Last week, our Parents Association organised a reading event to celebrate the linguistic diversity in our school community.

Throughout the week, each class in the school had a visit from one of our parents. The parent then read a book to the class in the parent's mother language. 

This is a fantastic way for us to recognise and affirm the linguistic diversity in our community. Many children benefited from having a language that isn't their own, flowing over their ears. They experienced story telling in a different way - appreciating tone of voice, facial expression, and the book's illustrations more than ever before.

Children were also supported by the parent reader, who took time to discuss the story in English.

To coincide with Educate Together's launch, of the new Learn Together Curriculum, we are focusing on our school ethos and reminding ourselves what it means to be an Educate Together school.
Being child centred is one of the core values of Educate Together schools. In December the staff examined their practice under a child centred lens. A noticeboard in the staff room prompted us to pause and reflect on our approach. At a staff meeting we discussed our understanding of child centeredness, how we can make small changes to improve our practice and explored the wonderful feedback from a group of children in the school. This group of children were from third class to sixth class. They formed a focus group and answered important questions about how they feel at school, how they are heard at school and how they think school could be better for them. Their feedback was and will continue to be  pivotal in helping all the staff to become more reflective practitioners who place the child at the centre of everything they do. Scroll through the power point below to see the questions that the group were asked and the insightful answers they gave.                                                                                 

As we approach the end of this calendar year, the first block of Maths Games with Parents is drawing to a close as well. Seven parents from across the school have been volunteering to come in to First and Second Classes, throughout the months of November and December. Each Tuesday and Thursday morning, the sounds of fun learning could be heard, as these parents led tables full of children in Maths Games.
We are delighted with how well this initiative has gone - thanks so much to the parents who volunteered, particularly for an untried initiative, when it was hard to imagine what the sessions would look like.
The children have thoroughly enjoyed themselves and had an opportunity to bed down some crucial number facts and number sense that will stand to them in their learning throughout the rest of the year, and beyond.
In January, a second block of Maths Games will commence in Third and Fourth Classes, and all going well we will extend the initiative to the infant classes later in the second term.
If you think you might be interested in taking part in a later block, read more here.

Last Tuesday evening, we invited parents and members of the Board of Management to attend a meeting here in the school, where we would have an opportunity to consider how we can get parents even more involved in school life.
The meeting was really well-attended and threw up some exciting and inspiring ideas. It was so encouraging to see the energy and passion that so many of our parents and guardians have.

Above are some bullet points that give an idea of the kinds of discussions that we had. 
These ideas will provide plenty of inspiration for the school staff and the Parents' Association members as they plan for the months and years ahead.
If you have any other ideas, please don't hesitate to let us know!

At the moment, children in 1st - 6th classes are learning about cyber safety - how to stay safe online. These infographics below about social media and other apps might be useful for parents/guardians. 

Now that we are finally free to have visitors to our school again, we are looking to trial an initiative to inject some extra fun into Maths time!

We are seeking volunteers from our community to help out for a block of six weeks, leading Maths games at stations in classes from Junior Infants up to Fourth Class. At these weekly Maths Games sessions, children will move from table to table, playing age-appropriate games that are tailored to help them improve their mathematical skills. Each parent will lead the playing of one simple game, while the children rotate from game to game.

Maths Games will take place 9.00-9.45 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Parents are invited to pop to the staff room after dropping their children to school to have a cuppa and a chat while the kids settle into their morning routine. Parents will then bring the games and resources to the classroom and let the games commence!

Ideally, we would love to find volunteers that could do BOTH Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but if you can only do one, please do fill in the form and we'll be back in touch.

All volunteers will be Garda Vetted by our patron, Educate Together and a brief training session will be provided in advance for all volunteers.

We are hoping to schedule the games as follows:
November-December: 1st/2nd Classes
January-February: 3rd/4th Classes
March-April: Junior Infants/ Senior Infants.

Please leave your details on this form if you think you can help.

We have been settling back into school life over the past week. For the first time in the history of our school, we did not have any building work going on over the summer holidays, or Covid response plans to plan and implement. It has been a lovely, calm and settled return to school! 

We are thrilled to see our new staff and children settling in and enjoying becoming part of the Citywest ETNS community; we are very much looking forward to a great year!

It is also brilliant to see our after-school programme return this year - we now have 13 classes on offer throughout the week. You can see the schedule and more information here. 

On Tuesday, the Class of '22 officially graduated from our school. The fourth graduating class ever from our school were the first children to get to have their graduation ceremony inside our lovely new school building. There was lots of excitement in the days leading up to it, and on the night, they did themselves proud with a fabulous performance before they received their graduation certificates.

As part of the evening, there was a video montage of messages from staff members who have worked with the class of '22 over the years. We really enjoyed the messages from staff members who we haven't seen in years!