Newsletter
8 12 2023
Winter Bazaar fun
Good afternoon parents and guardians,
I hope you have had a nice week. We can certainly feel holiday excitement building up in school. We have lots of nice things planned for next week. We have class performances, a trip to Glasnevin Cemetery for 6th, a visit to Andy Warhol exhibition for 4th, a dance workshop for Junior infants and lots more.
Thank you so much for the enormous effort our PGSA put into organising the bazaar. It was a lovely day here in school. Lunch topped anything you would get in Avoca! It was a perfect way for our school community have a day together in our new building before the end of term. I hope it is ok that I have taken some of the decorations from the bazaar into school to use for the coming weeks. For the junior Infants parents who coordinated the grotto, I have ‘borrowed’ come of those decorations. I will carefully put them back afterwards. I am organising a storage area for all PGSA resources in the GP hall. This will make planning future events much easier now that we are in our permanent home. If you are missing anything from bazaar, they are in reception beside lost property.
Staff in school are very grateful for funds raised at bazaar. Already this week we have purchased valuable decodable readers and more furniture for our assisted learning classes. Thank you so much for your generosity.
Student Council
Meeting today with all interested candidates. We had a question-and-answer session with last year’s student council Vera, Milo and Lily.
THE STUDENT COUNCIL (FOR CANDIDATES & PARENTS)
Next week is election time for 2024’s Student Councillors. The election is open to candidates from 3rd to 6th Class.
Role of the student Council: Student councillors are elected to represent the rights and responsibilities of everyone in the school. They give a voice to the pupils, from Junior Infants right up to 6th Class. This helps pupils feel that they have a role to play in the workings of the school, working in partnership with staff and school board. It is also a valuable early lesson in democracy at work.
There will be 4 councillors, each one representing 2 class levels.
6th class Councillor: represents 6th Class and Junior Infants
5th class Councillor: represents 5th Class and Senior Infants
4th class Councillor: represents 4th Class and 1st class
3rd class Councillor: represents 3rd Class and 2nd class.
ALC Councillor: Represents ALC
COUNCIL TASKS & DUTIES
- Go around classes weekly to canvas issues.
- Surveys carried out on pupils.
- Petitions on behalf of pupils.
- Newsletter/magazine.
- Student Awards.
- Recycling organisation.
- Communication with principal (policies, Active Week, Arts Week, School planning)
- Attend Board Of Management/Staff meetings.
- Accompany Principal to events, ceremonies, meetings.
CANDIDATE POSTERS: A3 sized or smaller. We have given the children a page today. We will collect these on Monday. Poster can include a photo of candidate, slogan and promises.
CANDIDATE SPEECHES: Short. About 30 secs. What you hope to achieve if elected. No false promises, please! Delivered to relevant classes next Tuesday, Dec 12th.
ELECTION TIMELINE
Mon Dec 11th : Posters collected
Tues Dec 12th: Speeches to classes.
Thurs Dec 14th: Election in Library.
Friday Dec 15th: Results of election.
Winter Solstice walk
On Thursday 21st December, we will have a Winter Solstice walk through the beautiful grounds of Grangegorman. School will commence at the usual time of 8:30am and the children will go to their classrooms to get settled and to gather the lanterns they will have made in school for the occasion. Shortly afterwards, the children will proceed on their walk with their teachers, class by class. Parents and families are welcome to gather in Grangegorman to see their children and to give them a wave. A map of the route with a standing area for parents will be sent out via Aladdin beforehand. We look forward to a lovely celebration of light as we leave the darker days of winter and welcome the longer, light-filled days once again.
Macbook Air chargers needed for the school
We were fortunate enough to receive a supply of Macbooks a few years back, and they have found great use in the classrooms for project research and other activities. We are now on the lookout for spare Macbook chargers that families might no longer have any use for in their own house. The cost of new ones is exorbitant and we would like to do our bit for the environment by recycling your old chargers. Any help appreciated. You can email padraig@d7educatetogether.com
Educate Together 2023 highlights
As we near the end of an eventful year, I want to share with you ET’s 2023 highlights from CEO Emer Nolan
New Learn Together Ethical Education Curriculum: Thanks to supporters like you, Educate Together successfully launched its revised Learn Together Ethical Education curriculum. The generosity of our community helped us to surpass our 2023 crowdfunding goal and made it possible to print and distribute the newly published curriculum to our network of national schools, where it’s now being taught to every pupil.
Advocacy for Equality-based Education: Over the last decade, we’ve made significant strides – opening over 50 schools and reaching 40,000 children and young people. But our work is far from finished. In 2023, we made plans to transfer more schools to Educate Together’s patronage and we lobbied hard for more action from the Department of Education. We hope to announce the transfer of the first school soon, and more importantly, we have finally persuaded the Department to carry out a nationwide survey on school patronage in 2024. We need to keep the pressure on next year to make sure this happens.
Nurture Schools Project: We were so pleased with the evaluation findings for Educate Together’s Nurture Schools project this year. Students attending nurture rooms in Educate Together schools showed more confidence, less anxiety, and better emotional skills and well-being. Support from people like you is vital to sustaining these impactful projects – ensuring every student has the opportunity to thrive at school.
New School Buildings: Since June, we’ve overseen the completion and handover of five exceptional school buildings. Students in Stapolin ETNS, Limerick ETSS, Stepaside ETSS, Cherrywood ETNS and Pelletstown ETNS, are now learning in state-of-the-art buildings, as every child should.
Well done to Cloe who completed a karate competition over the weekend and got in 1st place overall for kumite (sparring/fighting).
The competition is the Wadokai 2023 league, which is played over a number of individual events over the year and culminates in the final event that took place last Saturday. The league is specifically Wadokai, which is one of 4 karate styles.
We are very proud of your achievement Cloe!
Finally, if you have any spare track suit bottoms / underwear/ leggings can you send them in for the odd toileting accident we have here in school. We have a box upstairs, but supplies are depleting. We are taking clothes suitable for children up to 10 years.
Have a lovely weekend,
Fionnuala