Newsletter
19 05 2024
5th class at the Young Environmentalist Awards this week
Dear parents / guardians,
I hope you have had a nice week.
The children were well rested after the week off and all seemed very happy to get back to school last Monday.
I hope our 4th class parents and guardians enjoyed their coffee morning on Friday. Thanks to our hosts from Wesley and Veronica’s class. It was better than Clarke’s bakery any day up in our staffroom on Friday. Vera, Alana, Ruth, Evana, Alice and Séan – the parents and guardians appreciated it so much.
We have a slight change to the next few coffees mornings as we have the exceptional closure training day on Friday 24th. The new coffee morning dates are
5th class – May 31st. Can this double up as a graduation catering planning meeting, please?
6th class – June 7th, our final coffee morning.
ALC – June 14th
On Tuesday night we look forward to meeting the parents / guardians of our incoming Junior Infants. We welcome 72 new Junior Infants and 1 new child in our ALC. We are looking forward to sharing their 8-year primary school journey with us. Thanks to our PGSA for offering to come in speak and serve coffee!
We had a staff meeting this week and I would like to share a few things that came up. I know some of these things are not our remit as it is what is happening at home, not school. However, when it impacts on our day to day in school, I thought it is important to share our experience with you all.
Our observations from listening to conversations are that some children are playing video games/watching content, using apps on smartphones that are above their age ratings (some as high as 18+). They don’t see the harm in doing this and speak openly about their games and phone use in school. Some children try to talk about little else throughout the day and can lead to exclusion for children who don’t have/aren’t allowed to play these games or use smartphones. The children who obsess about these games / apps want to incorporate themes from the games into any lesson at every opportunity especially creative writing/drama lesson where they then find age-appropriate stories dull and boring. Thankfully our children have lots of input about being safe online, but they are still making poor choices at times. We just fear that some children are being exposed to adult themes and language before they are ready. Enda recommended a company that we could invite into the school to speak to the children and us adults about this. I think this would be a great PGSA and school initiative that we could plan?
We have told our 5th and 6th classes that they will be grown-ups for a really long time and that they should relish the opportunity they have to play and be as children for as long as they can.
On a similar note, I have spoken to the older classes also about dress code, particularly as the warm weather is with us now. We have asked the children to avoid wearing beach clothing to school. For example, PE, yard, and graduation dance requires the children to dress in clothes that are comfortable and appropriate for primary school.
At our staff meeting we also confirmed, weather permitting of course, that we will have our Sports Day on Wednesday, June 5th on the GAA pitch in TUDublin. Starting at 11:00am, parents and guardians are welcome from 12:00pm. Activities will finish at 12:45pm, then parent/guardian races and picnic. We all have to leave the pitch by 2:10pm. All of this and further details will be confirmed closer to the day.
Reminder that we have an exceptional closure training day (Autism – NCSE – Good Practice Guidance for Schools) this Friday, May 24th.
We also have our Primary Maths Curriculum Day on Monday 27th.
Donation
Now that we have lovely weather, we are returning to use an area on the TUDublin campus adjacent to our site. We have purchased some mud kitchens and Gráinne has sourced some logs for play. The children love playing with stainless steel crockery. While we have some, we would appreciate of you have any play stainless steel crockery you no longer use, we will gratefully accept it. Student Council are helping with this initiative, and they are storing it on the windowsills on the ground floor.
Thank you to Dr Mariana Rocha and her ‘Happy Maths’ Team from the school of Computer Science in TUDublin for coming into Veronica, Jack and Enda’s class this week to commence a 6-week Maths teaching block with these classes.
3rd classes were lucky to have a visit from Katie Lovely on Friday. Katie is a star player for Bohemians and has a great connection with D7ET as her grandparents are John and Catherine Lovely. She spoke to both classes about her life in football and then played some matches with the children in our hall. It was a memorable day!
Our D7 camogie girls took on Gaelscoil Chluain Dolcan yesterday in the semi-final on a lovely sunny day on Gaelscoil Chluain Dolcan’s school grounds. The girls fought bravely and never gave up but unfortunately the result didn’t go our way. Gaelscoil Chluain Dolcan got off to a quick start with some early scores but in the second half our girls came back at them with some early chances that just went wide. It was all D7 in the second half as the girls dominated and didn’t let the Gaelscoil out easily from defence – some great hooking, blocking and tackling from everyone working together to fight for each other. Some well taken scores from frees for us meant we won the second half but unfortunately Gaelscoil’s early scores in the first half saw them ahead at the final whistle. The girls gave it their all and represented the school with pride and that’s all anyone can ask for! We are all very proud of the team for getting so far and representing the school so well. Hopefully the 6th class girls leaving us will keep playing with their clubs and I’m sure the 5th class girls will be back again for us next year!
Arlene
Thank you, Arlene, for training and coordinating this team and to all parents who took time out to give lifts to the games.
Thank you, Caitríona, who came to visit 2nd class and taught them about biodiversity, how they can help the planet, and many more exciting facts! They listened to the story ‘The Giving Tree’ and each made a promise to help the environment.
Little Lights Cabra Library Workshop
Aoife’s 2nd class thoroughly enjoyed their trip to Cabra library on Wednesday morning. We learnt about mythical creatures, fairy castles and lots more! We got to see mini sculptures, art paintings, photographs and videos. We also got the opportunity to come up with our own language.
The Minister for Education, Ms Norma Foley TD, has published a revised guidance document on the schoolbooks scheme for all pupils in primary and special schools in the Free Education Scheme in Ireland from September 2024.
The guidance document is designed to assist primary and special schools to implement the schoolbooks scheme in time for the start of the 2024/25 school year. The guidance document and a Quick Reference Guide for Schools are published at www.gov.ie/schoolbookschemes.
Please see the attached letter from Minister Foley to all parents/guardians.
Community News
Please find attached a promotional flyer for the local community games athletic trials scheduled for Thursday 23rd May.
See you all tomorrow,
Fionnuala