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Thank you to all of the parents, staff members, Parents' Association members and Board of Management members who came along and participated in our Parent Information Evening tonight.
There was a great turn-out and it was lovely to have time to talk to one another. We hope you enjoyed the evening and found it beneficial. Today Sansao Maia of Capoeira Ireland came to our school with three of his friends to give us a demonstration of capoeira - a Brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance, acrobatics and music. Last year, our Capoeira after-school classes were very popular with our students. Some First and Second class children enjoyed participating in today's demonstration. We've had an amazing response to our sad news last weekend that our flowers were vandalised. Children and parents were understandably shocked and disappointed that anyone would do this. Thank you to everyone who showed support at this time. It really does show that we have a great community here at Citywest ETNS!
One parent, Rachel, took it one step further. She went out and bought bulbs and flowers and came to the school to plant them with the children. What a considerate, kind-hearted thing to do! Our First Class pupils had a lovely afternoon in the sun, digging, planting and cleaning up and our window boxes look beautiful again! What a wonderful message for our children to learn - even though there may be people who do nasty things, it can always be overcome with positive attitude, a kind heart and team-work! Hopefully these lovely flowers will be allowed to grow and flourish and to give us happy thoughts for months to come! We LOVE our new yard games! The parents arrived early on Monday morning and had all the games painted by 10.30am. So when the time came for second break, the paint was dry and we got to try them out! Elada and Julia took the camera and took these great photos of us having fun trying them out. The children of 2nd class also wrote Thank You cards to the Parents' Association of Scoil Niamh CNS who painted these games for us. We are shocked, appalled and devastated.
Our caretaker, John, was working hard in the school on Sunday morning, mounting noticeboards and coat hooks for us and doing the million other jobs he does behind the scenes to keep our school functioning well and looking great... When he heard voices that seemed too close-by... By the time he got all the way down the stairs and out the door of the school, it was too late... They had pulled up ALL our flowers, upended our lovely new window boxes, thrown the soil all over the place and taken the flowers. Our children had planted those flowers, our parents had helped and John and his family had spent their summer watering them and minding them to keep them safe and to help them to grow. After all of that work, John had to spend Sunday evening clearing up the soil so that we'll at least have a safe car park for Monday morning. It is very hard to believe that anyone would do this. Our gates were locked. These people broke through a fence to carry out this destruction. Please, if you live near us and see anything like this happen again or know who did this to our flower beds, either tell us or report it to the Gardai. Update: Our wonderful caretaker, John, not only cleared up the soil on Sunday evening but planted more flowers so that the entrance to our school still looks well. How lucky we are to have him! Reminder that our Parent Information Evening will be held in the school this Thursday, 11th September. This is for parents of children already attending our school.
Time: 6.50pm to 9pm Talks by each class teacher are as follows: 7pm Junior Infant teachers - Ross, Claire and Jenna 7.30pm 1st class - Mary Treasa 8pm Senior Infant teachers - Eldon and Anita 8.30pm 2nd class - Aoife Blood Talks will start promptly at the appointed time. Please arrive in lots of time before your talk is due to start and remember that getting from the front door of the school to the classroom will take a few minutes, particularly for older classes. Unfortunately, our lift was not fixed over the summer and so attendees will have to climb the stairs for all talks apart from Junior Infants. If this is a problem for you, please let Caitriona know ASAP (before Tuesday 9th) so that alternative arrangements can be made. This event is for adults only. Tea and coffee will be served and there will be plenty of opportunity to meet and chat with other parents and to informally chat with class teachers. Thank you so much to all parents, guardians, minders, drivers and pupils for their cooperation as we trial new arrival and dismissal procedures.
On Monday 15th September, our 65 Junior Infant pupils will start their longer day - starting at 8.30am and finishing at 1.10pm. This means that we will have almost 160 pupils arriving at 8.30am and almost 110 leaving at 1.10pm. We are trying to separately prepare each group so that everyone can arrive and leave safely and efficiently, when that time comes. Morning Assembly
Children should arrive at school between 8.30 and 8.40am each morning. Parents/guardians should wait with their children until they have been collected by the teacher and then leave promptly as the car parking spaces are needed by the other school and pre-school on our campus. Afternoon Dismissal
If you have any questions about this, or suggestions as to how to improve our system, please don't hesitate to mention it to any member of staff. Thanks again. Once the children have gone home each day this week, we have hosted a whole procession of men installing fun stuff for us...!
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday saw the installation of Interactive Whiteboards (IWB for short!) in every classroom - or, as some of our Junior Infants like to call them, magic TVs! The classes are starting to explore the many uses of the IWB - we're sure they'll find lots more as the year progresses! This afternoon (Friday), wifi is being installed. We also got our phone back working today - our greatest apologies to anyone who was trying to contact us by phone earlier in the week. We can't wait to see our yard on Tuesday... because the yard games will be painted on it on Monday! It is so exciting and we hope it will make play time even more fun for the children!
Unfortunately, it means that we won't be able to play outside in the yard on Monday but we think its worth the sacrifice! It does mean that we get to try out our brand new PE hall instead, though! Arrival on Monday morning for the older classes (Senior Infants, 1st and 2nd classes) will be through the yard, as it was on Friday. Following requests from parents for a dance class as part of our after-school programme, we are pleased to announce that Elaine Byrne of Scoil Rince Ni Bhrion is joining us to provide an after-school Irish dance class in Citywest ETNS! The class will run on Fridays. Please see our After-school page for details.
Remember that you can sign up for this or for any of our after-school classes via our online booking page! |
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