Citywest Educate Together
Parents Association Spring Newsletter
May 2015
Dear Parents,
With just two months left to the end of another fun filled school year here in Citywest Educate Together we would like to fill you in with some recent updates.
First of all we would like to thank you ALL so much for your involvement over the last few months. Since our last Newsletter many positive things have happened in our school, so please sit comfortably as it’s praising time!
Thank you to all our wonderful parents/grandparents who gave their time to visit the school and read to the children during Book Week and Mother Language Week.
Massive thanks to our Junior Infant parents who came in and played maths games with the children during the World Maths Day.
St Patrick’s Day Parade
Congratulations & huge thanks to our parents Emanuela, Diane, Klaudia, Eliza and Anita who worked together with teachers Aoife and Claire, devoting their time to organising our first and very successful St Patricks Day Parade. Well done everyone! Our kids had great fun marching with their families & their buddies, representing our wonderful school with pride! We loved the banner which was made up of pictures drawn and coloured by our children! Thanks to your participation we made our presence known within our local community. Those who couldn’t be there on the day can check the photos from the day on our school’s website http://www.citywestetns.ie/.
Drop Off
We owe massive thanks to our car park heroes who, in spite of some terrible weather conditions and morning struggles with their own kids, continue to help all our parents dropping off their children in the morning. We recognise that these volunteers are in a hurry to work and their own busy lives and so their ongoing support of the drop off is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time & dedication Biba, Ciara, Diane, Sobia, Liz, Adam, Suhaila, Rachel, Emanuela, Eliza, Luana, Juliana, Kifayah, & Ania. Special thanks to Ahmed and Sallyza who also have been helping us over the last few months, we’re hoping to see you back among our drop off crew sometime soon! We will be looking to run drop-off again next academic year, so please register your interest in volunteering to Eliza at [email protected].
Car Park Safety
We would like to remind all parents – whether using the drop-off or not - to be very careful around the car park at all times. Many of our children may be on their bikes or scooters, some of our sleepy heads are not fully awake in the morning or simply distracted. Drive slowly, follow the direction of the traffic and keep your eyes peeled. Please always expect the unexpected!
End of Term Disco
Big thanks to Leona, Liz, Dave, Eliza, Adam and Kamila who provided the sound system, lights, decoration & music and much needed helped to get the party started and assist the teachers with supervising the children during the recent End of Term Disco. Our children have some serious moves & they all had a great time dancing and messing with their class mates. As this was a fundraising event we must thank you all for your generosity on the day as €377.05 was raised! As previously advised these funds will go towards our school joining ReCreate (www.recreate.ie) which gives us limitless access to arts and crafts resources at school. This will relieve the school expenditure on arts and crafts resources and saves us parents some serious money, as our children don’t have to bring their own pencil cases, markers, crayons, glue, paints and other stuff to use at school.
Coffee Mornings and Parents’ Association Meetings
Thanks to all the parents/guardians who have made it to our monthly Coffee Mornings which have been running for the last 3 months. Just a reminder that coffee, tea, biccies and even fruit are available to everyone any time between 8.45 and 9.40am so please feel free to join us if you can! (The next Coffeee Morning is on the 19th June). Why? There’s plenty of reasons – we can get to know each other, exchange opinions, we can give and receive advice and support each other. School life is getting more hectic day by day and many parents are involved in different groups and committees and may share information and discuss topics that matter for the future of our children. The Coffee Mornings and Parent Association meetings are announced in advance on the Parents Association Facebook page here: (https://www.facebook.com/groups/393679434107255/), the Schools website (http://www.citywestetns.ie/) and Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/CitywestETNS?fref=ts)
So please keep an eye out!
Update on Second Level Start-up Campaign
As you should know by now, there is no Educate Together Second Level school in the area for our children to progress on to after they finish their primary education. This issue has been raised in the last couple of PA meetings and we were excited that so many new faces showed up at the meetings and showed a keen interest in getting involved. Dave Murphy has volunteered his time to lead us through the darkness of this campaign, where the next stage is the establishment of a start up committee whose job will be to lobby local politicians and the Dept. of Education for an Educate Together secondary school for our children. This campaign needs all the support it can get. Please keep an eye out for updates on this issue and please help where you can. Further discussions will be taking place at the next Parents' Association meeting on the 16th June @ 7.30pm so please show your interest by coming along.
Surveying Parents and Parental Involvement
Thanks to all the parents who have responded to surveys from the school – the most recent in relation to swimming provision and belief systems. Surveying parents is often the best way to gauge opinion in relation to particular issues which in turn keeps in line with the democratic ethos of the Citywest Educate Together School community. Please make sure you take the time to pay attention to correspondence from the school as participating in surveys and involvement with Parents’ Association are the best ways to have your voice heard within the school and to have your opinions heard with regard to planning in all aspects of the school year.
Fundraising
The Fundraising Committee would love to hear any ideas you may have in relation to future fundraising events. Likewise any support parents can offer to fundraising events is greatly received. Finally, your feedback with regard to events organised and how these can be improved (or not) is also really important.
Laughter Lounge
Thanks to all those who supported the recent fundraiser at the Laughter Lounge. It was a fun night and a great opportunity for parents to get together in the evening away from the children and busy mornings and collection times. The Laughter Lounge fundraiser was to raise monies for reading materials (books and worksheets) for the children – details of the monies raised will be published by the Fundraising Committee soon.
Cake Sale
This May the PA would like to invite you all to participate in another Cake Sale. The Cake Sale will take place in the school on early afternoon on Friday 15th May (all classes and all parents will be given the opportunity to purchase cakes – exact times are to follow). On this occasion the funds raised will go towards the purchase of Learning through Play resources for the school and a Water Play Container (a list of the resources needed for the school – and their approximate cost - will soon be made available on the fundraising page of the school website).
As usual with the Cake Sale, parents/guardians are asked to leave their cakes/treats in the school reception area at drop-off time for sale later that day. Happy baking!
Next Parents’ Association Meeting
The next Parents’ Association meeting is on Tuesday 16th June at 7.30pm. The PA would like to remind parents/guardians that all of us are members of the Association. You are always welcome to attend to contribute your time, ideas, skills – whatever you can. It may be a cliché but many hands make light work; the more of us there are the less work there is to do. So...PLEASE COME ALONG AND SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP. Amongst other items, on the agenda for our next meeting will be the Second Level start-up campaign and a review of the work done this year so far.
Best regards
Citywest ETNS Parents’ Association
Dates for your diary:
Cake Sale: 15th May
PA meeting: 16th June 7.30pm
Coffee Morning: 19th June 8.45 – 9.40am
You can find the Parents’ Association at the following links:
[email protected]
https://www.facebook.com/groups/393679434107255/
http://www.citywestetns.ie/parents-association.html
Parents Association Spring Newsletter
May 2015
Dear Parents,
With just two months left to the end of another fun filled school year here in Citywest Educate Together we would like to fill you in with some recent updates.
First of all we would like to thank you ALL so much for your involvement over the last few months. Since our last Newsletter many positive things have happened in our school, so please sit comfortably as it’s praising time!
Thank you to all our wonderful parents/grandparents who gave their time to visit the school and read to the children during Book Week and Mother Language Week.
Massive thanks to our Junior Infant parents who came in and played maths games with the children during the World Maths Day.
St Patrick’s Day Parade
Congratulations & huge thanks to our parents Emanuela, Diane, Klaudia, Eliza and Anita who worked together with teachers Aoife and Claire, devoting their time to organising our first and very successful St Patricks Day Parade. Well done everyone! Our kids had great fun marching with their families & their buddies, representing our wonderful school with pride! We loved the banner which was made up of pictures drawn and coloured by our children! Thanks to your participation we made our presence known within our local community. Those who couldn’t be there on the day can check the photos from the day on our school’s website http://www.citywestetns.ie/.
Drop Off
We owe massive thanks to our car park heroes who, in spite of some terrible weather conditions and morning struggles with their own kids, continue to help all our parents dropping off their children in the morning. We recognise that these volunteers are in a hurry to work and their own busy lives and so their ongoing support of the drop off is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time & dedication Biba, Ciara, Diane, Sobia, Liz, Adam, Suhaila, Rachel, Emanuela, Eliza, Luana, Juliana, Kifayah, & Ania. Special thanks to Ahmed and Sallyza who also have been helping us over the last few months, we’re hoping to see you back among our drop off crew sometime soon! We will be looking to run drop-off again next academic year, so please register your interest in volunteering to Eliza at [email protected].
Car Park Safety
We would like to remind all parents – whether using the drop-off or not - to be very careful around the car park at all times. Many of our children may be on their bikes or scooters, some of our sleepy heads are not fully awake in the morning or simply distracted. Drive slowly, follow the direction of the traffic and keep your eyes peeled. Please always expect the unexpected!
End of Term Disco
Big thanks to Leona, Liz, Dave, Eliza, Adam and Kamila who provided the sound system, lights, decoration & music and much needed helped to get the party started and assist the teachers with supervising the children during the recent End of Term Disco. Our children have some serious moves & they all had a great time dancing and messing with their class mates. As this was a fundraising event we must thank you all for your generosity on the day as €377.05 was raised! As previously advised these funds will go towards our school joining ReCreate (www.recreate.ie) which gives us limitless access to arts and crafts resources at school. This will relieve the school expenditure on arts and crafts resources and saves us parents some serious money, as our children don’t have to bring their own pencil cases, markers, crayons, glue, paints and other stuff to use at school.
Coffee Mornings and Parents’ Association Meetings
Thanks to all the parents/guardians who have made it to our monthly Coffee Mornings which have been running for the last 3 months. Just a reminder that coffee, tea, biccies and even fruit are available to everyone any time between 8.45 and 9.40am so please feel free to join us if you can! (The next Coffeee Morning is on the 19th June). Why? There’s plenty of reasons – we can get to know each other, exchange opinions, we can give and receive advice and support each other. School life is getting more hectic day by day and many parents are involved in different groups and committees and may share information and discuss topics that matter for the future of our children. The Coffee Mornings and Parent Association meetings are announced in advance on the Parents Association Facebook page here: (https://www.facebook.com/groups/393679434107255/), the Schools website (http://www.citywestetns.ie/) and Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/CitywestETNS?fref=ts)
So please keep an eye out!
Update on Second Level Start-up Campaign
As you should know by now, there is no Educate Together Second Level school in the area for our children to progress on to after they finish their primary education. This issue has been raised in the last couple of PA meetings and we were excited that so many new faces showed up at the meetings and showed a keen interest in getting involved. Dave Murphy has volunteered his time to lead us through the darkness of this campaign, where the next stage is the establishment of a start up committee whose job will be to lobby local politicians and the Dept. of Education for an Educate Together secondary school for our children. This campaign needs all the support it can get. Please keep an eye out for updates on this issue and please help where you can. Further discussions will be taking place at the next Parents' Association meeting on the 16th June @ 7.30pm so please show your interest by coming along.
Surveying Parents and Parental Involvement
Thanks to all the parents who have responded to surveys from the school – the most recent in relation to swimming provision and belief systems. Surveying parents is often the best way to gauge opinion in relation to particular issues which in turn keeps in line with the democratic ethos of the Citywest Educate Together School community. Please make sure you take the time to pay attention to correspondence from the school as participating in surveys and involvement with Parents’ Association are the best ways to have your voice heard within the school and to have your opinions heard with regard to planning in all aspects of the school year.
Fundraising
The Fundraising Committee would love to hear any ideas you may have in relation to future fundraising events. Likewise any support parents can offer to fundraising events is greatly received. Finally, your feedback with regard to events organised and how these can be improved (or not) is also really important.
Laughter Lounge
Thanks to all those who supported the recent fundraiser at the Laughter Lounge. It was a fun night and a great opportunity for parents to get together in the evening away from the children and busy mornings and collection times. The Laughter Lounge fundraiser was to raise monies for reading materials (books and worksheets) for the children – details of the monies raised will be published by the Fundraising Committee soon.
Cake Sale
This May the PA would like to invite you all to participate in another Cake Sale. The Cake Sale will take place in the school on early afternoon on Friday 15th May (all classes and all parents will be given the opportunity to purchase cakes – exact times are to follow). On this occasion the funds raised will go towards the purchase of Learning through Play resources for the school and a Water Play Container (a list of the resources needed for the school – and their approximate cost - will soon be made available on the fundraising page of the school website).
As usual with the Cake Sale, parents/guardians are asked to leave their cakes/treats in the school reception area at drop-off time for sale later that day. Happy baking!
Next Parents’ Association Meeting
The next Parents’ Association meeting is on Tuesday 16th June at 7.30pm. The PA would like to remind parents/guardians that all of us are members of the Association. You are always welcome to attend to contribute your time, ideas, skills – whatever you can. It may be a cliché but many hands make light work; the more of us there are the less work there is to do. So...PLEASE COME ALONG AND SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP. Amongst other items, on the agenda for our next meeting will be the Second Level start-up campaign and a review of the work done this year so far.
Best regards
Citywest ETNS Parents’ Association
Dates for your diary:
Cake Sale: 15th May
PA meeting: 16th June 7.30pm
Coffee Morning: 19th June 8.45 – 9.40am
You can find the Parents’ Association at the following links:
[email protected]
https://www.facebook.com/groups/393679434107255/
http://www.citywestetns.ie/parents-association.html
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