday’. On Tuesday, 4^th Class went to DIT Grangegorman to take part in a special sports day with other local schools, organised by the Community Garda team in the Bridewell Station. They had a super time! Back at school, we had ‘Try-It-Out’ Tuesday organised by Mr. Carney, where children got to try activities like badminton, rugby, javelin and the high jump!

Each morning, Ms. O’Callaghan led our ‘Wake and Shake’ in the yard, getting everyone’s heart rate going before the work of the day. On Wednesday, we had our official sports day for 1^st to 6^th Class in Kings’ Inn. The children took part in a range of fun activities and were great sports! On Thursday, we had ‘Drop Everything and Dance’ at lunchtime while 5^th and 6^th Class took part in a local GAA football blitz organised by the Community Garda team in Mountjoy Station. We finished with Frisbee Friday!

Newsletter 1.6.18

Newsletter

1^st June 2018

Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,

Active Schools Week

We have had a very busy week, full of physical activity for ‘Active Schools Week’. We started with ‘Mindful Monday’ with yoga sessions for each class throughout the day. We also had our weekly yoga session for parents and an after-school relaxation session for our staff.

On Tuesday, 4^th Class went to DIT Grangegorman to take part in a special sports day with other local schools, organised by the Community Garda team in the Bridewell Station. They had a super time!

Back at school, we had ‘Try-It-Out’ Tuesday organised by Mr. Carney, where children got to try activities like badminton, rugby, javelin and the high jump!

Each morning, Ms. O’Callaghan led our ‘Wake and Shake’ in the yard, getting everyone’s heart rate going before the work of the day.

On Wednesday, we had our official sports day for 1^st to 6^th Class in Kings’ Inn. The children took part in a range of fun activities and I’m told they were great sports!

On Thursday, we had ‘Drop Everything and Dance’ at lunchtime while 5^th and 6^th Class took part in a local GAA football blitz organised by the Community Garda team in Mountjoy Station.

Today is Frisbee Friday, and we’re having loads of fun with the team from Ultimate Frisbee.

Huge thanks to the whole of the Active Team for putting together such a great week of activities – Ms. O’Callaghan, Mr. Carney, Ms. Kilkenny, Ms. Collins and Ms. Lougheed.

Dates for your diary

Week of 28 May – Active Schools Week

4 June – Bank Holiday – School Closed

5 June – Internet Safety Talks

5 June – 3^rd Class to Viking Splash

8 June – 6^th Class to Carlingford

Sun. 10 June – Family Mass at 11.45

12 June – ‘Time to Read’ Celebration

20 June – Green Flag Raising

21 June – 1^st Class to the Zoo

Sat. 23 June – 3^rd Class ‘Cruinniu’ event

27 June – Aladdin Jr. Performance

28 June – 6^th Class Graduation

29 June – School Closes at 12 noon

Attendance and punctuality

Well done to Ms. McBride’s 1^st Class with 98.9% attendance this week – super! Ms. Graham and Ms. Lougheed’s Classes weren’t far behind – keep it up everyone.

And finally…

The good weather looks like it will stay around for a while. Please remember to apply sunscreen to children before school to protect them from the sun at break and lunchtime.

Have a lovely weekend,

Éadaoin Kelly

Principal

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Newsletter 25.5.18

Newsletter

25^th May 2018

Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,

Athletics Success

Our athletics club have been preparing for several weeks for the annual competitions at Santry Stadium. On Tuesday, over 30 children represented our school in different events.

We were delighted to see two boys win gold medals for their individual sprinting competitions – well done Simon and Huiming!

Later in the day, four boys from 6^th Class took on the relay race. They put on an incredible performance and finished way ahead of any of the competition. If you haven’t yet seen the video of the race on our Twitter page @stmarysdorsetst – you are in for a treat!

Green Flag Award Ceremony

Ms. Todd, Ms. Palmer, Sean and Shivee, representing our Green Schools team, headed off to the Helix on Tuesday to a special awards ceremony. They received our very first Green Flag for our work on reducing ‘Litter and Waste’ in our school.

Congratulations to the Green Schools team, and to all our classes and staff for their hard work to make this initiative such a success. We have a very special flag raising day planned for 20^th June – save the date!

News this week

We were very sorry that the 3^rd and 4^th Class visit to Pine Forest had to be cancelled on Monday. Our coach company let us down. We hope to have new arrangements in place soon.

On Wednesday, Junior Infants had a wonderful time at Newgrange Farm. Thank you to all the parents/carers who supported them on this visit.

‘No Slip, No Trip’

A reminder that with lots of visits happening over the next month, children will not be allowed to leave the building without a signed permission slip. We must have your informed and written consent for them to take part.

Dates for your diary

Week of 28 May – Active Schools Week

4 June – Bank Holiday – School Closed

5 June – Internet Safety Talks

8 June – 6^th Class to Carlingford

Sun. 10 June – Family Mass at 11.45

12 June – ‘Time to Read’ Celebration

20 June – Green Flag Raising

21 June – 1^st Class to the Zoo

Sat. 23 June – 3^rd Class ‘Cruinniu’ event

27 June – Aladdin Jr. Performance

28 June – 6^th Class Graduation

29 June – School Closes at 12 noon

Attendance and punctuality

Well done to 3^rd Class with top attendance!

And finally… GDPR – Data Protection

Like all organisations, we are updating our practices and policies around data protection in light of the new GDPR regulations. A copy of our privacy notice is published on our website and we will send copies to parents/carers next week. If at any time you have questions or queries about the data we hold for you or your child and who we share it with, please do not hesitate to come and ask us.

Have a lovely weekend!

Éadaoin Kelly

Principal

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Discover Science and Maths Award

We were delighted to be awarded the Science Foundation of Ireland Discover Primary Science and Maths award’s Plaque of STEM Excellence for 2018.

This award celebrates the creative and exciting ways our children have engaged with science, technology, engineering and maths across the school this year. It is given to schools who demonstrate deeper engagement across the whole-school in STEM activities and who showcase that learning for the wider school community.

We thank our teachers for leading this fantastic learning, each and every day. Special thanks to Mr. Kerr who leads this project each year, promoting STEM activities, coordinating our Science Fair showcases and collating the evidence for the award. We look forward to next year!

Green Flag Award

We were thrilled to receive our first Green Flag for ‘Litter and Waste’ from An Taisce at a special ceremony in the Helix this week.

Our Green Schools team have worked so hard and we can’t wait to have our official flag raising for our whole school community in June – watch this space for more details!

Newsletter 18.5.18

Newsletter

18th May 2018

Dear parents, carers, staff and friends,

Discover Science and Maths Award
We were delighted to hear this week that we have achieved a Science Foundation of Ireland Discover Science and Maths Award. This award is given to schools who can show that the whole school engage with science and maths learning across the school year. We will receive our special plaque for STEM Excellence in the coming weeks. We can’t wait to show you!

Thanks as always to our super teachers, who always have creative and exciting ways to get children engaged with their learning. Special thanks to Mr. Kerr who gathered all of the information for our application and kept us all focused on the prize!

Winners – ‘Different Families, Same Love’
Over the holidays we heard that Ms. Lougheed’s 3rd Class won 3rd Prize in the ‘Different Families, Same Love’ competition. The competition celebrates diversity in families and the children wrote their own stories on the theme. Well done children!

Aladdin Jr. Performance – SAVE THE DATE
You may have heard that our end-of-year performance this year will be the musical Aladdin! We are very, very excited about it and we are already rehearsing hard! The children from 2nd – 6th Class will be performing this year. Our younger children will have their own chance to perform at our Green Schools Flag Raising on 20th June.

The performance of Aladdin will be on Wednesday, 27th June in the evening and we’re thrilled to tell you that it will be in Liberty Hall Theatre. We are very excited to give the children the opportunity to perform in a real-life theatre. Please keep the date free and we will let you know more information about tickets in the coming weeks.

News this week
4th Class went to a screening of ‘Coco’ at Cineworld on Monday as part of the International Cinemagic Festival.
On Tuesday, we hosted vistors from Chadron State University in Nebraska, USA who were in Dublin to learn about our school system. They were very impressed with the children’s learning and were delighted to see an Irish primary school.
Today, 5th Class have had a fabulous visit to SurfDock, taking part in a whole range of fun watersports.

Careers Week
Before the mid-term break, we had a fantastic Careers Week. It was an opportunity to find out about a whole range of different kinds of jobs and to give the children a chance to think about what they might like to do when they grow up.

6th Class visited Lir Academy for a tour of their theatre. They learnt all about the many different careers you can have in the theatre – acting, directing, sound, lighting, costumes and lots more! Later in the week, they visited Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) to have a look at a university campus and find out more about third level education.

4th Class were invited to the Facebook offices to learn more about careers in social media. 2nd and 3rd Class visited the Glanmore Foods factory which makes all of our school lunches and Senior Infants visited the airport to find out about the different jobs you can have there!

Back at school, we had a whole range of visitors across the week. On Monday, Claire from Facebook Dublin told us about working in social media while Barry spoke about his job as a chef and even demonstrated how to cook a very tasty fish dish!

On Tuesday, Glenn the pilot told us all about taking to the skies, Shauna explained how she became a personal trainer, and Franc, the archaologist shared his very interesting work investigating the past. Later, Natasha spoke about working in a Montessori pre-school.

On Wednesday, our lovely postmaster from Berkeley Road, Sean, came to visit and tell us all about his very busy job.

On Thursday, we had a visit from a former Irish Ambassador, Mr. Hayes who has had a fascinating career. We also met Diana who works as an artist.

Friday saw the arrival of international rugby star, Maz O’Reilly with Mitch from Dublin City Council’s Health and Wellbeing team. Both had really interesting stories about their determination to do a job they love. In the afternoon, one of the Gardaí from Bridewell Station came to talk about his very important job.

It was a wonderful and inspiring week, full of interesting stories and activities. Thank you to all our visitors for giving their time so willingly. A special thank you to Síle McDonnell, our Home-School-Community Liaison teacher who put the whole week together and coordinated it all so well. We can’t wait for the next one!

Young Achievers
The annual Young Achievers Awards also took place before the break in the Lighthouse Cinema. Thank you to the parents/carers who came to support their children. Well done to all of our winners – we are so proud of you!

Dates for your diary
21 May – 3rd and 4th Class to Pine Forest
22 May – Green Schools Award Ceremony
22 May – Santry Athletics
23 May – Junior Infants to Newgrange Farm
Week of 28 May – Active Schools Week
4 June – Bank Holiday – School Closed
5 June – Internet Safety Talks
8 June – 6th Class to Carlingford
12 June – ‘Time to Read’ Celebration
20 June – Green Flag Raising
21 June – 1st Class to the Zoo
27 June – Aladdin Jr. Performance
28 June – 6th Class Graduation
29 June – School Closes at 12 noon

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

And finally…
We send our best wishes to all our Muslim families for a peaceful month of Ramadan.

The sun is going to shine this weekend, I hope you go out and enjoy it!

Best wishes,

Éadaoin Kelly
Principal

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5th Class visit to Surfdock

5th Class had a great visit to Surfdock today.

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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