Dear Parent/ Guardian,

Please note the following information-

• All the children are involved in the ‘Food Dudes’- this runs up until mid-term break. At the
moment your child tastes raw vegetables and fruit daily. For example yesterday they tasted
cucumbers and oranges. All we ask is that the children try each piece of fruit or veg. They
receive daily prizes-e.g. pencil case, fridge magnet etc. The premise is that if children taste
fruit or veg a number of times they will acquire a taste for it. This is sponsored by the Dept.
of Education and also the Dept of Health. The fruit and vegetables are delivered fresh each
morning. The children love it!!
• Staff Meetings- Please note that we have been directed under the Croke Park Agreement
that additional planning hours are in place for staff. Therefore from now on staff meetings
take place after school. Therefore, staff meetings on the calendar in February and onwards
will not involve a half day and your child will be in school and finish at their usual time.
• MMR Booster will take place on the 6th April in school. Further info will follow
• We have secured a grant towards I.T. We are working with Joe Kane who kindly helped us
with our website, in opening a computer room. This will involve a lot of work but the
children then will have weekly access which will be timetabled to involve I.T. in their
curricular work. Work will begin shortly. Thanks again to Joe for his huge support to the
school in the area of I.T. development in the school.
• The LOTTO raised sufficient funding to purchase school jerseys. Thanks to all whom have
supported this in particular Gearoid and Maeve. The next target is to purchase additional I.T.
software and equipment. The Students’ Council have asked to be involved in the sale of
tickets on a Friday morning. Anyone who wishes to sell tickets please contact us, whether it
is weekly or the odd week.
• Our new school has been sanctioned for planning-for 2012. We have not received any
details regarding the site etc but as soon as I know I will let you know new developments.
Our enrolments for the next five years are substantial. Thanks for all your support and a big
thank you to John Hansen our Chairperson who has been a great support to the school in all
areas of the school’s development this year.

• We have a new teacher who has started with us -Sorcha as a part time resource teacher.

• We are changing the role of support teachers in the school. Traditionally in most schools
children have been withdrawn in order to get support. We have put a huge amount of work
in providing in-class support. Withdrawal still occurs but the method we are using ensures
that more children are receiving support and high achieving children are also being targeted.
Please note that support teachers work with children who are very bright and children who
need a little/more support in different areas. As this is a new development and is backed by
research as the ideal method of integrated support, it is being rolled out slowly as we are
testing and monitoring progress. I would like to acknowledge the huge work staff have put
into this development and also their willingness to adapt their teaching in allowing these
initiatives to go forward. The progress is as follows-
Integrated English - Mike and Aoife’s class - Twice weekly support teachers and class teachers take
small groups of children and work with them on reading and reading strategies. This also leads into
English Writing. Children are grouped according to ability not class/age. Support teachers who work
with these groups in addition to class teachers are: Sinéad, Viv, Sarah, Gearóid. Infant classes
already integrate their English and children are grouped accordingly.

Integrated Maths- Children are most at risk of failure regarding Maths at the age of 7-8 years.
Research shows that if children have not grasped basic Maths skills at this age, as they progress the
gap widens. Therefore we are targeting Aoife and Dee’s class as a preventative measure (1st class-3rd
being our targets). Both classes are multi-grade. Support teachers involved are as follows: Gearóid,
Sarah, Geni, and Sorcha. Dee’s class also will have integrated English with Sarah, Geni, and Gearóid
as a support.

We will then progress to Joe’s class for the latter part of the year, targeting Maths. Joe’s class is a
single stream class.

Please note- children spend a huge amount of time learning reading strategies and also word
recognition skills when in the Junior Classes. The readers they have simply reinforce the words, but
not the strategies at home. The teacher must cover these readers but children whose fluency is good
will find these readers easy and will progress to parallel readers. However, reading and the English
Programme involves the use of many reading strategies that must be developed. Therefore a child
who can read fluently must also develop reading strategies and skills such as –recall, summarising,
characterisation, close procedure, prior knowledge settings, prediction etc. for when they reach
senior classes/2nd level. Further information re integrated teaching will be placed soon on the
website.

Parking- Parents are not permitted to park on the roundabout. It is causing problems in the morning.
Please park outside/drop your child off outside the school.

Wellbeing Night-next Thursday @ 7-9pm.On the Friday Beauty treatments are available at a reduced
cost. If you wish to make a booking, please contact Lorraine or the office. Examples of price are
Facilas-10-20e, eye lash tine-7e. All proceeds go to the Marie Keating Foundation. Please come along
as this will be a nice relaxing night! The children will be involved the next day and will have a day
involving yoga, relaxation, sport etc. Parents are coming in to make smoothies and the children have
chosen the fruit that they want in their smoothies!!

School Reports will go out either next Friday or the following Monday. The Parent/Teacher meetings
are on the 9th of February and teachers will send out appointment times soon. Please note the
meetings are scheduled for 10-15 minutes. If you find on the day you need longer you can make an
appointment with the teacher for another day.

Milk-We often have extra milk left over. It is placed in the fridge outside Claire’s office-please take
some as we often have to throw it out.

Mise le Meas

Sinéad