Nuacht 03/07/2018

Nuacht 30/06/2018

Dates for your diary

03.09.2018 School starts 9am

Coffee Morning for incoming infant parents 9-11am

06.09.2018 After School Activities Registration in hall from 1:30-3:30pm

Dear Parents/Guardians,

We hope everyone is continuing to enjoy the sunshine & particularly as the Summer holidays are here. Always remember to play safely in the sun, most especially near roads or water.

As with all academic years at CETNS, when they come to an end sometimes we can be a little sad & at other times we celebrate the achievements of the past year. Many projects have been completed and more to be done, but they can wait until we return refreshed.

We would like to say slán agus go raibh maith agat to a few staff members and welcome a few new ones too! Last Thursday we hosted a school assembly to wish Mary the best on her upcoming nuptials, thank John & Karen for their hard work as they move on. We wish John the best of luck with the Laois football team & Karen will be seconded to the NCSE for the next academic year. We also said goodbye to some pupils who will be moving away or moving on & we sang 6^th class out of the hall with ‘Thank you for the Music’. It was a lovely assembly overall but particularly as we said slán to Patsy Powell and wished her the very best in her retirement. Patsy has been with CETNS since 2001 and has worked tirelessly in her role helping the children. The staff and children shared many happy memories of her time here and we all chanted the Patsy-Dubs chant in her honour, thanks JP! We hope you have a long and happy retirement Patsy and hope you will not be a stranger but visit us from time to time!

We would like to welcome Aoibhinn & Aishling to the CETNS team for next year. Aishling will work as special needs assistant and Aoibhinn will be teaching 1^st class. They are both looking forward to the year and getting to know everybody.

Next year brings a few changes to classes & below is a list for reference. Please note at times some changes are unavoidable but these are the arrangements at this point. As you will see there are some classes traditionally upstairs who will move downstairs for next academic year for safety reasons. All children will line up in the yard and be brought to class by their teacher as usual on the first day.

School calendar 2018/2019 is online see School Calendar | Castleknock Educate Together

6^th Class Graduation & 5^th Class Helpers

Congratulations to our wonderful 6^th classes who worked tirelessly the last few weeks in preparing for their graduation. We all had a wonderful night & wish to thank staff & parents from 5^th classes who helped out on the night. A particular word of thanks to the 6^th class children who were a fine example to the younger pupils in the school over the past year. Though there were a few tears shed in the last few days we know the children will go forward to their secondary schools and shine brightly as they go! Maith sibh Rang 6.

The Green Team had a fantastic year: we were working on our 8^th Green Flag theme of Marine Environment and Karen's class made fabulous projects (which are on our Green Team board), we had a school competition for our theme slogan (also on the board). Sarah Cooray from 4^th won the Green Schools Water and the Environment art competition with her beautiful painting which has been framed and will be displayed in the school.

We also did litter-picking in the yard and decided to ban popcorn from the yard towards the end of the year as it was our no. 1 litter in the yard

Thanks to Green team helpers who sowed & tended to plants and painted ladybird stones & beds, Alben for putting up fairy doors, Romey's husband, Séamus, for making the fairy doors, Andreas for the donation of flowers from polytunnel to flower beds, and Paula McGuinn for kindly donating butterflies/paints/wooden spoons and lots more.

Gardening Club: thanks to all the members who worked so hard, weeding, sowing and watering seeds to make our school an even greener school.

Days of Action for Juniors & Seniors: started with COWOW, spring clean litter pick up, sowing seeds and flowers, painting our flower beds, fairy doors & ladybird stones.

Green School- Say No to Single Use Plastic!

We are very lucky in CETNS that our children are so passionate about making a difference in the world. Our school is one of a handful of schools to be working on Green Schools Ireland’s newest green flag theme, Care of the Marine Environment. We aim to explore current threats to marine life namely marine litter and global warming and discover how we can help.

During year one, the Green Team enthusiastically raised awareness of our new theme. They held regular meetings, reported back to their peers, ran a whole school slogan competition, came up with amazingly creative ideas which culminated in painting, planting and creating areas of interest in our school grounds during our Green School Day of Action on the 6th of June 2018.

Even though we are not a coastal school, we can all make a difference by reducing our plastic usage and reusing and recycling the plastic we do have. Think globally, act locally.

The Green Team ask that if you are replacing your lunchbox or drinks bottle this summer, please consider one that will reduce the need for any single use plastics i.e. cling film, plastic straws, single use plastic bottles. We would love to dramatically reduce single use plastic in our school.

Thanks for your support.

The Green Team

And of course a special thank you to Elaine, Paula & the Green Team for co-ordinating another fine year of improving the CETNS & global environment at CETNS.

Student Council: as well as our monthly meetings where we discussed important issues such as Playworks, chickens, fundraisers etc., we organised our Shoebox appeal for the Homeless at Christmas, the Red Day Cake Sale where all of the proceeds went to Medecins sans Frontieres to help the Rohinga in Burma. We also went to The Dáil and met TD Jack Chambers and had a tour of the Dáil. Finally, we held our final fundraiser on June 27^th: The school Pyjama Day where we watched a movie in the hall and children brought in €2 as well as wearing their favourite pyjamas to school. We saw lots of pjs even though it was very warm & we managed to raise €612.80c. Thank you to all who supported the day!

CETNS Summer Fair Fundraising

The school and in particular the SEN team would like to thank the organisers and volunteers of the Summer Fair for all their work and efforts in fundraising this year.

Nearly €4000 of the funds have been used to purchase a complete set of leveled readers for use in Power Hour and learning support. These beautiful books are a much more finely graded series than our current stock and will be invaluable in enriching literacy education for many years to come. In addition to the colourful books, which include a variety genres, the bundle purchased includes full set of books for listening stations, online access to books (within school), and a comprehensive set of teacher resources. Here is a picture of the books...organised and ready for September!

Remaining monies will be put towards the Friends for Life/Fun Friends programme.

Sincere thanks for all your hard work raising the funds,

Special Education Needs team

Congratulations to Liz’s 6^th class who won 2^nd place in the "Different families, same love" competition. Well done to all.

Well done to all classes for taking part in the Science Foundation Ireland Discover Science & Maths Awards. Everyone was given their lovely certificates which arrived in the last few days of term.

C.E.T.N.S. Summer Camps '18
Camp 1: Mon. 2^nd – Fri. 6^th July; Camp 2: Monday 9^th – Friday 13^th July

Please email JP at cetnssummercamp@gmail.com to enrol your child or for further information.

Wishing you all a happy Summer holiday & a good rest.

Beir bua,

Aedín