Family Fun Day will run from 10am to 1pm on Thursday 30th June.

Family Fun Day is a lovely way to finish off the school year, with the whole community coming together for a celebration, while also raising some money for our school. There are lots of exciting activities planned. Our 3rd class decided that Science resources are their priority right now and so money raised on the day will go towards buying Science resources. Some activities will be free while the ones that are charged for will cost between 10c and 3 euro a go. We look forward to seeing you all for a great day out!

• After-school class demos and workshops
• Bouncy castles
• Reptile zoo
• Tuck shop and Hydration Station!
• Activity stalls such as Penalty Shoot-Out, Angry Birds, Crazy Golf and much more!
• Face painting

We have one parent and one teacher who have volunteered to do face painting on the day. As this proved to be very popular last year, we would love to have a few more volunteers for this, both so that more children can get their faces painted and so that we can allow those volunteers to do just half the day volunteering and take the other half of the day with their family. If you think you could paint faces and could spare an hour and a half on the day, please let us know by replying to this email.

Also, the children loved the balloon sculpting last year and we would love to offer it again this year. If this is something you can do and you can spare an hour and a half on the day, please let us know. We are happy to buy the materials but we need the talent!
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We have had a number of parents volunteer already - thank you so much! We will be allocating volunteers to tasks at lunch time tomorrow, Monday, and contacting parents on Monday afternoon or Tuesday so please let us know if you can offer just half of the time of the Family Fun Day to help us out. 
Here's to a great end to a fabulous year!

As we come to the end of a most successful school year, I wish to celebrate what we have achieved this year. 


A Year of Massive Growth
This year was most likely the year of biggest growth in the history of our school. Indeed, I doubt there are too many schools in existence that have ever experienced a year like it! Our enrolment grew from 156 last year to 220 this year, with the addition of three mainstream classes and our first ever special class for children with ASD, which has been a massive success! In the previous school year, we had a principal, 8 teachers, one SNA, a secretary and a part-time caretaker. We now have a principal, 15 teachers, 5 SNAs, a secretary and a full-time cleaner-caretaker. We undertook a massive building extension in the first term, with the addition of a PE Hall, meeting room, library and GP space, along with numerous classrooms, offices and storage rooms. 

Being a caring school became very important to us this year. We worked on numerous projects throughout the school, such as Friends For Life, Zippy's Friends, Restorative Practices, Playworx and, of course, our Golden Book! As a community, we take care of each other. And that makes it a wonderful community to be a part of.


Curriculum Projects
Celebration weeks: We continued to host many celebrations, such as Maths Week and Mother Language Week, and we added in some new ones too, like Active Schools Week and Autism Awareness Week! Many celebrations grew bigger and better this year - Seachtain na Gaeilge being one that stands out, with the introduction of Raidio Citywest, ceilithe and dramaiocht i ngach rang!

Art: Art played a large part in our year, with 2nd class taking part in CRAFTed and with donations of beautiful art work and art installations from members of our community.

Ethical Education: Our programme of visits as part of the Learn Together curriculum started this year and was a great success - every class either visited a place of worship or had a visitor come to the school to talk with them about their belief system. 2nd and 3rd class children also went to the highly-acclaimed drama Aunty Ben in Rua Red, where we had great fun dressing up and learning about accepting difference. We also extended our relationship with our friends in TLC nursing home and different classes visited at different times of the year.

Following whole-school consultation last year, we introduced a thematic approach to teaching the ethical education curriculum and we are very happy with how that is developing.

Home learning: We have been so proud of the children in 2nd and 3rd class who have been trialling a new approach to Home Learning for our school. The projects they have undertaken have blown us away! They are so inspiring! Well done to all the families involved!

Swimming: This year saw our children going to swimming lessons for the first time ever - well done to 2nd and 3rd classes who piloted the swimming programme for us. We look forward to sending 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th classes to swimming classes next year!

Support teaching: This year, the size of our support teaching team doubled. The team did tremendous work in expanding our station teaching and team teaching approach. Every child benefits from these approaches.

Library: We spent the first half of the year fundraising for a large purchase of books for our new school library and the second half of the year redesigning the library space and buying those books. We are very excited at the work progressing there - in secret! And we can't wait for the Grand Opening of the library in the new school year.


Our Community Groups
Management: Our Board of Management welcomed four new members, as did our In-School Management team, including the appointment of our first ever Assistant Principal!

Student Council: Our Student Council got a new lease of life and have been busy in the school. We are also extremely proud to announce that our pupils are leading a fundraising event! The pupils of 3rd class have decided that they would like to see more Science equipment in the school and are working hard on stalls for our Family Fun Day in an effort to raise money for this. We are most proud of them!

Parents' Association: Our Parents' Association have been busy, as always! Along with many coffee mornings and evening meetings, we had our first ever Quiz Night, which was great fun! Parents introduced after-school crafts sessions, which were great for building community spirit and were great fun for all who attended! We also had three clothes collections and a copper coin collection, as well as a Mad Hatter Day, Jersey Day and a Dress Up Day. We had the Scholastic Book Fair too. Lots of fundraising for specific projects took place throughout the school. We are still spending some of that money but are already enjoying play resources, Learn Together resources, books and a brand new parachute, just arrived!

Very importantly, dedicated parents continued to provide the much-appreciated Drop-Off service every morning. I'm sure you will all join me in thanking them for their work on this. It can't be easy to stand out there, come rain, hail or shine, but they do it with a smile and a helping hand and I am sure that we all appreciate that!

Second-level campaign: The campaign for a 2nd level Educate Together school in the area really took off. We have full faith in our parents that this can be achieved, and achieved in time for our children to benefit from it - if you haven't signed up yet, please do so ASAP!


Extra-Curricular Classes and Activities
After-school programme: Our after-schools activity programme grew even further and we extended the activities into late evening, with a number of classes for adults available in our PE Hall on weekday evenings. We introduced school tours for parents and Irish classes for parents. We also invited parents to use our meeting room in-between collection times (1.10 to 2.10 each day). This led to new friendships between families.

Being Irish: It was a big year for Being Irish! We loved collaborating with our neighbours in Citywest and Saggart Community National School (previously called Scoil Niamh CNS) in receiving our Irish flag and in the flag-raising ceremony. We also had a great day out at the St. Patrick's Day parade and festival and we were particularly proud to be chanting a song composed by one of our very own pupils!


The year finished on a great high, not only with Sports Day, school tours and Family Fun Day, but with the announcement that planning permission will shortly be applied for in relation to our permanent building. 

What a fantastic community! Led by a dedicated Board of Management, taught by committed and passionate teachers and staff, supported by hard-working and enthusiastic parents and Parents' Association and, centre of it all, our caring, happy and friendly student population! Thank you all so very much for making our school the amazing place that it is. I hope you have a wonderful summer break and I look forward to seeing everyone again at 8.30am on Wednesday 31st August.

​Very best regards,
Caitriona Hand,
Principal,
Citywest ETNS.

There was great excitement throughout the school on Friday as children met their new class and teacher and visited the classroom they will be using next year. The cheers of excitement were deafening as children delighted in hearing who their new class teacher is. The children spent an hour and a half with their new teacher and we hope that this will help to ease the transition into the new school year. Full staff allocation can be seen on the Staff page of our school website.

Sports Day was back with a bang this year - and it was bigger and better than ever! Thanks to the tireless work of the teachers, SNAs and a dedicated group of parent volunteers, the children had an action-packed day, visiting stations where they practiced all kinds of physical skills - from balance to hand-eye coordination and from speed to patience!
Sincere thanks to everybody who helped out and to St. Mary's GAA Club for being so flexible and accommodating of us. 

A parcel was delivered to the school today with some exciting new science resources!

Sherkin Island Marine Station monitors the flora and fauna of Roaringwater Bay in County Cork. It aims to raise awareness of the marine environment in Ireland and help introduce young people to nature. With this in mind, the Station has donated loads of wonderful books, magazines, posters, and workbooks to our school!

Thank you Sherkin Island Marine Station! We look forward to exploring these resources.

If you want to find out more about Ireland's flora and fauna check out
Sherkin Island Marine Station's Children's Corner. 

Today we did a flashdance in the yard for Active Schools Week. We have been practicing this dance in our classrooms over the past week and this was the first time we all tried it together - we are pretty proud of how it turned out!
Junior Infants to Second Class were involved in this activity - Third Class were visiting the local Retirement Home to entertain its residents with their singing and tin-whistle playing!
Our Cha Cha Slide is just one part of an action-packed Active Week here at school. Our Active Week will culminate in Sports Day this Friday - don't forget to let us know if you are available to help out because without your help it can't be the success last year's was!

Here are some photos of the fun last Friday night at our table quiz in St. Mary's GAA Club in Saggart. Well done to the Parents' Association for organising it so well, and to everybody who took part!

We got a head start on Active Schools Week last week, when Martin from Tallaght Martial Arts came to show us some kickboxing moves!
We had a great time and we were exhausted afterwards!!