The Learn Together curriculum, which is the Ethical Education curriculum for Educate Together schools, has 4 strands: Moral and Spiritual, Equality and Justice, Belief Systems, Ethics and the Environment. You can read more about this curriculum and the ethos of our school here.

As part of our learning under the Belief Systems strand, pupils are provided with the opportunity to visit various places of worship throughout their time in our school. These visits complement the teaching and learning being done in classrooms, from Junior Infants - 6th class. 

​In the 2018/19 school year alone, 10 classes visited 6 different places of worship, while another 3 classes welcomed guest speakers to their rooms for an educational talk. Classes visited a Mosque, a Gurdwara, a Buddhism Centre, a Hindu Temple, a Synagogue and a Church, along with welcoming a speaker to learn about Humanism. Each visit provides us with new knowledge and an increased awareness and respect for the beliefs of others.
​We all learn together to live together!

Drum roll, please!! For the first time ever, we are so excited to announce that we will be hosting a Showcase Event, to celebrate the work which was produced through the Home Learning Enrichment Programme this year. The showcase event will take place on Thursday 20th June from 1.20pm.

The programme was first introduced to our school in May 2016, and has certainly gone from strength to strength ever since. It generally runs in Term 3 of the school year, with a wide menu of activities suggested for pupils to explore. For the current school year, the programme ran for a duration of six weeks, for all children in 3rd - 6th classes. 
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Staff in our school have been absolutely blown away by some of the projects which have been presented each week and we cannot wait to show them off! 

There are less than 2 weeks to go until the Parents' Association Quiz Night! This annual fundraiser takes place in St. Mary's GAA Club in Saggart, on Saturday the 8th June. All proceeds raised will go towards our new school building. 
This is an adults only event - be sure to save the date in your diaries! 

In Citywest ETNS, we celebrated Autism Awareness Day on Tuesday the 30th April. April is Autism Awareness month, and it is something we try to celebrate each year. During this time, there are lots of lessons based on autism taught around the school. The aim of these is to help us to learn more about autism and to begin to understand how to support someone who has autism. 

If you have forgotten the wonderful work which was done in previous years, check out our celebrations in 2016, where we turned blue for autism and celebrated the opening of our class for children with autism. In 2017, we aimed to help our wider school community understand a little more about autism, while in 2018, we focused on nurturing a home-school link with regards to learning about autism. 

This year, the focus was on recognising how each member of our school community is unique and how that is something to be cherished and celebrated. To mark this, all 16 classes in our school were given their very own jigsaw piece. Every child and staff member in our school were given the opportunity to create their own unique, individual design on the jigsaw pieces. When joined together, this formed a beautiful piece of artwork, which you can see above, and in closer detail below. 

The resounding message is that we are all unique, we are all different... but we all belong together, here in Citywest!

As part of our whole-school SPHE plan, the Stay Safe programme is currently being taught at all class levels, for a duration of 5 weeks.

The aim of the Stay Safe programme is to teach children personal safety skills. Though story, discussion and various activities, it allows for exploration around how to deal with potentially dangerous or upsetting situations. If you wish to learn more about the programme, you can go to the website here. 

As a school community, we focus on one of the core values of the Learn Together curriculum each month. You can read more about these values and the Learn Together curriculum here. Each week, Caitríona reminds us what the value for the month is, and often teaches us how to say it using Sign Language. Children are encouraged to consider what the value means to them and how they can show it in everyday life. 

The value for the month of May is Peace. Children are nominated for the Golden Book for contributing to this value - through sharing peaceful interactions with one another, by helping to contribute to a peaceful school environment, by displaying a quiet and respectful manner during teaching and learning time. We also participate in a Mindful Moment at the beginning of assembly, which gives us a moment of peace each Friday morning. 

​RSE for all classes takes place in the 5 weeks following the February mid-term break each year.

This is a spiral curriculum, which builds each year on learning from the previous year.

There will be lots of learning about friendships and new babies so listen out for talk and conversation about that.

The RSE programme content is available online, where you can access it if you want to know more.

Last Thursday night's talk for parents was a great success! It followed on from a Digital Citizenship day at the senior end of the school, where children from 3rd to 6th classes participated in workshops with John Wills from schoolsupports.com.
Later, it was the turn of a room full of parents. John's comprehensive talk covered the topics listed below and answered parents' questions, too. 

• Understanding what apps are being used by children and how they work
• What steps can be taken to keep children safe online
• Managing Challenging online content
• Cyber Bullying
• Setting boundaries around the internet
• Working with the school if a problem arises
• How to tackle Cyberbullying

We are delighted to see parents in our community taking their role in raising good digital citizens seriously, and to be able to help facilitate this by providing workshops like these.
Check out John's website; https://www.schoolsupports.com/cyber; for useful links and some of the resources John directed us to during his talk.

We are delighted to announce that we will have a guest speaker at the school on January 31st, speaking about the topic of Cyber Safety. John will be speaking to pupils in the Senior Classes (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th) during the school day, and will then give a talk for parents from 7.00-8.30pm that evening.

We strongly encourage parents, particularly those with children at the Senior end of the school and those parents who engage with social media themselves, to make an effort to attend this talk, as social media has become such a normal part of many children's lives and of our own lives. As well as educating ourselves on the possible dangers of our own behaviour online, it is crucial that parents inform themselves regarding the apps and platforms that their children are engaging with, and to be aware of the steps that can be taken to prevent children exposing themselves to unnecessary risk. 
The talk will address some of the following issues, all of which are relevant for adults as well as for children:

• Cyber bullying
• Technophobia
• E-safety culture
• Digital footprint
• Applications  (Apps)
• Sexting
• Online gaming
• Discussing cyber bullying, including with your child
• Parents' responsibilities with regards children’s online activity

John will also be happy to answer any specific questions you may have around this topic. We hope to see a great turnout on the night.