Welcome to this weeks newsletter: 

STUDENT COUNCIL: The Student Council went to Leinster House recently & Ivana Bacik was our host. It was fantastic. We heard Jan O Sullivan speaking in the Dáil, and Shane Ross in The Seanad. Ivana brought us to a very famous spot in Leinster House for a coffee and refreshments. Then we went to The Metro for lunch. Have a look at photos in the Gallery.

BOOK FAIR: Thanks for all the support for the book fair. The sales total came to € 3,882.60 euro, which has been lodged, and we shall have € 2,300 credit to spend on school reference books and class novels.

Thank you to the parents for helping sell the books, and for supporting the initiative. Big thanks to Fiona for organising this.

PARENT TEACHER MEETINGS You will have received your time and date for your meeting. This is a ten minute meeting, (adults only) where you discuss your child’s progress in school with the teacher. These are scheduled over two days 14^th & 15^th. We are very grateful that you can attend at the scheduled times – we understand the effort it takes. We look forward to seeing you all next week.

TEACHING AND LEARNING: Science week is next week, and we have lots of fun activities scheduled for the children,

BUILDING WORKS – We recently applied for and have been granted funding by DES to undertake necessary upgrade works to ensure compliance with fire safety standards. The school has also applied for additional classroom and toilet facilities to provide for our expanding school community and pupil needs. We shall keep you updated.

STAFFING: We completed our 2017/2018 recruitment over the break, and would like to congratulate Jenny who has now become a permanent member of staff, and we welcome Gavin (Learning Support), who has been with us temporarily, but will now be with us for the school year.

NATIONAL TEACHER SHORTAGE: You may have seen in the media, that there is a shortage of teachers. This has been an ongoing problem for over two years now, but this year is most challenging. The main reasons are that new graduates are choosing to work overseas for fairer pay, and as we all know, Dublin is becoming a more difficult place to rent & live.

This impacts on us weekly, and we cannot get substitute teachers to cover when teachers are out, or are doing professional development. When this happens, we either have to split classes around the school, or share teaching between support staff and myself which is not sustainable or fair. Please raise this issue for your children, with political representatives, wherever or whenever you can. .

 PARENTS ASSOCIATION:

 

 The new Parents Association Committee met twice – 19th October & last night.  We would like to thank the members of last year’s Committee for attending the first session, making sure we got a good handover with lots of good advice.

During the first meeting, we decided on the roles and responsibilities for the new Committee:

Chairperson: Deirdre Finnegan

Secretary: Carol Ballantine

Treasurer: John Crotty

Communications: Iseult Coffe

 

Fundraising Group 

Brian Ward

Mark Jordan

Darragh Doyle

Thom Malone

 

Coffee Mornings Coordinator

Phyllis Seale Foynes

 

Thank you to everyone who took part in our coffee morning on the Friday before mid-term. It was a great chance to socialize, and there was some outstanding baking in evidence (although very little evidence of this remained afterwards.)

 

AFTERSCHOOLS- 

We need volunteers to support After School Activities. Please contact [email protected] if you are willing and able to provide support between 14:10 – 15:10 during the week. (Garda vetting is required for all volunteers.)

 

– Fundraising and Events – 

We are currently organizing the Winter Fair. Please contact us if you have any ideas, skills or services you would like to contribute. (Perhaps you are an amazing baker, storyteller, photographer, masseur, or are a facepaint wizard. Or maybe you’re great at decorating or cleaning. We can put your talents to good use!) We also need raffle prizes for kids and grownups. If you have something to offer, please contact [email protected] with the subject line Winter Fair.

 

– Class Contact Lists – 

Can all parents please make sure that they give contact details to the Parents Association representative for their child(ren)? It’s incredibly useful to be able to share this information amongst parents in a class for sharing information and organizing playdates and birthday parties, and so on. If you’re not sure who your class rep is, see the Parents Association page .

 

– NPC Special Education Conference 2017 –

The National Parents Council are running a conference called ‘The Child’s Voice – Making a Difference’ for parents of children who have special educational needs. It is on Saturday 11th November in the Aisling Hotel, Parkgate Street, Dublin 8; and there is still availability. Click here for more information.

 

AFTERSCHOOLS ACTIVITIES: Here are details of a new class starting.

Gaeilge Iarscoile: Gaeilge Iarscoile will aim to help children improve their Gaeilge through active participation and extended exposure – aim is to show children that Gaeilge can be a fun and enjoyable language to learn.

 

Activites will include:

– Songs (new and current pop songs!)

– TG4 TV shows and Raidió na Gaeltachta (language immersion)

– Drama Activities

– Games trí Gaeilge

– Ciorcal Comhrá – Conversation Circle

 

The cost will be €20 for the 6 weeks and is suitable for children from 2nd – 6th class.  It will run on Mondays afterschool at 2:10 for 6 weeks, from November 6^th till December 18^th.  There will be no class on Monday December the 4^th.

 

Please contact Ciarán at [email protected] to book your child’s place directly.

 

Have a nice weekend,

Dermot