An NCT for your family!

As planned, Joseph Driessen came to our school today to lead a seminar for parents. Joseph talked us through a number of ways in which the way we set up the parent-child relationship impacts the child's learning and attitude to learning for life. And at the end, he took us through an NCT of our family! We all passed but decided there were areas each of us could work on too.

It was great to see 23 parents (including our principal, Caitriona) come to our school for this valuable session. Joseph took our questions and allowed us time to talk with each other about them too.

A lot of what Joseph talked about emphasised how beneficial some of the programmes we have running in our school are. Examples we spoke about were:

• Mother Language Week, which will be taking place in November - we would particularly love to see more men come in for this in order to de-feminise the school environment for our boys and help some of them to realise that reading and learning are for everyone, not just females!
• Parent school tours, which we hope to restart this term - these are very useful opportunities for parents to visit a place of interest so that they will have more confidence in returning with their child(ren) - in their everyday lives, children don't see too many people at work and don't see all of the richness of our community; visiting these places gives them the chance to see life as it happens and how meaningful it can be and helps to give them purpose and vision for their own lives.
• Home learning as an opportunity to set down routines and practices for life, with parents and children working side by side
• Library visits and being in a book-rich environment
• Equality - boys and girls getting equal respect and equal opportunity

Massive thanks

• to Dublin West Education Centre for paying for this seminar
• to Joseph Driessen for giving it
• to Caitriona for organising it
• to children in our 4th class for setting up the room and
• to all of the parents who came to the seminar! 

​We look forward to availing of similar opportunities in the future!