Our Board of Management
The following people make up our hard-working Board of Management:
Austin O'Sullivan, Patron nominee and Chairperson
Caitriona Hand, Principal and Secretary to the Board
Stephen Young, Patron Nominee and Treasurer
Ailish Gavin, Teacher nominee and Note-taker
Xulong Chen, Parent nominee (male)
Lisa Breslin, Parent nominee (female)
The Board of Management is committed to upholding the Educate Together ethos of the school and bases all decisions on the core principles of being child-centred, co-educational, equality-based and democratically run.
We are currently seeking two additional members for our Board of Management to fill the vacant roles of Community Nominees. We are seeking people with skills in one or more of the following areas: construction, legal, HR and finance. Please note that we cannot accept applications from parents of children in our school to fill these roles. Interested parties should make themselves known to the school office.
Austin O'Sullivan, Patron nominee and Chairperson
Caitriona Hand, Principal and Secretary to the Board
Stephen Young, Patron Nominee and Treasurer
Ailish Gavin, Teacher nominee and Note-taker
Xulong Chen, Parent nominee (male)
Lisa Breslin, Parent nominee (female)
The Board of Management is committed to upholding the Educate Together ethos of the school and bases all decisions on the core principles of being child-centred, co-educational, equality-based and democratically run.
We are currently seeking two additional members for our Board of Management to fill the vacant roles of Community Nominees. We are seeking people with skills in one or more of the following areas: construction, legal, HR and finance. Please note that we cannot accept applications from parents of children in our school to fill these roles. Interested parties should make themselves known to the school office.
Board of Management Meeting December 2018
The Board of Management of Citywest ETNS met in December 2018. Five of the six members of the Board attended. The following is the agreed report (items that are neither private nor confidential) of this meeting.
The meeting started with mindfulness practice and a statement of ethos. Minutes of the previous meeting were ratified.
At this Board of Management meeting, the Board made the following decisions:
Our very first 6th Class will go on a residential school tour to Carlingford Adventure Centre later in the year. The school will pay the cost of the deposit for the tour.
Enrolment for places in Junior Infants starting September 2019 is to proceed with places offered from 1st February. As per the enrolment policy transition plan, 50% of places are to be offered via the old policy (first-come-first-served) and 50% of places are to be offered via the new policy (prioritising siblings and older children).
Citywest ETNS enrolment policy is amended, as per instruction from Educate Together, to include the following: "Due to the planned commencement of the Education (Admission to Schools) Act, 2018, Citywest Educate Together National School will not accept pre-enrolment application forms for September 2024. A new Admission Policy will be approved with an annual admissions process for this intake group"
The Board acknowledged the following:
Current enrolment is 375.
The financial reports for the previous school year (2017/18) have been completed by the auditors. The PA will be provided with a copy. The reports will be made available for viewing at the school office. It may not be removed, copied or photographed.
Anti-bullying was discussed.
A child protection oversight report was made.
New school jerseys have arrived emblazoned with our new school crest.
New car park permits are in the process of being issued.
Attendance statistics for Term 1 so far:
SAP Ireland have just this week informed us of our success with a grant application. The grant is for the purchase of laptops in order to increase the number of laptops per class.
An information evening for prospective parents will take place on Thursday 24th January.
As for the last two years, three Spanish student teachers currently studying in ITT will join our school for the second school term.
Teachers have reviewed the Weaving Wellbeing programme and will use it again in future years.
Olwen Carey visited the school with the Brendan Martin cup, which the Dublin ladies team won as All-Ireland GAA Champions.
Teachers will focus on the area of work presentation, including handwriting, for School Self-Evaluation this year. The evaluation will lead to a 3-year School Improvement Plan, to be implemented September 2019 to June 2022.
Transition from Microsoft to G-Suite took place, as part of a sponsorship programme we are involved in with Google, which paid most of the cost of the chromebooks. The remainder of the cost of the chromebooks came from the digital cluster funding.
Staff members continue to engage with various CPD opportunities - listed here
Three winter concerts are to take place on Friday 21st December. Each show will include some Irish Sign Language. Teachers continue to provide GAA training for children in middle classes during lunch breaks.
Parents held an afternoon arts and crafts workshop for families in the school.
Our school featured in the School Around the Corner feature in The Echo in late October.
The leave of absence policy was amended.
The Board wish to thank all staff for their work this year and wish them the best for the festive season.
The meeting started with mindfulness practice and a statement of ethos. Minutes of the previous meeting were ratified.
At this Board of Management meeting, the Board made the following decisions:
Our very first 6th Class will go on a residential school tour to Carlingford Adventure Centre later in the year. The school will pay the cost of the deposit for the tour.
Enrolment for places in Junior Infants starting September 2019 is to proceed with places offered from 1st February. As per the enrolment policy transition plan, 50% of places are to be offered via the old policy (first-come-first-served) and 50% of places are to be offered via the new policy (prioritising siblings and older children).
Citywest ETNS enrolment policy is amended, as per instruction from Educate Together, to include the following: "Due to the planned commencement of the Education (Admission to Schools) Act, 2018, Citywest Educate Together National School will not accept pre-enrolment application forms for September 2024. A new Admission Policy will be approved with an annual admissions process for this intake group"
The Board acknowledged the following:
Current enrolment is 375.
The financial reports for the previous school year (2017/18) have been completed by the auditors. The PA will be provided with a copy. The reports will be made available for viewing at the school office. It may not be removed, copied or photographed.
Anti-bullying was discussed.
A child protection oversight report was made.
New school jerseys have arrived emblazoned with our new school crest.
New car park permits are in the process of being issued.
Attendance statistics for Term 1 so far:
- September 94.2% (up from 94.1% last year)
- October 94.9% (up from 93.8% last year) - highest attendance month ever for our school
- November 91.8 (down from 93.2% last year)
SAP Ireland have just this week informed us of our success with a grant application. The grant is for the purchase of laptops in order to increase the number of laptops per class.
An information evening for prospective parents will take place on Thursday 24th January.
As for the last two years, three Spanish student teachers currently studying in ITT will join our school for the second school term.
Teachers have reviewed the Weaving Wellbeing programme and will use it again in future years.
Olwen Carey visited the school with the Brendan Martin cup, which the Dublin ladies team won as All-Ireland GAA Champions.
Teachers will focus on the area of work presentation, including handwriting, for School Self-Evaluation this year. The evaluation will lead to a 3-year School Improvement Plan, to be implemented September 2019 to June 2022.
Transition from Microsoft to G-Suite took place, as part of a sponsorship programme we are involved in with Google, which paid most of the cost of the chromebooks. The remainder of the cost of the chromebooks came from the digital cluster funding.
Staff members continue to engage with various CPD opportunities - listed here
Three winter concerts are to take place on Friday 21st December. Each show will include some Irish Sign Language. Teachers continue to provide GAA training for children in middle classes during lunch breaks.
Parents held an afternoon arts and crafts workshop for families in the school.
Our school featured in the School Around the Corner feature in The Echo in late October.
The leave of absence policy was amended.
The Board wish to thank all staff for their work this year and wish them the best for the festive season.
Board of Management Meeting September 2018
The Board of Management of Citywest ETNS met in September 2018. Five of the six members of the Board attended. The following is the agreed report (items that are neither private nor confidential) of this meeting.
At this Board of Management meeting, the Board made the following decisions:
The Board acknowledged the following:
At this Board of Management meeting, the Board made the following decisions:
- Stephen Young is confirmed as moving from the Community Nominee role to the Patron Nominee role
- Two vacant Community Nominee posts on the Board to be advertised to parents via website and newsletter, via local newsletters and via an online forum.
- Volunteer parents to be sought to join the Strategy Planning group and meetings to proceed once they have been secured.
The Board acknowledged the following:
- Enrolment is currently 382 pupils.
- Teachers on staff have decided to engage with Droichead for inducting new teachers.
- Teachers on staff are working with a digital cluster of Educate Together schools to create a comprehensive online resource of Learn Together ethical education lesson plans. As part of this programme, the Department of Education provided an ICT grant to the school, which was used to purchase a class set of Chromebooks and set up our first ever Computer Room.
- Teachers will teach lessons in relation to online safety in all classes in January.
- Attendance in August was 89.6%.
- Whole-school assemblies are taking place weekly and include Golden book nominations in relation to school values, Cleanest Class certificates, learning Irish Sign Language, celebrating the learning of poems and songs in Gaeilge, learning fundamental movement skills and singing the school song which this year is Reach for the Stars.
- Children in 1st, 2nd and 3rd classes visit the mobile library on a monthly basis. Children in other classes receive boxes of books from the library.
- GAA teams are playing in the league for the first time.
- Cricket coaching is taking place on a weekly basis.
- Bridges of Understanding reading programme has been purchased and is being implemented throughout the school.
- Weaving Well-being mental health programme has been purchased and is being implemented in classes 2nd to 6th.
- An Occupational Therapy room is in the process of being installed in the school.
- Teachers will attend Maths and Science training alongside teachers of St. Finian's NS in Newcastle.
- School Self-Evaluation will begin again this year, following the lifting of the union's stance against it.
- This year's event calendar will include:
- One Day Together food fair in October
- Scholastic Book Fair in November
- Winter concert in December
- STEM Week in January
- Seachtain na Gaeilge in March
- Autism Awareness Week in April
- Active Schools Week, Sports Day and 6th Class Graduation in June
- Classroom visits for parents took place in early September.
- Parent Information Evening to take place this week.
- Parents Association Coffee Morning to take place this week.
- Our Junior Infants featured in The Echo.