Newsletter

24 11 2023

Senior Infants budding palaeontologist

Dear parents/ guardians,

I hope you have had a nice week.

Thank you all for booking your parent teacher meeting slot next week. When you arrive at the school gate for the meeting, we will let you in and you can make your way to your child’s classroom. There are still a few people who have not booked their slot. Slots will close on Sunday so please do so before then.

Voting in our Board of Management elections closed at 2pm today. We welcome our 2 new elected parent nominees – Joana M. Rodrigues and Gary Fitzgerald. We will have our final Board of Management meeting with our current board on Tuesday, November 24th.

Concern Primary Debating Competition

Anyone who has ever tried to convince the children of D7ET to do anything they don’t want to, knows all too well that they are well capable of arguing and come equipped with fast firing synapses and an impressive capacity for mental gymnastics. We thought we’d finally capitalise on these skills and enter a team into the Concern Primary Debating competition. We made an impressive late entrance to the competition having been a last-minute addition. Our team, composed of Sophie, Art, Eva and captain Isabel from 6th class had the difficult task of arguing against the motion that ‘All children in Ireland have a right to a local playground’ against a formidable and experienced St. Colmcille’s SNS. Our team showed no signs of being new to competitive debating, years of disagreeing with parents and teachers paying off, and were extremely impressive. With short notice they carried out extensive research that enabled them to make incredible thought provoking and convincing arguments that referenced multiple sources, studies, and articles. They articulated themselves extremely well and had the presence one might expect to hear from the balcony or podium of a questionably moustachioed orator somewhere on the continent. In the end technical oversights rather than conviction or skill meant that D7ET were unsuccessful this time around but it was a hugely enjoyable experience that will no doubt inform how they approach the next round in two weeks. We are extremely proud of our team who did a great of representing our community.

Wesley

This week in Senior Infants we’ve been exploring the theme of dinosaurs.  We’ve been busy engaging in lots of different dinosaur related activities.  Please see some pictures attached of our budding palaeontologists in the dinosaur dig and of the children making dinosaur fossils out of salt dough!

1st class have been learning about Tom Crean and his heroic expeditions to the Antarctic. All the children have been creating their own projects at home on the life of Tom Crean. They were done in many different formats: posters, PowerPoints and dioramas. We have made a display of them all on the 2nd floor.

We have also been learning about Irish garden birds and how to take care of them in winter. Today the children of Róisín and Katrina’s 1st class made biodegradable bird feeders and hung them on the beech tree in the yard. We covered toilet roll inserts with coconut oil and then rolled them in a mixture of oats, niger seeds and sesame seeds. We hope the birds like their treat!

Winter Bazaar

Appeal for Raffle Prizes! Hanora’s 1st class

Hanora’s First Class are still looking for more Raffle donations from any enterprising parents out there! Names of the company and/or person donating will be printed on the prize list and announced at the prize giving so it’s a nice way to promote a local business. Please contact Katie on 0862633659 with your donation idea.

Thanks! Jenny 

Have a lovely weekend,

Fionnuala

Fionnuala McHugh, November 24, 2023