Nuacht 06/11/2017
Dates for your diary
14th & 16th November Parent Teacher Meetings (arrangements must be made re supervision)
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Board of Management Report for 2016/2017
A report has been sent to all families today from the 2016/2017 school year for your information.
Board of Management Meeting Report
The Board of Management met recently and agreed the following. Summer Fair monies would be spent on some plastic benches for the yard as over the years the wooden benches have splintered and worn badly. The plastic benches are made of recycled materials and will hopefully last a long time. The Sponsored Walk monies will be used to upgrade our PlayWorks equipment which the children enjoy daily in the yard.
School fundraising is an integral part of school life as DES funding falls annually short & the Board wishes to thank all parents for their contributions over the past year. Some items also discussed at the meeting included the upgrading of footpaths around the school, maintenance work on the school yard, the pupil personal accident insurance costs being included in the €100 resource monies fee for 2017/2018, PE equipment purchase request & school enrolments are closed as the school is now full. We also agreed our annual report which will be placed on the school’s website.
Parent-Teacher meetings 2017/2018 will take place for Senior Infants to 6th classes on 14th & 16th November. Please let the class teacher know tomorrow morning if you are unavailable on either date as meeting times will be allocated tomorrow (Tuesday). Unfortunately last year staff reported a number of issues with children misbehaving outside classrooms and indeed meetings being interrupted. Sadly for this reason we are asking parents to make arrangements to have children supervised outside the school building as time for these meetings are limited. This is to ensure all parents have adequate opportunity to discuss their child(ren)’s progress without interruption and disturbance.
Job Sharing arrangements for 1st Class have been progressing the past few months. We are delighted to welcome Claire back after 6 years abroad and she is looking forward to working with the children & Aoife for the remainder of 2017/2018. A meeting for parents in this class will take place at 9:30am in the school hall on Thursday to discuss details of the arrangement and also to give parents a chance to meet with Claire. If you cannot make this meeting, both Claire & Aoife will attend the Parent-Teacher meetings the following week. We hope you can join us.
Special Educational Needs
The SEN Team will meet today with the school’s NEPS psychologist to prioritise the areas for our school in 2017/2018. This day is a valuable opportunity for us to seek support and advice in addressing a variety of special needs areas within our school.
School Calendar of Events
A calendar of monthly events will be put on the school’s website for parents, please note the school calendar is already on our website but this list will give parents an idea of upcoming events the children will be participating in. We hope you might attempt to join us for some of the events including the Science Exhibition & Grandparents’ visit in November. There will be other dates as the year progresses to include events such as Santry Sports, Cross Country events etc. Please keep in touch with the school’s newsletter for regular updates on these.
Substitute Teacher Difficulties
Some parents may be aware of the difficulties schools are having securing qualified substitute teachers. Our school along with all schools in Dublin 15 recently wrote a letter to the Minister for Education & Skills published in the Irish Times recently seeking urgent action to address this matter. A letter is available at the end of this newsletter to explain the difficulties we in particular as a school are having in this area.
Assembly
For our assembly 2nd Class looked at Caring for our Environment with a specific focus on trees. We learned a lot about the different types of trees that can be found in Ireland. We learned all about what they do for us and what we can do to help them. We really enjoyed performing the drama 'The Great Kapok Tree' and singing songs about the environment.
We had a fancy dress walk around the neighbourhood and enjoyed walking with our buddies through the leaves and through the neighbourhood. Many children dressed up in fancy dress and recycle outfits, we had many ghosts, witches, pirates, vampires and quite a few recycle and homemade costumes which looked so professional. We had a lovely day for our sponsored walk and some neighbours in the locality commented on how well we were dressed too! We even met our Community Garda Alex who helped us along the way, thank you. Many parents joined us and helped along the way especially when we were crossing the roads and our buddies were a super help to all the junior classes in the school and especially our junior infants who came on their first school walk, We’d like to thank you all for fundraising & we raised €4,943.66c for our school.
Art
4th class made wonderful faces and eyes by drawing on stones. Everyone's work was unique. Thank you Leisha for coming up with the ideas, gathering the materials, presenting it so well and for taking time to help the children too. Aidan
Familiar faces
Look out for Sophie from Siobhán's 4th class and her sister Alex, a past pupil of CETNS, in the new Tesco ad.
Daily Mile
Well done to 4th class who recently ran a combined total distance equivalent to the distance from Castleknock to Liverpool as part of the Daily Mile. We plan to reach every capital city in Europe by June 2018. Thanks to the mathematicians, statisticians and geographers in 4th class for their interesting and purposeful contributions. Aidan
Letter re Substitute Teacher Difficulties
October 2017
A Thuismitheoir/Chaomhnóir, a chara,
Your son/daughter is entitled to a qualified substitute teacher today as her class teacher is on legitimate/authorised Department of Education & Skills leave. However, despite all the best efforts the school has been unable to source a substitute teacher as there is a shortage of substitute teachers currently. Teachers in the school cannot provide substitute cover for absent colleagues because they are already engaged in full time teaching duties themselves. Consequently, the class has been divided up and the children placed within different classes around the school. I am aware that this is a disruption to the teaching and learning of your son/daughter and will continue to inform the school’s Board of Management and Minister Bruton.
Furthermore under the Croke Park 2 deal, the government cut substitute cover for legitimate teacher absences including those caused by illness and family leave. In particular there is no substitute cover allowed for the first day of many such absences. This means the dividing up of classes again with groups of children going to other class teachers to be supervised while at the same time those teachers must teach their own class.
I am bringing these facts to your attention so you are aware of the detrimental changes Croke Park 2 brought to teaching and learning in our school and in every primary school. It is further compounded by the current lack of substitute teachers and whilst I appreciate the frustration felt by all with the splitting of classes in this manner, schools are unfortunately placed in this position. I would like to thank the staff for their continued co-operation in ensuring adequate supervision of all children in our school despite this difficulty.
Beir bua,
Aedín and Andreas