Last Thursday, the 12 candidates in the Student Council election had an opportunity to canvas the electorate. They came around in groups of 4 - there are 4 candidates from each of the class levels, First to Third Class.

After the candidates left, we talked about the promises they had made. We considered whether the candidates will really be able to deliver on all of the things they promised. We will have to wait and see!
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Meanwhile, posters have been going up around the school and we are all looking forward to polling day this Tuesday!

Following on from the success of our first 6 week series of Irish classes for parents, a second series will be kicking off tomorrow morning. Parents who have attended the classes to date have given very positive feedback, saying that the classes are enjoyable and interesting.

But for those of you who are not available in the morning time, we are delighted to announce that a series of evening classes will be kicking off this Tuesday evening. Classes take place in the Meeting Room, 7.30-8.30p.m. 

These are relaxed lessons for beginners with an emphasis on conversational Irish. They are suitable for anybody in our school community - whether you have learned Irish before or not. You will gain a basic grasp of Irish vocabulary and sentence structure. Your confidence with the language will grow, helping you support your child's learning of Irish.

As Seachtain na Gaeilge approaches, this is the perfect time to brush up your Irish or pick up your first cúpla focal (couple of words).

If you would be interested in attending Irish classes, at a cost of €3 per class, on Monday mornings (8.45am) or Tuesday evenings (7.30pm), and you have not previously contacted us, please fill in the form below.

Perfect timing this week, as canvassing for the Student Council elections heats up, in the shadow of the final days of #GE16 - the Irish General Election. 
Candidates have been selected to stand for election from First, Second and Third Classes.
Campaign posters will be going up around the school in the coming days and each candidate will have a chance to address the electorate on Thursday to let them know what they can promise if they are successfully elected to the new Student Council.
Votes will be cast next Tuesday, with an expected announcement of the new cabinet later in the week.

Read more about the history of our Student Council elections here.

School will be closed this Friday, as our building is used as a polling station for the General Election. The Student Council elections are an excellent way to help the children understand the democratic process and begin to take more notice of politics on a larger scale.

As part of being a caring school, we are focussing on friendship for February.

We can show friendship by:
- using kind hands, kind feet and kind words
- listening to others
- sharing and caring

As you may be aware, one of the most exciting days in our school's history was 18th December 2014, when the building list for 2015 was published and we were on it! We could not believe our luck that our permanent building was to come so early in our school's existence. We were told that we would be invited in the the offices of the Department of Education in February or March 2015 to view the plans for our new purpose-built accommodation and we waited with much anticipation!

Well, February came and went. March came and went. April, May, June came and went. And no phone call or invitation arrived. We were told there would be an update soon but, alas, it never came. We got to the end of 2015 rather disheartened to realise that no progress was apparent.

Until this week! This week, we checked the progress report to see that our school has finally been moved on to Stage 1 of the planning process and is now at preliminary design stage.

We continue to await our invitation and we continue to ponder which site in this locality may be ours some day soon. We will update you as soon as any further progress is made or we are given any more information.

In the meantime, we feel very lucky to have such generous, spacious, warm and modern temporary accommodation. We are in the process of applying for more classrooms to be refurbished in this building for September 2016 and we wait to discover whether it is here or there that we will be for September 2017!

We are thrilled and proud to announce the appointment of Aoife Blood as Assistant Principal in our school. Aoife is a highly valued staff member and a natural leader in our school. We are all delighted to see her join Caitriona and Anita on the Senior Management team in our school. We are sure that all of our community will join us in wishing her every good luck in her new role and in supporting her in all she continues to do for our school.

​Comhghairdeas, a Aoife, agus go n-eiri leat!

Well, we have been absolutely blown away by the lovely comments and positive feedback from new and existing families. All school places have been filled for September 2016 already, following just one round of offers!

Thank you all so much for your prompt responses and submitting of documents. We are very much looking forward to working with all our new families over the coming eight years.

Further places will not be offered at this stage. A review will take place on 1st May and further places may be offered at that stage.

To our existing families, please let us know if your child will be leaving our school. We now have waiting lists for most classes and we would like to include as many children and families as possible in our wonderful community. Letting us know that your child will or may be leaving us will allow us to offer a place to another family.

By this stage, we have contacted every family that had applied for a place in our school for September 2016.

If we could not verify that an email was received, we sent it again, using a different system.

If, again, we could not verify that the family had received the communication, we sent a text, asking families to contact us if they did not receive our email.

Finally, if we could not verify that the family received that text, we sent the letter of offer via post.

We have now made every attempt possible to make sure that every family was contacted.

If you have a child pre-enrolled for September 2016 and you have not heard from us, it is vitally important that you make contact with us immediately. Places are filling up very fast and it is likely that the opportunity of joining our school will be missed if the deadline of 2pm next Monday, 8th February, is missed.

Sensational Kids Special Educational Needs Conference & Expo is taking place in the Citywest Hotel, Dublin on 19th & 20th of April this year. 

What is it?The Sensational Kids Special Needs Conference & Expo is the only dedicated national conference with world class speakers in Ireland for people working with and caring for children and adolescents with special needs.

Who is it for?This event is for parents, teachers at all levels, occupational therapists, speech & language therapists, educational psychologists – anyone who is caring for or involved with children or adolescents with special needs.
Why is it different?This conference & expo is the first ever dedicated event in Ireland on special needs bringing talks and Q&A sessions from world class experts in the fields of autism spectrum disorder like Professor Tony Attwood, who is well known for sharing his knowledge of Aspergers Syndrome and has sold over 400,000 books on the subject.
Other speakers include Professor Amanda Kirby, Dr Sidney Chu and Tania Ferrandino on Handwriting without Tears.

If you would like to attend this event please click here to book your ticket.