Here are some photos of the fun last Friday night at our table quiz in St. Mary's GAA Club in Saggart. Well done to the Parents' Association for organising it so well, and to everybody who took part!

We are MOST excited to announce that our parent education, engagement and fun programme continues to grow! On 6th April, Nicola Sherwood, who lives locally to the school, will start a Bokwa Fitness class for adults in our PE hall! The class will run from 8pm to 9pm each Wednesday evening. Watch this space for more details!

Our Mad Hatter's Day was a phenomenal success - it served as a wonderful opportunity to showcase the creativity and innovation within our school community. Not to mention the fact that we raised a total of €294 on the day! Thank you so much to all families for their generous contributions.

We are now setting about acquiring items that will help us to teach the children about world belief systems. Our main focus is the belief systems that are laid out within our Learn Together curriculum; i.e. Islam, Hindu, Sikhism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Atheism, Agnosticism and Humanism. We have put together a list of items that we feel would be particularly useful and will shortly be sourcing as many of them as we can within the funds that were raised.

With your help though, we hope to maximise the impact of this drive. Do you have any of the items that are listed below, that you could donate to the school? You would be making an invaluable contribution to the education of all of the children at Citywest, and by saving us buying that item, we would then be able to use the money towards another item.

We would be very grateful for any donations - we know that you will dig deep as you always do!
Thank you.
Caitríona, Principal
Aoife, Ethical Education Coordinator

This is the first time our school is putting together a list of items for the teaching of belief systems and we would welcome your feedback. You, our families, are after all our experts on belief systems. Perhaps some items are not relevant to this kind of teaching and learning, maybe you can suggest some more suitable items? Any help or advice you can give us will be gratefully and sensitively received.

All faiths

• Relevant religious text, children's version - e.g. Children's Bible
• BOOKS - FICTION OR NON-FICTION containing references to faith-based customs
• Flag/ banner with the emblem of that faith
• Items relating to specific festivals, eg Diwali/ Eid/ etc.

Islam

• Ihram clothing (worn during the Hajj)
• Book of Islamic designs
• Prayer mat

Sikhism
The 5 K's: wooden comb, metal bracelet, cotton undergarments, curved sword, (uncut hair)

Buddhism

• Buddha
• Mandala
• prayer flag
• chime bells
• Tibbetan bowl

Hindu

• Om symbol
• Comic books
• Altar with a god (Ganesh or similar)
• Incense, sweets, pot pourri
• Bindi dot
• Sari

Judaism

• Menorrah
• Dreidl
• Kippah (skullcap)

Christianity

• Chalice
• Crucifix
• Rosary beads
• Candles
• Statue of a significant saint

Humanism

• Good quality globe

We cannot tell you how THRILLED we were with the success of our first Mad Hatter Day! We could not have anticipated the phenomenal response to this event and the creativity showed by children and their parents in the works of art they stuck, glued and improvised!
Our only regret is that we didn't get to take many photographs - we were genuinely too busy taking in the fabulous creations. Well done to EVERYBODY, and thanks for helping our first fundraiser of the year to be such an incredible success!

Now that we've all settled back in to school so well, we have time to plan some fun events for the school calendar. First up is a Mad Hatter Day Fundraiser tomorrow, Friday 25th September - this event is designed to raise funds to build our resources in relation to the teaching of Belief Systems.

Put on your thinking cap and come up with the craziest hat style you can imagine - the more creative, the better! We're talking colours, shapes, heights, curls, accessories - the lot! Google will help you if you're coming up blank!

We're asking each child to bring in €2 on the day, to contribute towards the Intercultural Fund - of course if parents want to show off some creative styles on the day too, we'd be delighted to see them!

Huge thanks to the volunteers who manned the sale, the face painting and the balloon modelling, and of course to the committee who organised the whole event! You've set the bar very high for next year!

Two weeks ago, we took delivery of a large order of books. These books were the school's reward following the massive success of our Scholastic Book Fair back in November! You might remember that we told you that every book sold would help to get free books for our school.
Well we have reaped the rewards, and now each classroom has been able to add a new collection of books to their classroom libraries. And we've managed to get a school set of dictionaries too!
So THANK YOU CHILDREN, THANK YOU PARENTS, thanks to everybody who helped to make the Scholastic Book Fair such a roaring success!

Parents, Guardians, Grandparents, Family, Friends...

You’re having a laugh!

Fundraiser event in aid of Citywest Educate Together N.S.

Where: Laughter Lounge, Eden Quay, Dublin 1
When: 30th April 2015
Time: 7pm 'til late!
Price: €25

Your ticket includes:

• Free cocktail or beer on arrival before 7:30pm.
  
• FOUR amazing comedians over 2.5 hours.
  
• And if you fancy completely indulging yourself, access to late bar and DJ (also included in the ticket price)!
  

TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE FROM SCHOOL RECEPTION OR CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS ONLINE!

Buy tickets for friends, family and work colleagues - the more tickets sold, the greater the monies raised for the school! For more details about the show, visit our fundraising page!