Nicola Sherwood, who runs the Bokwa class in our school, has been on leave for the last few months and has had colleagues teaching her class.

Nicola returns to class on Monday 6th November and to celebrate, she is offering the class for free!

Go on, give it a go!

Citywest Educate Together NS PE Hall, 8pm to 9pm Mondays and Wednesdays

Details of all evening classes for adults here.

On Friday 27th October, we bid farewell to three staff members. Lindsey and Michael leave us as they each move to new schools after the mid-term, where they have secured more long-term positions than we can offer them. Avril leaves to take family leave for the rest of the school year. We wish all three the very best of luck in their adventures and thank them for their hard work for our school. We look forward to seeing Avril again next September.

We welcome Ciara Bregazzi-Nevin to the new teaching position at our school. Ciara's focus is on children who are learning English as an additional language. We also welcome back an old friend to our school, Cillian O'Reilly. Cillian will be key support teacher for 2nd class. Finally, we welcome Dorothy Donnelly to our school as SNA and bus escort. Dorothy worked in our school last July and got to know quite a few of us then. We look forward to welcoming her back!

Earlier this month, we welcomed Larysa Khudenko to our staff as cleaner and appointed Siobhan Naughton as administration assistant. We also welcomed Ciara Donohue to our school as part-time support teacher.

Its a busy school! We hope its not too hard to keep up!

Last year was a record year for attendance in our school, with our average monthly attendance staying above 90% for 9 out of 10 months, only dipping in June. This was an achievement we were very proud of - read more about that here.

So far this year, with the mid-term break just around the corner, the attendance in our school has averaged at 94%. This is consistent with previous years. Good attendance is highly valued in our school - to read more about attendance, and the obligations of the school, check out the Attendance page on our website. Please also remember to notify the school if your child misses a day. 
Let's keep up the great work!

Today was pretty much a heart-in-your-mouth day. It started off with the discovery of a visitor of the small, furry kind in a classroom. We spent some time disinfecting the classroom and chasing that little mouse out the external door, back to where it belongs, and all was calm for all of 20 minutes!

Hearing that a gunman was on the run quite near to where you have responsibility for 350 children is not the ideal start to a Monday morning, as you might imagine!

As you know, we take security very seriously at Citywest ETNS, with doors supervised while they are open every morning and then access is via magnet-locked doors only.

Well, this morning we took the added precautions of closing the gates to the car park, locking the front door of the school and walking all children to and from the yard via internal routes rather than spreading out on various different routes, including through the car park, as we usually do to speed things up.

All adults were extra vigilant for unusual activities throughout the day and the family of staff members were following the news closely and keeping us updated on events as they happened.

All of this, of course, while not letting children, parents or visitors know that there was anything untoward or anything to worry about at all!

What a relief it is to know that the Gardai have resolved the situation and have the person involved in custody, just before school finished for the day. Phew!

It's hard to believe that we are already at the end of the first half-term of the school year! What a half term it has been!
We had our first ever school inspection, our first ever multi-cultural food fair, our first ever sports teams playing their first ever matches!
We took ownership of 8 new teaching and learning spaces, installed a Magic Room and said Goodbye to the 2nd floor.

We welcomed a lot of new staff to our school and 10 staff members became certified and registered Occupational First Aiders.
We had three days of exceptional closure - one for teacher in-service and two for Storm Ophelia.
Our Parents Association hosted their AGM, Table Quiz and a couple of coffee mornings.
Teachers hosted classroom visits and the Parent Info Evening, including workshops around parental involvement. We also hosted a parenting seminar, paid for by Dublin West Education Centre.

All classes are well settled into their new rooms and with their new teachers and we really look forward to seeing what the second half of this first term has to bring! Some events we are looking forward to are:

• Visit by Olwen Carey and the Brendan Martin cup that the Dublin ladies won in this year's All-Ireland GAA football final on 6th November
• Hearing tests for remaining children in Senior Infants on 7th November
• Visit by a player (which player to be confirmed) and the Sam Maguire cup that the Dublin men's team won in the year's All-Ireland GAA football final on 13th November
• Parents Association Bake Sale on 17th November
  
• Parents Association Coffee Morning on 22nd November
  
• Scholastic Book Fair from 23rd to 28th November
• 5th Class will visit a Synagogue on 13th December
• Winter Concert in December

We also got very happy news over the weekend and that is that the Department of Education Staffing Appeals Board upheld our appeal for additional teaching support and so we will have an additional teacher working in our school after the mid-term break. This teacher will work in a support teaching role, supporting lots of children but most particularly those who are learning English as an additional language. This is fantastic support to get from the Department.

Exceptional thanks here must go to the support teaching team who put a lot of work into appropriately assessing the children's language levels in September in order to produce accurate data on the language levels of all pupils who are learning English as an additional language. All new pupils to the school were thoroughly assessed in this regard and reviews took place on children already in the school. Without this coordinated team work, our appeal would not have stood up and we would not have this additional allocation.

Thank you to all of our community for a wonderful first half term and for your engagement with the school. Together we prosper!

As we are now into costume season, children may like to wear costumes to school. We don't have a designated day for wearing costumes. We don't have a fancy dress event this week.

However, as a school with no uniform, children are welcome to wear whatever makes them feel good every day to school. If that happens to be a costume, no problem. A few reminders, of course:

1. Safety first - trailing skirts, veils and capes are a trip hazard so leave them at home
2. No masks - facial expression is a very important part of communication and we want to see your face. Also, masks are frightening for some children, particularly those who don't have any experience with them. No masks at school.
3. No weapons, even pretend ones - you have no idea what trauma a child has been through in his or her past. Schools should be a safe space and children should not be unexpectedly confronted with weaponry at school, even pretend ones.
4. Stay warm - children go out to play in the yard at least twice every day and Ireland is not a hot country. Children should be appropriately dressed for the weather.
5. Be able to manage your own needs - whatever they are wearing, children need to be able to go to the toilet on their own without needing help.
   
6. Wearing a character costume does not change your own character - dressing as a character that uses violence does not mean that you can use violence or dressing as royalty doesn't mean that you can demand to be treated like royalty! You are still your own beautiful self, with the same rights, responsibilities and friends!

Aside from all this, if your child does want to dress up one day, remember that creativity is wonderful and that gender stereotypes are optional!

• Home-made costumes trump store-bought ones every time!
  
• Pink and blue are universal colours! Sparkles and armour are universal too.
• Anyone can be a scientist, anyone can be a pilot, anyone can be a princess, anyone can be a fairy, anyone can be any superhero!

Enjoy the season of creativity and self-expression!

It was the turn of our 4th and 5th class boys on Friday to play their first ever match for our school. The game was a great success. Thanks so much to the parents who came along for support!

Well done to 10 members of staff who have given up the last three Saturdays to train as Occupational First Aiders (aka First Responders) and all passed their exam on Saturday 21st October! This means that we now have 13 members of staff who are trained and registered Occupational First Aiders! Massive well done to Dorothy, Emma, Linda, Lindsey, Louise, Marie, Nicola, Romy, Siobhan and Tara on their achievement!

UPDATE: Citywest ETNS will reopen on Wed 18th Oct. Please ensure that your route has been cleared and is safe to travel on before leaving home. See you tomorrow.​

In line with an instruction from the Department of Education, the campus of Citywest ETNS will remain closed tomorrow, Tuesday. 
​Kidorama Academy, after-school classes and evening activities are all closed/cancelled. There will be no-one on site.
We expect to reopen on Wednesday.