Dear Parents/Guardians,
Happy Friday to one and all! No doubt there will be some tired pupils going home this evening, after our first full week back!
New building
This afternoon at 3pm the new building was handed over to us! A huge thanks to the staff and parents who moved the furniture and equipment from our current classes to the new building. This building will be known as An Choill from now on - The Forest (in Irish!). We look forward to seeing the pupils in their new space on Monday. As this is a very big step for some of the pupils it will take some time to get used to their new surroundings. When things settle for the pupils we will open our doors to show off our new wonderful space.
Some new routines from next Monday Sept. 12th
All pupils to line up on basketball court but there will be places to line up. All the pupils have been told where to line up.
The Junior and Senior infants are playing in the new An Choill soft play yard from now on during break and lunchtimes. This is a great space for all the younger pupils.
From Monday onwards, the pupils from Junior - 2nd will line up and go in through the new An Choill front entrance.
From Monday onwards, the pupils from 3rd - 6th will go around the back of the new An Choill building and enter the school through the GP room.
Any latecomers to school should enter at the new An Choill front entrance.
There are steps coming up the new front entrance so we ask pupils to come up those with care. There are new hand rails around the new front entrance and steps, we ask pupils to use these in a safe way.
All of these measures are done to ensure that pupils are not entering or exiting the school near the front car park.
Book bills
We remind parents/guardians that workbooks haven't been given to pupils yet if book bills haven't been paid. We ask you to please pay for books as soon as possible.
Rackard League
Rackard League football games commence next week. Helena will set up a Rackard League group and will keep you posted of all fixtures.
The first fixtures for next week are as follows:
Weds. Sept. 14th at 2pm: Boys play Barntown in Barntown. Leave school at 1.15pm.
Thurs. Sept. 15th at 3.30pm: Girls play Clongeen in Clongeen. Leave school at 3pm.
We ask parents/guardians to arrange lifts to and from matches, to ensure pupils have mouth guards and their own water bottles.
Special Education Teachers and supports for pupils
In our school we have two full time SET teachers and 1 shared SET teacher for two days. These teachers support pupils with literacy, numeracy and sometimes social/emotional needs. Like all schools, our SET team plan at the start of the year the supports that pupils will receive. As per our policy, we must prioritise first the pupils who perform below a certain level on end of year scores in Maths and English. We have huge need in our school and an appeal was sent in last May to seek more SET teaching hours for our pupils. Unfortunately, we did not win the appeal. Our support, like all schools, is a mix of 1:1, small group, in class support and whole class support. Often times, SET teachers are placed in classrooms when sub teachers are unavailable. There is a problem in every school trying to facilitate all the needs and we use our professional judgement and experience to ensure that those with greatest need get the supports they need.
Each year, if a pupil needs support, we ask parents to fill out an input form. This will be sent by a message on the app on Monday. This also allows parents to give permission for their child to get support. We ask that parents get these forms back to us by next Friday Sept. 16th as these forms help us to prepare the programme and plan for each child for the year ahead.
I hope everyone has a lovely weekend,
Regards,
Audrey