We are delighted to announce yet another class for adults in our school building - fitness bootcamp!

Starting on Monday 2nd May, John from Body Shape Fitness Bootcamp will be leading a class in our fabulous PE Hall. Sessions will take place from 7pm to 8pm every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Please note that this is not a class that you can just turn up for. You must contact Garrie, Tara or John to sign up in advance of the class.

Today was World Autism Awareness Day and, here at Citywest ETNS, the culmination of Autism Awareness Week. We have had lots of lessons and activities geared towards helping us understand autism and how to support people who have autism.
Earlier this week, we all made blue jigsaw pieces, coloured blue using crayons, paint, collaging - even fingerprints. Check out the beautiful display we made in the entrance foyer of the school to mark the day.

This week we also introduced a buddy system, to help the children from our New Class integrate with the other children. These buddies (current cohort pictured above) volunteer to be extra caring friends to the children from the new class - they also help them to be safe on yard.

Evelyn from Kidorama Preschool and Afterschool will be here at the school between 8.00 and 9.00 tomorrow morning. It will be an opportunity for her to meet the families in our school. Parents who wish to avail of Kidorama's services from September can complete registration forms and pay deposits at this time too.

The Friends for Life Programme has been running in third class for the last number of weeks. Friends for life is a school-based positive mental health programme. It helps to build resilience in children and reduce anxiety levels by empowering childern with coping mechanisms. The skills taught in the programme will benefit the children today and in later life.
The children are really enjoying their Friends for Life sessions. Read what they have to say about the programme below.

Jessie: Friends for Life helped me when I was doing my Student Council speech. I practised milk shake breathing and it helped me stay calm.

Anshul: Friends for Life tells us that everyone feels worried and that that is normal.

Elada: Friends for Life helps us turn negative thoughts in to good thoughts.

Abdullah: Friends for Life teaches us ways to turn red thoughts in to green thoughts- challenge your red thoughts with an orange question or thought

Attention Parents and other members of our School Community!
​
We are in the process of exploring an exciting possible project for our school community. We are working with a corporate sponsor on establishing a CoderDojo here in our school. 

CoderDojo is a global movement of free, volunteer-led, community based programming clubs for young people. At a Dojo, young people, between 7 and 17, learn how to code, develop websites, apps, programs, games and explore technology in an informal and creative environment. In addition to learning to code attendees meet like minded people and are exposed to the possibilities of technology.

Within the CoderDojo Movement there is a focus on community, peer learning, youth mentoring and self led learning,  with an emphasis on showing how coding is a force for change in the world.

For more on CoderDojo, visit their website here.

We hope to establish one of these extra-curricular coding clubs here in our school. In order for this goal to be realised, our first challenge is to acquire a set of laptops, on which to teach the coding lessons. We are currently working on this.

But more important than the devices themselves are volunteers who can help at the club each week, to guide and teach the children as they learn to code. There will be experts on hand to lead the sessions, but we need more adults to ensure that each child gets maximum benefit from the class.

Are you familiar with coding (even very basic coding)? Would you be prepared to donate an hour of your time each week, towards helping young people in our school community to learn to code?

We have not yet allocated a day or time for this club. If you are interested in helping out, please complete the form below. Once we have secured the necessary laptops, we will be in touch with you to try to find a time that is suitable to all volunteers.

If you are not familiar with coding, but you have a friend or family member who is, and who might be prepared to help out, please let them know about this exciting initiative.

Team teaching is "a group of two or more teachers working together to
plan, conduct and evaluate the learning activities for the same group of learners" (Goetz, 2000).

Take a look at team teaching in action in Junior Infants!

Dear Parent(s)/Guardian(s),

It has come to our attention that there was an attempted abduction of a young boy on Wednesday, 13th April at approximately 3.50 p.m in the Saggart area.

It is our understanding that this incident occurred as the child walked home from his school in Saggart, following an after-school club.

Fortunately, in this case, the attempted abduction was unsuccessful, as the child refused to get in the car with these strangers, and ran to safety.
This incident is currently being investigated by the Gardaí.

We would encourage all parents to talk to their child about the potential dangers of talking to strangers.

We would urge all parents to be extra vigilant around our community and report any suspicious behaviour to the Gardaí.

Yours faithfully,

Anita Collings
​Acting Principal

Information from Nicola:
Bokwa is a new and completely different approach to group exercise that is rapidly spreading across the globe. Bokwa Participants draw letters and numbers with their feet while performing an energizing and addicted cardio workout routine. Moving together to today's most popular music, participants of all ages draw Bokwa L, 3, J, K and dozens of other steps. No counting steps as these steps are structured and based on the forms of letters and numbers, doing Bokwa does not require you to count steps, like a traditional 8 count followed by most dance fitness programs. Simply feel the music and freely move with the beat. And the dozens of other class participants that are sharing the energy and excitement with you. No choreography once you know the step, you own it and can do it without following an instructor’s personal choreography. Because the steps follow the same structure, whether you are doing it in Taiwan, Australia, England or the US, Bokwa is truly universal. Everyone can do Bokwa, Because the steps are structured as letters and numbers everyone can do Bokwa. 4-year-old kids, 75 year old men and women. People with two left feet who cannot dance. World champion Latin and ballroom dancers. All having a terrific experience in the same class! It Does Not Feel Like working out at all because of the energizing music, the fun and predictable steps and great motivation coming from people moving together to music, participants become addicted to Bokwa. You would not even realize you were burning up to 1,200 calories in one workout.