Newsletter
18 10 2024
1st class saying goodbye to the chicks
Good afternoon parents and guardians,
I hope you have had a nice week.
As always, we have been very busy in school. Thanks to all your wonderful children, especially our student council, for helping us today to do a great big ‘tidy up’ of our enormous school. Our school are taking part in the Open House viewings this weekend. It is already booked out!
We had a Community Liaison Group meeting with the Grangegorman Development Agency this week. Something that was mentioned was congestion at our pedestrian gate for residents using the footpath. Can we ask to avoid congregating at this gate at drop off or collection time please?
We also had a Parent Guardian Staff Association Meeting last night. The minutes of this meeting will be shared with all the class reps.
The main dates / events for this year that were discussed were –
Digital Detox November 20th; Winter Bazaar 1st December – 12- 3pm; February 26th or 27th (to be decided) a ‘Wellbeing, Resilience and Self Esteem for children’ talk; Book Fair and Summer Fete – June 8th
Thanks to Chloe and Ruth for organising today’s coffee morning. Next week, we invite the parents of the children in Carol D’s class in to have coffee in the staffroom.
It will be busy that day. The children are allowed to dress up and bring a small treat to school next Friday.
As you know our chicks have gone back to Nore Valley. The children were sad saying goodbye. However, they were delighted to hear that one of our colleagues is going to collect them in a few weeks when they are a little bigger and give them a home in the city.
Sadly, next Friday we have to say goodbye to 2 fabulous SNAs.
Orla Duffy, currently working in Emily’s class is retiring after 13 years of working with us. She is such an experienced SNA and has worked in all classes at all levels. We have loved having her understated professionalism with us and will dearly miss her here.
Raquel Olmos Odeja is leaving next Friday also. Raquel joined our teaching staff 5 years ago and taught in the ALC for a year. At the end of that year Raquel joined our SNA staff and has been the SNA in the senior ALC for 5 years. She has had a profound influence on all the children in this ALC class, having seen them grow and mature over the last 5 years. Raquel has is returning to Spain with her partner. We wish her the best of luck back in her hometown.
Heartiest congratulations to our colleague Rachel on the birth of her baby Alfie born last Monday.
Finally, school will be closed from October 28th – November 1st for midterm.
Admissions
Admissions are now open through the website.
Anyone who has a child starting in September 2025 needs to submit an application.
The link is https://d7educatetogether.com/enrolment-2/
GAA Update
A bridge too far.
D7 Boys fell unfortunately at the last hurdle in their Gaelic quest. Our opponents on the day, Grace Park ETNS proved to be a very tricky opponent and had in their ranks a clinical finisher who proved to be our downfall.
The match started out very promising as we won a lot of possession in the centre of the pitch, however the scores were hard to come by. We did manage to raise the first white flag before Grace Park plundered two quick goals. While remaining composed, this meant we were always chasing the game. In a very even battle, we were thwarted more than once as we battled to pull back the deficit.
The second half continued in a similar vein, however in our attempts to gain a foothold, we were left exposed at the back which our opponents cruelly punished. As we continued to plug away, we rotated our large squad and managed to get some success on the scoreboard. In the end, the task proved too big for our brave battlers, and we had to bow out once more at the Semi-Final stage.
We’ll regroup and take stock now as we prepare for the start of the Hurling leagues in the springtime. The lads shouldn’t be disheartened as they performed courageously in every single match and they left nothing in the tank, it just wasn’t our year.
Padraig & Jack
Thanks Padraig and Jack for coordinating the GAA this season, for travelling to all the games and for the reports on each game. Creating lifelong memories for our players.
Homework Club
Dear Families,
We will be restarting Homework Club on Monday the 4th November. The club runs Monday -Thursday from 2.10-3.15pm and is for children from 1st – 6th class. The club is run by teachers from D7ET. We have a small child to teacher ratio, which allows us to support children where needed with homework. The cost of the club is €5 per day.
For more information or to book a place, please book via the following link: Homework Club Term 2
If you have any questions about homework club in general, you can email d7ethomeworkclub@gmail.com
Thanks,
Niamh & Enda
6th class visit National Gallery
On Tuesday Niamh B’s 6th Class along with some of Enda’s 6th Class went to the National Gallery of Ireland for a sketching tour. We spent some time with a resident artist who helped us improve our techniques for line drawing and creating texture. We then drew some sketches of some of the famous sculptures in the gallery focusing on light and shadows and scale. We had a great time and hope to be back again soon!
5th Class used the Halloween festival as an opportunity to experiment with wax resist pictures. This was an old favourite of Ruth’s (our former Deputy Principal), but despite numerous attempts, was difficult to replicate for other classes. This year, 5th Class used a harder card and oilier pastels, with improved results. Well done, all.
Peadar
Times tables Rock Stars
Biggest congratulations to Arthur and Sam for their outstanding performance in Times Tables Rock Stars competition. Times Tables Rock Stars is a maths programme that focuses on improving fluency and recall in multiplication and division. Arthur placed 2nd and Sam placed 3rd in Dublin Primary Schools in the nationwide TTRS competition – that’s out of 1,517 pupils
They also came in the top 50 nationally out of 14,000 plus pupils!
Dream Space Dublin
By Ivy and Adam
Niamh Ní C’s 6th class enjoyed several activities to celebrate Maths Week. We learned some new maths games and created Guess Who fact sheets about ourselves using our knowledge of mathematical skills and representations.
On Friday Enda’s class joined us for an online workshop with Dream Space Dublin to highlight the importance of maths in the world around us.
We started off by focusing on the steps to problem solving. Then we were given the instructions to solve 4 problems in order to get a password to a website. The questions ranged from multiplication to finding the area of an object. We finished the problem solving and logged onto the Blockbit coding website.
We were shown by two teachers how to work the coding. We opened up a new project on the website and got to work straight away.
The coding was quite simple following the explanation by the teachers. It started off by showing us how to show names and numbers. Next, we learned how to show pictures/pixelated images through LED lights.
We even got to create our own characters through the LED lights, how to create tables-based games and finally we learned how to draw. We used all these new skills to animate images and spell out words.
Finally, they taught us how to randomize different toys, and if we just ‘shook’ the screen it would give us a random one of our drawings.
We all really enjoyed it!!!!!
Enda’s 6th guitar construction
Enda’s 6th class designed and created their own fully functional one string guitars from little more than cable ties, fishing line, old milk cartons and a few screws. The creativity on display in the construction and design was remarkable. Guitars worthy of any glam-rock band!
Cabra Library music workshop
The class also made a visit to Cabra Library where they took part in a songwriting workshop with musician Dafe Orugbo. Dafe got a lot out of the class and by the end they had put together the beginnings of some fantastic little earworms that included both rapping and singing.
Swap Shop
Thank you all for supporting the 6th class swap this morning.
It was a great success & the 6th class children were delighted at how well it went.
This was our first year trialling a swap shop and we will definitely try it again next year. We thought there was a lovely sense of community & good spirit from all involved. It was also a really meaningful lesson in circular fashion for our 6th classes!
Thanks so much Anna for the idea and thanks to our responsible 6th class children who managed the swap shop today and yesterday.
Swimming
4th class continue to enjoy swimming in De Paul pool on Navan Rd every Thursday morning. We really appreciate the wonderful staff and facilities here.
We are very proud of our 6th class student, Rosa, who won bronze in U13 Badminton Nationals Doubles in Lisburn last Sunday.
Well done, Rosa!
Have a lovely weekend everyone,
Fionnuala