Oh my goodness, the excitement is unreal! What a day for the history books for our school! There just may have been a few tears shed throughout the day as our Student Council absolutely smashed everyone's expectations, not only producing an amazing new crest for our school but by the way they conducted themselves throughout, by the presentation they created and by their unshakable confidence in presenting to the Board of Management and to our whole-school assemblies this morning. Adults are usually shaking in their boots making a presentation to a management board or to a room full of 100s of people. But our Student Council did both this morning and we were so very very proud of them! I might have spotted Board members and staff members passing around tissues before the Student Council had finished!

Check out the post about this historic moment on the Student's Council's page, where you can see a video of the moment the Board's decision was given!

This IS democracy in action.
This IS student voice.
This IS the creative process.
THIS is what Educate Together is about.
​
Massive, massive WELL DONE to all who worked on this for our school - all those who made submissions on the initial survey giving words and ideas that should be represented on our crest, all those who took those ideas and drafted crests and especially those who led and coordinated the whole process - the Student Council, the Crest Committee and the volunteer parents. Your names have gone into the history books for our school!

Student Council: Risiqat, Abdullah, Jack, Mais, Emily, Mila, Noon, Adam, Maks and Ruby
Crest committee: Shane, Martha, Laura B and Caitriona
Volunteer parents: Mike and Ceire

Today, Wednesday 20th June, children visited the classroom they will be working in next year. Where the teacher who will be working with them is already on staff, the children met their teacher also.

Teacher allocation is as follows:
Junior Infants: Orla Traynor and Laura Mannix
Senior Infants: Mary Treasa Barry, Sarah Cunningham and Sarah O'Tierney
1st Class: Martha Whelan and Ailish Gavin
2nd Class: Bobby Kelly and a new appointment
3rd Class: Claire Healy and a new appointment
4th Class: Eldon Hilliard and a new appointment
5th Class: Aoife Blood
6th Class: A new appointment
Class for Children with Autism: Leonie Jones
Support Teaching: Anita Collings, Deirdre O'Connor, Ruth Maxwell, Julie Ann Rooney, Trina O'Donnell and 2 new appointments

Additional Needs Assistant allocation is as follows:
Junior Infants: Linda Daly and Louise Maguire
1st Class and 6th Class: Dorothy Donnelly
2nd Class: Tara Rubotham
3rd Class: Emma Coyle
4th Class: Marie Murphy-Bohan
Class for Children with Autism: Romy Martin, Siobhan Naughton and a new appointment

Transitions are as follows:
Claire's Junior Infants class will be taught by Mary Treasa for Senior Infants.
Laura M's Junior Infants class will be taught by Sarah OT for Senior Infants.
Orla's Junior Infants class will be taught by Sarah C for Senior Infants.
Martha's 1st Class will be taught by Bobby for 2nd Class.
Tadhg's 2nd Class will be taught by Claire for 3rd Class.
Julie Ann's 3rd Class will be taught by Eldon for 4th Class.
Laura B's 1st Class, Bobby's 2nd Class and Eldon's 3rd Class will all have new appointments for the new school year - these will be confirmed in July.
Children currently in the three Senior Infants classes will be amalgamated into two 1st Classes; parents will have received an email letting them know who their child's teacher will be for 1st Class.

This is the very first year in the history of our school in which we were able to have every class visit their new room! In previous years, we had a number of classes looking in windows of vacant units with the promise that it would eventually become their classroom! It was wonderful to see every child visit their room and we are looking forward to a peaceful summer with no building work taking place! 

You may recall that our Board of Management was invited to the Department of Education (DES) offices back in June 2016 to view plans for our permanent building and were given the expectation at that stage that we would have occupied that building by now. It has been a long road from there to here and our Board of Management has been working consistently with our Patron, Educate Together, who in turn have been working tirelessly with DES, on the issue of permanent premises for us. It has seemed hopeless at times and there has been much frustration along the way. 

We have always been glad of the very high standard of temporary accommodation we have and we will always be thankful to DES and to our landlord, DDLETB, for that. We have lots of space in a warm, comfortable building with generous-sized classrooms and all amenities we could ask for.

Yet, we still yearn for our own space, a building and campus purpose-built for our needs, with basketball courts, play areas and some grass!

It has been with growing excitement that we have received the most recent updates via Educate Together and we were thrilled to see it officially in writing on DES website that our building status has officially moved to Stage 3 (Tender Stage).

We are again in motion and moving in the right direction and we are absolutely thrilled! While we have no definite time-frame, we are hopeful that we could be moving into our permanent accommodation at some stage during the 2019/20 school year. We will, of course, keep you informed of further developments as we get them.

We had a great week of exercise and activity this week in school. Activities included:
- Dancing into school in the mornings
- Circuit training for the Senior Classes
-Musical statues for the Infant Classes
- Parent-sharing sessions
- Dance Blast in the yard
- Gymnastics and Breakdancing demonstrations
- Active Morning Meetings
- Drop everything and dance in the classrooms

Thank you to all for making the week such a success. A special thank you to our active agents, our student council and our wonderful staff for promoting and encouraging activity and exercise across the school.

A special thank you to our parents that volunteered their time to come in to school and share their sporting passions with the children.  

Check out Bobby's 2nd class dancing into school...

Here's a little snapshot of the week.
​Enjoy, Ruth & Anita (Active School Week Organisers)

Did you know that four out of five children in the Republic of Ireland are still not getting enough exercise, posing serious risks to their health and wellbeing?
 
The recommended amount of physical activity for school-aged children is at least 60 minutes per day. Is your child getting enough physical activity? 
The benefits of physical activity for physical and mental health are huge.
 
Check out this link for great ideas on how to get active and stay active. 
 
http://www.getirelandactive.ie/Children/Resources/Fact-Sheets/
 
We are encouraging all children to wear tracksuits / shorts this week to school. Share the following “Active Home Learning Menu” with your child and plan for plenty of activity this week!
- Walk to School (if at all possible)
- Go on a family walk of 20 mins duration. Raining? No problem...wear a coat with a hood. 
- Take a family bike ride to the park and have a picnic. Don’t forget to wear your helmet!
- Wash the car and have your child help you! Lots of active water fun!
-Take the stairs in shopping centres instead of the escalator.
- Play hide and seek or musical chairs
-Create a dance to a piece of music that is at least 3mins long.
- Create a new team game that involves physical movement.
- Visit the playground or a play centre with climbing frames.
- Teach your child about the importance of exercise 
 
It’s promising to be a great week of activity!
Keep active, keep moving, 
Ruth and Anita (Active School Week Organisers)