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!