St. Joseph's N.S. Ballymitty

Weekly Update from Principal

04-October-24
Weekly Update from Principal

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Reminders and dates:

School Closure - next Weds. Oct. 9th

School will close for all classes for Maths Curricular Training for the teachers next Weds. Oct. 9th.

Sing Out Loud

Please see my article about Sing Out Loud which I have updated to say that parents must send in cash with the booking form. We cannot set this up on our usual epayments as various families buy different amounts of tickets. So, fill out the form, send in the cash and when the closing date comes we send all of that to Sing Out Loud

Tesco fundraising

Our school was chosen for the community fund by Tesco Wexford for fundraising for our school. If you’re shopping in Tesco in Wexford over the next 7 weeks, we would really appreciate if you could vote for us using your blue tokens. Monies raised will be divided between our school and the other two groups.

Rackard League

Our Girls play in the District Football Final on Monday Oct. 7th at 2.30pm in Grantstown. Please collect girls just after 2pm.

Boys play in their District Final also on Monday Oct. 7th at 4pm in Grantstown. Best of luck to both teams!

Autumn Harvest Family Day - Sun. Oct. 20th

The local Ballymitty Hall Committee are organising an Autumn Harvest Family Day on Sun Oct 20th. This will be fun family day in Ballymitty Hall with afternoon tea, a harvest market, kids fancy dress, face painting and a spooky community garden! Our school kids will be doing Art for an art competition where the winner in each class will be announced on the day!

Harvest Day.JPG

Parents and Friends Group

We have our AGM meeting this Monday Oct. 7th at 7pm. We hope to chat about Christmas fundraising as well as a Christmas jumper/t-shirt exchange. We also want to discuss our recent Code of Positive Behaviour. And finally, we will be chatting about the school's upcoming 75th anniversary in 2025.

We would love to have at least two parents from each class group. Please share this information across the school WhatsApp groups.

Lunchtime Chess and Lego clubs

We will set these up after midterm break for the children. We will also be looking at a different area/space for kids who don't want to be in the school yard at lunchtime as it can be overwhelming, noise and uncomfortable for some.

Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) and Budget 2025

In our school, we have many children with additional needs who need the care and support of an SNA. We feel our allocation of SNAs is insufficient to meet the needs of some of our children. Don't be fooled by the budget announcement of an extra 1,600 SNAs for our schools. This doesn't mean overnight that we get more SNAs. We have to put in for a review of our current SNA allocation which is a lot of paperwork and once again another battle with the Dept. of Education and the National Council for Special Education (NCSE).

I don't think any parent/person seems to be happy with the 9 million euros planned to help with second level no-phone policies. This money should instead be ring fenced for the following:

  • Extra Special Education teachers to support literacy and numeracy levels for children

  • Additional resources such as Speech and language, Occupational Therapy, physio and psychological services for our children with additional needs many of whom never have an appointment from one end of the year to another.

  • Mental health supports for our children

  • Classroom assistants for our mainstream schools as well as Special Needs Assistants for our children who need extra care and support.

When the election date is announced, as professionals, parents, community members etc. we should all be bringing these questions and ideas to those who will seek our votes. Our little people need us bigger people to fight for them!

Thanks everyone,

Audrey

Hilltown, Ballymitty, Co. Wexford, Y35 YW81.
051 561324
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