CBS Primary School

New Road
Ennis

Extracts from Principals

Reports for the Academic
Year.

Sep. 2016- Jun. 2017

Introduction:

This report is designed to give some general information about our school. It
also gives an insight into some of the curricular, co-curricular and extra-
curricular programmes running in the school. It is not a fully comprehensive
report, but it does convey the level of commitment of all the education
partners to the children of CBS Primary School. We hope you find it
enlightening! If you have any comments, queries or ideas after reading this
document then please do not hesitate to make an appointment with the
Principal. All input is welcome.

Attendance:

Average attendance rate for this year was 94.7%, with nearly 50 students
achieving a 100% attendance record.
Literacy and Numeracy:

The New Language Curriculum. The school had a full in-service day in the Clare
Education Centre in preparation for the national roll-out of the Oral Language
elements of the new curriculum. The implementation begins in the junior end
of the school this September.

Banded Learning is now taking place in all classes from 2nd-6th for Literacy or
Numeracy or both (depending on local arrangements). This has proven to be a
very effective form of in class support, allowing the teachers pitch with
confidence at the appropriate difficulty level and to narrow the range of
differentiation in their planning.

Brid Anne, and Colm expanded of the Accelerated Reader programme this
year. This follows the successful piloting of the programme in Donna Lyttles 5th
class last year. The expanded operation made the programme available to all
classes from 3rd-6th and a teacher from each level received training in its
implementation.

The Literacy Liftoff programme, led by the SEN team, completed its cycle of
intervention for Senior Infants and 1st Class this year. For nearly an hour every
day from Monday to Thursday, the children were visited by a team of teachers
to work on designated literacy stations. The children move from station to
station during the hour and the results after 8 weeks of this were impressive.

Plans are being made to formalise the structure of the Mata Sa Rang
intervention at the junior end of the school for next year. With over half the
staff trained in this approach, the school is now ready for broader delivery in
the classes. Maths is a strong area for this school so the intervention will
hopefully build on that success.
Brid Anne Ryan and Sen Heaslip completed the drafting of a fully
contextualised English Plan for the school this year. This mammoth task has
resulted in an outstanding manual for every teacher in this school and will help
guide planning and delivery of the English curriculum.

The PDST (Professional Development Service for Teachers) was invited to help
us fast-track the development of a First Steps approach to writing. An expert
in the field visited the school on several occasions during the school year to
discuss and demonstrate the techniques involved. This facilitated a renewed
focus on process/genre writing and complemented the good work being done
to improve handwriting standards in the school.

It has been a very effective year and the children have benefitted immensely
from the innovative cutting edge approaches so willingly adopted by the staff.
 Policies 2014/15

Critical Incidents ratified

Parental Complaints ratified

Career Break ratified

3 Year Policy Review Plan Code of Behaviour ratified

Anti-Bullying Policy ratified

CPD Strategy ratified

Child Protection ratified

Job Sharing ratified

English ratified

E-Learning Plan ratified

Sporting Activity Policy - ratified

Academic:

NRIT (Non Reading Intelligence Tests), WRAT (Wide Range Achievement Test)
and BPVS (British Picture Vocabulary Scale) testing were conducted on a large
number of children early this school year to provide teachers with useful
information for their planning and differentiation.

ine Gillespie and Blithn OConnor are currently ran the Friends for Life
Programme with children in a number of the senior classes. Under the schools
last 2 CPD strategy documents, both teachers received training in this clinically
proven programme for developing emotional resilience in children.

For the second year in a row, UCCs Mercier History award was won by CBS
Primary school. The successful history project was by Brian Power in 5th class
who was supported in his efforts by Mr. Spring.

An Erasmus+ project between three schools has begun and will focus on water.
The children of the current 4th class will see this project through to completion
in 2019 and they have already enjoyed first contact with the French over
Skype. With one more round of funding applied for, it may ultimately be
possible to offer the students a trip to either Spain or France during the
project.

Standardised testing results were above average again in all the three areas
covered (Reading, Maths and Spelling). The school wide results are below.
Maths

Reading
 Spelling

Extra-curricular:

Engagement in co- and extra-curricular activities is a particular strength of CBS

Primary School. What follows in this section is just a taste of what took place.
Please do not be disappointed if your activity, event, team or success has not
been mentioned below. There are far more not on the list than on it!

The Cross Country Athletics teams were in action in September at the East
Clare finals. It was surprising that the bus didnt get a flat tyre under the extra
weight on the way home, such was the haul of medals this year. Two of the
teams came first (U10 Girls + U10 Boys), and one team (Over 10 Girls) came
third. All three teams went on to compete in the county finals, joined by an
additional 3 more students who came in the top ten of their events (without
their teams coming in the top 3).
The football teams put in fantastic performances again this year, with the Girls
team narrowly losing out to Ballyea NS in the semi-final (Ballyea cruised home
to an easy victory in the final). The Boys team, however, went all the way to
win the county championship defeating Ballyea NS by 3-4 to 0-3 (a deceptive
score as the match felt an awful lot tighter until the last 5-10 minutes).
Congratulations are due to all the coaches and, in particular, to Mikey Millane
and Garry Bell who trained the Boys team.

The PA have been active as ever, with their new committee appointed and a
very active Facebook page. They put on an amazingly wide range of events
again this year that enriched the childrens lives. Memory making at its best.

There was plenty of activity in the school leading up to Christmas, with a

variety of events organised to raise the spirits ahead of the holidays. This
included a visit from Santa, a trip to the cinema, Christmas Jumper Day and an
end of year Carol Service which we do just for ourselves.

The victorious 3rd/4th class Athletics team retained their All-Ireland crown in
stunningly convincing style this year. Congratulations to all the students
involved as well as their teachers Mr Spring, Mr Bell and Mr Mc Guane.

The school chess team took part in the Schools All Ireland competition in
Dublin during the Easter Holidays and came in 3rd overall. Another amazing
result and proof that the students of this school can list high levels of
intelligence amongst their many proven attributes.

Both sacramental classes were a credit to their families and their school this
year. Special mention should be made of the incredibly high standard of
singing this year, something that was reflected in the dizzying new heights of
quality reached by our school choir this year.
Staff:

There were a multitude of maternity leaves this year, with another significant
selection of teachers to go next year. Although sorely missed, this has allowed
us to blood very high quality new teachers and some of these will soon secure
permanent positions in the school.

Technological:

The school newspaper, The Scribbler, broke new ground this year by producing
its first ever Halloween edition.

On the 4th of October, the children in 4th class attended a talk on cyberbullying.
It was an enlightening experience for them all and timely as they are reaching
that age where their technological ability far exceeds the maturity levels
required to navigate the dangers of the internet to which they are so exposed.
This was followed later in the year by a parents talk on the issue. A second talk
was given, this time to all classes from 2nd 6th, during third term. It is
expected that this will become an annual event.

An Activ Panel, installed into 4th class was joined by 2 more (one in Senior
Infants and one in 6th class) to give us some time to assess their usefulness in
advance of the building works and subsequent ICT equipping grant. The
feedback has been enormously positive.

A school APP has been produced for the school and is currently being
populated with static information. The teachers will be trained how to use it
during the schools ICT summer course and it will be launched with parents in
the new academic year.
An Office 365 system is currently being set up for the school. This will open up
a wide range of opportunities for teachers to expand their practice in class.
One class in particular, Mr Corrys 3rd class, will be exploring the limits of the
new service as they will be using 2 in 1 laptops with a full Windows OS instead
of Kindles this coming year.

Much of the new initiatives this year are a result of the schools new E-Learning
Plan, a document made to build on the success of the last plan.

Operational:

The teachers in 1st and 2nd class completed in service training this year in the
new Religious Education programme, Grow in Love.
The children of 6th class had their confirmation enrolment ceremony on the
15th of November. Following the trend set by the 2nd classes, they were
extremely well behaved and well marshalled (thanks, no doubt, to the efforts
of their teachers Kathleen, Mikey and Colm). Most striking of all on the night
was the quality of the singing. It was the most beautiful and tuneful enrolment
ceremony I was ever at. Congratulations are due to Kathleen Tobin and Yvonne
Lynch for the part they played in this.

82 places were offered and accepted by Junior Infants for September this year

The school had a follow through WSE during third term of this year. It went
very well and we can expect it to be published early in the new academic year.
A new allocation model for SEN (Special Educational Needs) has been
established and will take effect in all schools this September. Its purpose is to
establish a more equitable distribution of a finite well of supports throughout
the system. In general terms, this may eventually lead to middle-class/country
schools losing some access to supports and urban disadvantaged schools
seeing increases. Under the new measurements of need, only the schools in
line for an increase will be affected for the first two years. Any school suffering
a reduction will only have it applied from 2019/20 and in a graduated fashion.
Our school was granted just under 225 hours and will have an additional
permanent post to meet the needs of the children of CBS Primary scool next
year.

The school formed a Mobility Management Plan Steering Committee this year
and its first meeting took place on the 26th of April. The group met 9 times in
total to deliver a fully contextualised traffic Management Plan for the school by
the summer holidays. It was in response to the needs of the building projects
planning application and had representative members from this school, the
County Council, Fergus Park and Rice College.

Some facts about our school

- We are the largest CBS (aka ERST) primary school in Ireland.

- 250,000 students attend CBS schools around the world.

- We are a Fairtrade school because 13 of the countries that benefit from

Fairtrade are also countries where there are CBS schools.

- ERST schools (aka CBS) never had a baptismal block for enrolments.

- There are 37 ERST primary schools in Ireland, with 34 of them Boys Only.
This make us one of only 3 co-educational ERST schools in Ireland.