Nuacht 26/02/2018
Dates for your diary
26 - 28.02.2018: Fair Trade Focus
27.02.2018: Cross Country League, Porterstown 10:45am
01.03.2018: World Book Day
02.03.2018: School closed for staff child protection training
09.03.2018: 4th class assembly, 9.30am
12.03.2018: Seachtain na Gaeilge
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Hopefully all junior infant parents found their parent teacher meetings last week informative.
Enrolment Policy Review
The Board of Management is seeking your views on our school’s enrolment policy. Please see the draft policy 2018ConsultationDRAFT_EnrolmentPolicyCETNS.pdf and send any comments to secretary@cetns.ie for review. The closing date for comments is Monday 5th March.
Fairtrade STEM Family Project
As you know, February’s STEM Project is to create a Fairtrade themed object/artwork using recyclable materials. Let’s hear about one of the Fairtrade projects we’ve received!
Conor (Aoife and Mary's 1st class) designed a fair trade town named ‘Fair Ville’ built with recyclable materials. The residents of Fair Ville even have their own cinema! Using a clever pulley system, a ‘movie’ can be played telling us the importance of buying Fairtrade products. Conor sent us a video of his working cinema in which his sister Aisling uses her homemade acoustic microphone puppet called ‘Fred’ to narrate the movie! Great ideas! We are very much looking forward to seeing it in school next week! https://youtu.be/FAU_a6YxTAA & https://youtu.be/r-BhAk3nFXE
We will exhibit all projects in the foyer from Monday 26th to Wednesday 28th from 1.40pm to 2.40pm. Why not call in and take a look?
Engineers Ireland Twitter Post
Last week, we were delighted to discover that Engineers Ireland praised our STEM Family Projects on their twitter page. The link to the twitter post is here: https://twitter.com/EngineerIreland/status/964165948906332160
Engineers Week
Check out www.engineersweek.ie for local events and activities during Engineers Week from February 24th to March 2nd. Also check out our STEM section on our new school website.
Third Class Trip to National Museum of Ireland
On Wednesday 14th February both third classes went to the National Museum. It took about 45 minutes to reach our destination, only to find out that the bus brought us to the Natural Museum of Ireland while we were supposed to be at the National Museum of Ireland. As we started walking towards the museum we came across a bunch of protesters outside the Dáil from Tory Island who were protesting about needing a better boat. Eventually we arrived at the correct museum. We entered the museum, the main hall was big and beautifully decorated. The two classes split up into six groups. Jill’s class went to see the Egyptian exhibit while Karen’s class went to see the Stone Age and Viking exhibit. Karen’s class enjoyed seeing the bog bodies and interesting looking artefacts at the Viking exhibit. Some pupils enjoyed sketching. Soon Jill’s class and Karen’s class switched. At the Egyptian exhibit entrance a man handed out Egyptian worksheet booklets which we used to go on a scavenger hunt where we learned about mummification, amulets, shabti figures, Egyptian boats and the river Nile. We had to write our name in hieroglyphics. Finally we went to Early Christian Ireland exhibit and saw the Ardagh chalice and the Tara brooch. It was lots of fun and we learned lots that day.
By Matteo Sereno & Thomas Gunnell
World Book Day
World Book Day is being celebrated in Ireland on Thursday 1st March 2018. The aim of World Book Day is to promote the enjoyment of books and reading and to encourage children to participate in reading activities. Each child in the school will receive a World Book Day token. This can be used to swap it for one of the World Book Day books available in bookshops. Here in the school classes will be engaging in a variety of book activities. Those behind ‘World Book Day’ are running a campaign encouraging all children to ‘Share a Story for 10 Minutes’ on World Book Day and beyond. We are very fortunate in CETNS that there is already great enthusiasm amongst children in our school to read and that parents in our school embrace this so strongly and encourage it. It would be great if any Garda Vetted
Parents were available to participate in book activities on the day for e.g. Read a Story to a class/Talk about your favourite book as a child etc. If you would be available please let your child’s class teacher know. For lots of ideas on how you can make story time fun as well as advice on sharing stories with children and promoting a lifelong love of reading please have a look at www.worldbookday.com. Thank you, Sharon.
Old Toys
If any parents have any old train sets/Lego/dinosaurs/memory card games/dolls clothes/Mr potato head/small trucks/cars/planes/play food, it would be great if they could pass on to me at school for some pupils we are working with. Thank you, Sharon.
FairTrade Focus February 26th - 28th February
There will be a FT display in the foyer, where displays of the children's Fairtrade art/projects/FT products such as a football/t-shirt/cotton bags etc.will be on display. All classes will learn about the importance of buying Fairtrade and some of the children can go on a Fairtrade product hunt and bring in any Fairtrade packaging to their class and some of our pupils can use the packaging to make their FT stem project. One of our parents, Caitríona has made an excellent powerpoint slide on FarmDirect, a step above Fairtrade and she will be showing this presentation to Jill's 3rd & Aidan's 4th classes, thanks Caitríona! We invite parents to come in next Thursday 29th and see our Fairtrade display, as well as our FT stem projects. Parents are welcome to view them from 1:40-2:40pm or come in before or after school when dropping off/picking up your child(ren).
Check out what is happening for Fairtrade Fortnight on a national level, running from 26th February – 11th March at https://www.fairtrade.ie/get-involved/fairtrade-fortnight/
Chinese New Year
Aoife and Mary's first class would like to thank Shelly for coming in and teaching us about Chinese New Year. Shelly taught us that red is an important colour because it wards off evil and it's a symbol of happiness and prosperity. She also taught us that the fish is a symbol of abundance. Chinese people decorate their homes with red and wear red clothes for Chinese New Year. 2018 is the year of the dog. Shelly also taught the children how to make Chinese lanterns.
Thank you so much for a very enjoyable lesson Shelly! 新年快乐
Blanchardstown Credit Union Quiz
On Tuesday the 20th February our Senior Quiz Team participated in the Blanchardstown Credit Union Quiz at Scoil Bhríde Buachaillí. The quiz team consisted of Saul, Matthew, Adam and Ilya. There were ten rounds with ten questions in each round and we answered 85 out of 100 correctly, which was only 6 points less than the winner. At the end another school answered 85 questions correctly and we were involved in a tiebreaker for 4th place. There were two rounds of the tiebreaker as we both answered four out of five correctly but in the second tiebreaker we beat them by one point and gained 4th place.
The first four teams went through to the CUDA final which will be held on the 3rd March. The four teams who progressed were St. Brigid’s, Scoil Oilibhéir, Mount Sackville and our school.
We thoroughly enjoyed this experience at the Blanchardstown Credit Union Quiz and thank you to everyone who helped make this event happen. By Adam, Ilya, Matthew (Liz’s class)
Bus refund tickets
There will be a Jack and Jill refund bus ticket box in the foyer so if you /any of your children have unused bus refund tickets, please place them in the box.
Extra-Curricular Activities
For anyone who may be interested in the orchestra:
If your child would like to learn an instrument, now is already a good time to start planning for next year! Kylemore Music College enrolment begins in March 2018. Lessons there cost 400 euro for 33 half hour lessons and include a weekly hour long theory class. It’s a very good option for an excellent all round music education.
(see http://www.kylemorecollege.ie)
We have only one pupil who plays the cello. If anyone is interested in learning this wonderful instrument, there is a possibility of having an experienced cello teacher to come into CETNS before school starts on Tuesdays. As with all extra-curricular activities there would be a charge for this. Please let Romey know if you want to explore this option. Alternatively, you could enrol for the same teacher (Jane Hughes) in the Kylemore College above. Remember, the enrolment is beginning next week so don't leave it too late if you are keen. Of course the local music schools; Castleknock School of Music and Keenan School of Music are also terrific
(http://www.keenanschoolofmusic.ie/ or http://www.castleknockschoolofmusic.com)
CETNS Easter and Summer Camps ’18
(Easter: Mon. 26th – Fri. 30th March & Summer: Camp 1: Mon. 2nd – Fri. 6th July; Camp 2: Monday 9th – Friday 13th July)
The CETNS Easter and Summer Camps will be back again this year. Application forms will be handed out shortly. Please email JP at cetnssummercamp@gmail.com to enrol your child or for further information.
Parent Teacher Association
We hope lots of you can come along to PTA family weekend events!
Sunday 4th March: Family Walk, Location: The Hellfire Club @ 1pm
Keep an eye on the PTA Facebook/Twitter, the walk might be rescheduled if weather is bad.
Saturday 10th March: Family Céilí, Location: School hall 5-7pm.We'll be setting up/decorating the hall from 2.45 to 3.45 of Friday 9th March and from 4.30 on Sat 10th , if you can help, email cetnspta@gmail.com or come along on the day.
Next PTA meeting: Wednesday 14th March, Location: St Brigids Community Centre beside the Church in Blanchardstown Village at 8 . 30 pm .
Beir bua, Aedín and Andreas