Drum roll, please!! For the first time ever, we are so excited to announce that we will be hosting a Showcase Event, to celebrate the work which was produced through the Home Learning Enrichment Programme this year. The showcase event will take place on Thursday 20th June from 1.20pm.

The programme was first introduced to our school in May 2016, and has certainly gone from strength to strength ever since. It generally runs in Term 3 of the school year, with a wide menu of activities suggested for pupils to explore. For the current school year, the programme ran for a duration of six weeks, for all children in 3rd - 6th classes. 
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Staff in our school have been absolutely blown away by some of the projects which have been presented each week and we cannot wait to show them off! 

There are less than 2 weeks to go until the Parents' Association Quiz Night! This annual fundraiser takes place in St. Mary's GAA Club in Saggart, on Saturday the 8th June. All proceeds raised will go towards our new school building. 
This is an adults only event - be sure to save the date in your diaries! 

In Citywest ETNS, we celebrated Autism Awareness Day on Tuesday the 30th April. April is Autism Awareness month, and it is something we try to celebrate each year. During this time, there are lots of lessons based on autism taught around the school. The aim of these is to help us to learn more about autism and to begin to understand how to support someone who has autism. 

If you have forgotten the wonderful work which was done in previous years, check out our celebrations in 2016, where we turned blue for autism and celebrated the opening of our class for children with autism. In 2017, we aimed to help our wider school community understand a little more about autism, while in 2018, we focused on nurturing a home-school link with regards to learning about autism. 

This year, the focus was on recognising how each member of our school community is unique and how that is something to be cherished and celebrated. To mark this, all 16 classes in our school were given their very own jigsaw piece. Every child and staff member in our school were given the opportunity to create their own unique, individual design on the jigsaw pieces. When joined together, this formed a beautiful piece of artwork, which you can see above, and in closer detail below. 

The resounding message is that we are all unique, we are all different... but we all belong together, here in Citywest!

As part of our whole-school SPHE plan, the Stay Safe programme is currently being taught at all class levels, for a duration of 5 weeks.

The aim of the Stay Safe programme is to teach children personal safety skills. Though story, discussion and various activities, it allows for exploration around how to deal with potentially dangerous or upsetting situations. If you wish to learn more about the programme, you can go to the website here. 

As a school community, we focus on one of the core values of the Learn Together curriculum each month. You can read more about these values and the Learn Together curriculum here. Each week, Caitríona reminds us what the value for the month is, and often teaches us how to say it using Sign Language. Children are encouraged to consider what the value means to them and how they can show it in everyday life. 

The value for the month of May is Peace. Children are nominated for the Golden Book for contributing to this value - through sharing peaceful interactions with one another, by helping to contribute to a peaceful school environment, by displaying a quiet and respectful manner during teaching and learning time. We also participate in a Mindful Moment at the beginning of assembly, which gives us a moment of peace each Friday morning.