Last Friday, we had a lovely addition to our weekly assembly. For the first time, a class presented a piece of work that they have been learning about in the past couple of weeks. This sharing of knowledge is an important part of our Learn Together curriculum, and we were delighted with the standard set by Bobby's clever and creative Second Class.

Bobby's class have been learning about Islam and they made a fabulous display about the Five Pillars. They then presented the information they had collected, loudly and clearly, for the whole school to hear.
We were so proud of them! Well done, Bobby's Class.
​We look forward to hearing from another class next month!

Due to questions over the new Admissions Act and in the expectation of instruction related to that coming from our Patron, we had not opened the pre-enrolment list for 2023 in early summer, as we would usually have done. However, as no progress has been made in relation to this, we have proceeded to open the pre-enrolment list for that year. It now seems likely that we will be required to implement a new enrolment policy from 2024. We await further instruction in relation to this from both the Department of Education and Educate Together Central Office. It can now be expected that our current Enrolment Policy will be used to allocate places up to 2023.

The Board of Management of Citywest ETNS thanks Paul Flanagan and Norma Healy for their years of service to our school. Their resignation from our Board leaves two Community Nominee vacancies which we need to fill.

Our Board of Management is a vibrant, engaged group of dedicated people who strive to lead our school to be the best it can be and to ensure that the Educate Together ethos is upheld at all times.

The roles of Community Nominees are important in the aim of ensuring transparency, fairness and quality assurance in the leadership of our school. It is important that, when our Board of Management considers an issue, a diverse range of perspectives are offered and considered.

Prospective candidates should not be parents of children in our school as our parent body are already well represented. Neither should prospective candidates be employees of the school.

We ask parents, guardians and friends of our school to consider who in their circle of acquaintances might be a good fit for one of these roles and direct any potentially suitable candidates towards us.

All interested parties should contact the school office. 

Following the start of the new school year, progress has been made on the waiting lists for places in our school. We are now maintaining 4 waiting lists only:

• Junior Infants
• 1st class
• 2nd class
• Class for children with Autism

The number of names on waiting lists for our school has reduced to 96.
​We continue to monitor enrolment and to offer places as they arise.

Thanks to families letting us know that their child(ren) will be leaving our school, we have had significant movement on the waiting lists for places in our school. At this stage, all of the following families have been offered places:

• For Junior Infants
  • All siblings, including those who had not turned 4 by the end of March
  • All children who had turned 4 by the end of March AND who were pre-enrolled by 31st January 2018
  • All children who were pre-enrolled by 26th October 2017
  • There are currently 28 names on the waiting list for a place in Junior Infants 2018/19.
• For other classes
  • All children for whom applications were made for a place in 3rd, 4th or 6th class
  • There are currently 104 names on the waiting lists for a place in a class other than mainstream Junior Infants, 3rd, 4th and 6th classes.

We do not expect further movement on waiting lists until the start of the new school year.

Caitriona visited each class on the last day of the school year. She thanked each class for their hard work this year, congratulated them on all of their learning and wished them a wonderful summer.

Then she dropped the bombshell that there is home learning for the two months of summer break!

We were delighted to see that most children kept an open mind about what it would be rather than bemoaning the idea immediately! And even more thrilled at their reaction to the details, offering each other ideas of what to do. This approach to life is what makes our pupils so special and we know they will continue to use the growth mindset throughout the summer break!

This is the Home Learning for all pupils this summer - parents and guardians might like to take on the challenge too! - wouldn't it make for a great summer to take on this challenge together as a family?!

1. Stay active - do exercise, keep moving, maintain a fit and healthy body!
Some ideas suggested here were Junior Parkrun (some of our staff members bring their children to Junior Parkrun so we might see you there!), horse-riding, trampolining, playing football, doing gymnastics, cycling your bike. I'm sure you can come up with more!

2. Keep reading - reading introduces you to new ideas and the experiences of other people and so broadens your mind and helps your brain to develop; it gives you new viewpoints on life to consider, think about and discuss. Many of our children are already signed up for Summer Stars, a free reading programme in local libraries. 

3. Enjoy spending time with your family - do enjoyable activities together, have fun, make the most of having time that is not dictated to by schedules and routines, feel loved and free and happy together!

4. Remember some of what you do in numbers 1, 2 and 3 and tell us about them when we get back to school on 30th August.

We know that most families will have no problem fulfilling this home learning and will relish the opportunities the summer gives to spend time together and educate the children on areas of life that are of importance to your family. It is also a great opportunity to let your child do activities of particular interest to them. You might like to sit in this first week and create together a bucket list of summer activities you will aim for this summer.

We wish you all a super summer, full of activity, reading, family time and special memories!

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!