Newsletter 25 June - Canal Way Educate Together National School, Dublin 8

DERMOT – A FEW MESSAGES,

WHAT A YEAR! We are happy that we have reached the end without too much drama, and that our children are learning and that they have not lost too much ground, if any at all, thanks to the hard work from children, families and staff. Thankyou.

FAREWELL AODÁN AND DOIREANN. It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that Aodán and Doireann are leaving Canal Way ETNS next week. Both staff members are heading to different towns in the West, with their families, to start anew in the countryside. We are delighted for them and wish them well in their adventures.

Aodán and Doireann contributed greatly to our school; Doireann as a classroom teacher, and a fantastic character who was loved by all in CWETNS, and of course Aodán who will leave an enormous hole when he departs our school. Aodán joined us in 2014, and became an Assistant Principal soon after. He was our acting Deputy Principal last year, and he also served for 4 years on our Board of Management. He led us in ICT & online learning, he was an amazing class teacher, a wonderful support teacher & special education coordinator, he was an inspiring leader who brought everybody along with him in everything he did, and he helped develop our ethos and culture here in CWETNS. He is loved by everybody and he will be dearly dearly missed.
Go raibh maith agaibh Aodán & Doireann – go n-éirí an bóthar libh

I will inform you of CLASS ALLOCATION during the summer months. We will send you the name of your child’s teacher and you can see their biography on our website.

WARM WISHES to our whole school community for the summer. It has been a brilliant year in many ways but also a very difficult year for each one of us personally. Our thoughts and warm wishes are with families in our community who have been bereaved this year. We hope the summer brings brighter days for all.

Go raibh maith agaibh – Dermot

6th CLASS MOVIE & GRADUATION

6th class have been working hard on filming and producing their movie ‘The Takeover’ for the past two months along with Dee, Aodán and Hazel.

It premiered yesterday in 6th class to great excitement and merriment. Pizza, popcorn and fizzy pop were enjoyed! The rest of the school will get to watch it today. Thank you to all of the staff and children involved in various activities during the production.

6th class will graduate on Monday and we will all be terribly sad saying goodbye to this terrific bunch of children. They were our original Junior Infant class, with Dermot as their teacher, when we opened our doors in Harcourt Terrace eight years ago. It has been our pleasure to watch them grow up in our school, with a few new pals joining in the class along the way. We wish 6th class all the best for their journey into Secondary School in September.

(no tears were shed during the writing of this piece)

THE GARDEN AND THE MURAL

You may have noticed the garden looking a bit brighter recently thanks to funding from the arts council as part of the Creative Schools initiative. With some assistance from the school we were able to hire painters to paint the wall (thanks to Lola in 5th class’s family) and then we worked with local artist Violet Dempey to create a beautiful mural based on the canal. She used all the childrens designs to come up with this amazing mural and it really sums up the spirit of Canal Way. The lines represent the different paths we take, we may all have our own journey in life but when we share it with others, we have a more fulfilling adventure. The silhouettes of animals and buildings represent all of the things we see on our way to school. Each leaf painted by individual classes represents the uniqueness of everyone but the connections we share as global citizens.
Take a look at some of the before and after pictures here! We are so grateful to Violet For her hard work and dedication (even with a broken arm!) and also to Pat who was roped in quite a few times to help with different jobs.

THANK YOU TREVOR!

A big thanks is also due to Trevor Bacon who is Dad to Jasper and Marla Tait for his amazing work on creating a stage for our school garden. We managed to source second hand pallets which Trevor is miraculously using to create a performance space for our school. He is even using salvaged screws so nothing is going to waste! We are so grateful to him for volunteering his time, energy and talent to this job and have no doubt that this stage will provide many years of entertainment and enjoyment for all of our students.

WELLBEING WEEK

Wellbeing Week took place in the school last week and there was loads of activity. The whole school was involved in a collaborative art installation on the ceiling of the Junior Corridor. All classes enjoyed a bubble disco in the garden. See pics here

And we also had a two day visit from Farmer Eoin & the animals from (pics) Maperath Farm.

BEE-HAPPY!

The bees have moved into their permanent homes now. We can see them from the windows upstairs. On Thursday, the bees were transferred from their temporary hive into their permanent hives. You can see the beekeeper, Anthony, inspecting the frames to check on the eggs and larvae. He said they’re very placid and well behaved. Ciarán had a jar with a few bees in it that he showed to some classes.

Thanks so much from @cdp_robertemmet, Robert Emmet CDP is a neighbourhood community project based between Thomas Street and the Liffey, working for the community with the community.

SUMMER HOLIDAYS AND SEPTEMBER RE-OPENING

Our last day of school will be Wednesday 30th June and we will close with a half day:

Junior & Senior Infants finish at 11:45am

1st — 6th Class 12:00 midday

September re-opening

School will officially re-open on Wednesday 1st September for a full day for all classes apart from Junior Infants. Junior Infant families have received a separate communication about this.

If your family is travelling abroad this Summer please take note of quarantine guidelines closer to your time of travel.

If your family is not returning to the school in September due to relocation in Ireland or overseas it is really important that you let us know as soon as possible as it will help with our planning for September.

COVID GUIDELINES

Updates have been received by the Department of Education, which have informed schools that we will be opening up in September under identical conditions, meaning masks, pods, bubbles etc. Unfortunately this means we will not be starting up our extracurricular activities until these are reviewed. Let’s be hopeful that things will lighten up in term 1.

BOOKLISTS AND MATERIALS MONEY

Booklists are available HERE for each class (scroll down the link page)

The SPHE book for Junior / Senior / First Class is currently being printed and should be available later in teh summer from all the usual booksellers. We will contact each class during the summer once recruitment is finalised with details of who your child’s teacher will be for September.

Materials money requests will be sent out in July and you will have until October to pay this in installments via Aladdin online payments. Full details will be sent with the Aladdin link.

PTA AND IPADS

A huge thank you to all the fundraising efforts of our school community over the past year. The Parents Association have organised the purchase of ipads for the school from the money raised. These ipads will be used in a variety of ways to support phonics, maths, art, general research and photography to name but a few! The children are delighted and looking forward to putting them to good use. Thanks again to everyone for helping raise the funds and a special thank you to the Parents Association for their tireless work.

Fundraising Thank You!

BUILDING WORKS

BUILDING WORKS are underway and the classrooms will be delivered in August. Extensive toilet refurbishment and remodelling of the toilet block is getting underway next week when the children finish school.

PLACES TO VISIT THIS SUMMER

The summer break can seem like a long one.

Here are some places in Dublin to visit this summer.

Here are some places in:

Kilkenny

Donegal

Waterford

Monaghan

Cavan

Westmeath

Offaly

Roscommon

Sligo

Mayo

Laois

Tipperary

Kerry

Clare

Carlow

Limerick

Cork

Kildare

Meath

Louth

Wicklow

BOARD OF MANAGEMENT

The BoM met this week and their agreed report is on our BoM page. They would like to thank the whole school community for their support during the year. Particular thanks to the staff who continue to teach under challenging conditions and have managed to keep the spirit of the school maintained through it all. thanks to the Parents Association committee and also the Parents Association (that’s every parent!) for your contributions to the school fundraising and survey.

Defibrillator on site

The need for defibrillators to be available has been in the media this week, following the sudden collapse of the Danish player, Christian Eriksen during their Euros match against Finland. We are delighted to have recently installed a defibrillator on site at Canal Way. A defibrillator is a device that gives a high energy electric shock to the heart of someone who is in cardiac arrest — it’s an essential part in trying to save the life of someone who’s in cardiac arrest. Hopefully we never have to use it, but we are glad to have it.