NEWSLETTER-16/10/2016

Welcome to this weeks newsletter,

ETHOS: This month’s core value is honesty. The Jewish festival of Sukkot is on 16 – 23 October, and celebrates among other things, the memory of people living in temporary dwellings in the wilderness long ago. This connects nicely to October 17th, which is International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. World Food day is on October 16th.

MATHS WEEK: Maths week is this week for sure. We have great activities lined up.

GALLERY Have a look at this weeks highlights from around the school

BOOK FAIR School book fair is taking place on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning this week. The book fair will be open before school for parents to have an opportunity to browse and buy.

Children will be brought to the book fair during the school day with their class. This is our first school book fair. We are hoping it will be a big success as the school receives commission for each sale.

COFFEE MORNING There will be a coffee morning on Friday 21st in the school. We are hoping that new parents to our school will stop by for a cuppa after drop off and make some new friends.

SCHOOL CLOSURES: We are closing for mid-term on Friday 28th October (normal school finishing times) and re-opening after the break on Monday 7th November at 08:30.

GARDA VETTING: Ye may well have seen media coverage on Garda Vetting. (Irish Times  RC Patron Body  RTE  )  There is new legislation to follow, that makes t a criminal offence to engage un-vetted parties in schools, and it is taking a lot longer to process the vetting. We validate identification in the school, however it is the Educate Together head office who process the applications. They are experiencing backlogs, as are all patron bodies, and they are prioritising SNA applications understandably. This means our Extra Curricular Providers have their Garda Vetting delayed. There is nothing we can do unfortunately – this is a national problem.

CODERDOJO CANALWAY (Note from organisers)

The first 5 weeks of our Dojo are complete. A huge thanks to the school for hosting us and also to all the mentors for their voluntary commitment and of course to our enthusiastic ninjas.

We’ve had monkeys lost in space, chatting aliens, painting, football games and balloon popping and the kids are realising how exciting coding can be and giving us lots of great feedback.

We will celebrate Europe Code Week and have a Halloween theme for our 7th session on 22nd October and then we take a 2 week break.

Europe Code Week: 15th -23rd October see http://codeweek.eu/

New Ninjas: Our waiting list remains open and we welcome any new ninjas. The Dojo is aimed at age 7+ and the main things to note are that your child(ren) can follow the written materials and are happy to stay in the room without a parent. The parent needs to remain in the hall for the duration of the session. Need more info or wish to register your child(ren)? email [email protected]

Mentors: We continue to recruit mentors so if there are any parents interested in becoming involved please complete the survey @ https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Q6FLWFG If you wish please do contact the organisers by emailing [email protected] for more information.

All mentors must be fully Garda Vetted by the CoderDojo Foundation.

PARENTS ASSOCIATION COMMITTEE:

Here are the names of the newly elected Parents Association Committee and the roles they will undertake during the school year

  • Chairperson – Jessie Hamilton (Senior Infants Aileen / 3rd,4th,5th )
  • Secretary – Ger Reilly (1st Class Wilma)
  • Treasurer – Fergal Swan (Senior Infants Ciaran)
  • PRO  – Dónal Dowling (1st Class Simon / Lorna)
  • After School Activitites – Ciara Murray (2nd Class), Mairead McGuinness (Junior Infants Niamh) and Reiltin Feely (2nd Class)

Fundraising – Jessie Hamilton , David Beausang (Junior Infants Aodan), Mairead McGuinness, Nina Sostaric (3rd, 4th, 5th) , Marguerite O’Molloy (Junior Infants Aodan), Dónal Dowling

Remember, everyone is a member of the Parents Association. The committee organise the association. If you would like to volunteer to help out over the year, please ask the committee representative from your class.  Also, members of the committee will be helping out at the book fair next week, so you can ask them at that event.

Finally, watch this space for news upcoming events!

 

All the best,

Dermot & Staff