Dear Parents and Guardians,
Firstly I would like to thank everyone who helped make the Quiz Night such a success on the 15th February. Thank you to the two main organisers Alison and Caoimhe, Darren for being a great MC, all other PGTA Committee for their help and support and selling of raffle tickets, to those of you who donated prizes and to all of you who came along to join in the fun and give your support on the night.
There was a lovely sense of community there and much fun was had by all and I hear the amount raised has escalated very nicely to €1,800 for our school. Many, many thanks to you all.
I see our calendar for March, April and into May is filling up very fast as you can see below and details on specific events, particularly the Open Night for our School Community on April 2nd and the Talk for Parents/Guardians on Building Resilience and Self Esteem in Children on May 8th, will follow nearer the time of the events.
World Book Day vouchers will be given out to pupils this week and are valid from now until 31st March. However our school will celebrate World Book Day in May. 
We are delighted to have received a Plum Tree from Educate Together Head Office to thank us for hosting the General Members Meeting last month and we look forward to planting it later this week. If anyone has any hanging plants we could plants we would be delighted to receive same to add to our new frames in the garden area. 
There have been some issues with Garda Vetting so please let me know if you have applied to be vetted but haven't received an email link re same. 
There are also ongoing issues with parking on double yellow lines on driveway. South Dublin County Council had a traffic warden observe parking and pedestrian issues at our school and the mis-use of the drop off zone by families was a noted hazard. Today there was another near miss where a child was almost hit by a reversing car where driver could not see the toddler. Please use the drop off zone only if you are stopping and letting your child/children out to walk independently into school. 
Move It Mornings continue every Wednesday at 8.20 in the yard and thank you so much to (parent) Dora for leading same. It's great to see more adults going in as this is
Many thanks to you all for your ongoing support and if there's anything you would like to discuss please give me a call on 087 330 1332. 
Very best regards,
Collette and all the Team in Firhouse Educate Together N.S. 
CALENDAR of Upcoming Events: 
Value for March: Honesty
4th -  8th march Engineers' Week
5th March: Tuesday: Stay Safe programme begins in each class;
6th March: Student Council Meeting
5th and 7th March: Vaccinations for Junior Infants
8th March: Friday: 1st and 2nd Classes visit to Imaginosity; Yellow Flag Committee Meeting in school 
11th March: Monday: 3rd and 4th Classes proposed rescheduled visit to Cool Planet Experience 
11th - 15th March: Seachtain na Gaeilge
14th March: Thursday: Lá Glas agus Céilí

14th March: Cross Country Races for 3rd and 4th Classes

15th March: Friday: Ceolchoirm
18th March: Monday SCHOOL CLOSED: observance of St Patrick's Day
26th March 9.30-11am: Youth Workers visit from Indiana, USA
Value for April: Justice
Autism Week: April 1st -7th: Amazing Things Happen When.... video clip for all classes
2nd April: Tuesday: Open Night for School Community with guest speaker
3rd April: Eco Week Workshops: Naturally Wild Pollinator Project

11th April: Cross Country Races for 3rd and 4th Classes

Friday 12th April: Madhatters' Day 
Value for May: Trust
Thursday 2nd May: Our school will celebrate World Book Day; 
Wednesday 8th May: Event for Parents and Guardians: Suzanne Lindsay of Foróige will give talk on Building Self Esteem and Resilience in Children and Claire Matthews will talk about the ethos and vision of Firhouse Educate Together Secondary School.

Hello Everyone,
I hope the New Year is treating you all well. We are delighted to let you know of our events for the coming two months.
In addition I would like you to know our PGTA (Parents' Guardians' Teachers" Association) Committee are organising a Quiz fundraiser in Scholars' Pub on the 15th February and they will be sending out details very soon. The proceeds will go towards a Garden Climbing Frame for all children in our school to use as agreed by the Board of Management.
Last night we had a Board of Management meeting and we are delighted to let you know the Board of Management has approved more after-school class applications so we hope to see Chess, Yoga, Gymnastics, Coding and Spanish classes starting later in this term or perhaps in the final term of the year as suits the organisers. Board of Management meeting notes on decisions taken will be on the school website later this week.
If you would be interested in joining a Building Maintenance Committee or a Learn Together Committee please let me know as we would very much like to have more parental input in our school.
Events in Firhouse Educate Together N.S. for January & February 2019:
Green School: We have a new compost bin and we’d like to thank parent Iseult who is working with our green School Committee to ensure it is used properly and that we make progress in saving energy as we work for our second Green School Flag. The Green School Committee had their first meeting of 2019 on January 9th with teacher Suzanne and parent Iseult. 
Forest School: The children have started planting outdoors and will be doing more outdoor work and nature walks as the term progresses. We continue to look after our Community Orchard which has nine apple trees on the grounds of the walk way to Firhouse Community Centre. 
Active Flag: Yard initiatives to encourage sport and exercise as well as movement breaks throughout the school day and PE Classes ensure our pupils get plenty of exercise. Handball and basketball coaching in school time has been arranged for the coming term by Olympic Handball Ireland and Basketball Ireland. Conor will commence GAA training after school later in the Spring Term for older classes. Conor is also discussing possible friendly matches with Rathfarnham Educate Together N.S. and some other schools.
P.E. In Class: P.E. is on Mondays and Thursdays for most Classes and some Classes on Fridays.
Every Wednesday: Move It Mornings with Dora 
Dora is a parent in our school community whose daughter Robin has been in our school since we opened in 2013. Dora is also a qualified fitness instructor and she very kindly comes in at 8.20am on Wednesdays to do ‘Move It Mornings’ in our school yard for our pupils, parents, guardians and staff to join in. Please encourage your child to get involved in our ‘Move It Mornings’ and give good example by participating yourselves.
Yellow Flag: Inclusion with a focus on how we dress was last term’s theme and we are leaving the display up on our main staircase for the upcoming GMM (General Members’ Meeting) on 2nd February 2019. Our focus this term will be on age and will tie in nicely with Grandparents’ Day on January 30th 2019 and with our Roots of Empathy Programme running in Claire’s First Class with great support from Geraldine our ISA and Mum Amanda and Baby Emily. 
Pablo Programme: Understanding our classmates. Dr Sonia Morris of UCD will implement an inclusion of children with autism programme in our Junior and Senior Infant Classes this Spring. The programme forms part of her research in this area. Our school will receive the resources and training from this initial programme to enable us to use it throughout our school. We would like to thank all families of children in Junior and Senior Infants for agreeing to allow their children participate in this initial programme which will then benefit all of our school pupils.
Student Council: Our Student Council have had their first meeting of 2019 on 10th January with Teachers Claire and Suzanne and we’ll share their ideas with you in next newsletter. 
Open Evening for our School Community: At the request of our PGTA we will be holding an open evening for our school community on Tuesday 2nd April 2019. This date coincides week. This will be like a coffee morning in the evening so as all our parents can come along and see our school and all the great creative work that is going on. It will also give everyone a chance to visit our Evergreen Classes and see the Sensory Room. We’ll be talking also about what we need for our school and how we can each help by donating items from home or our time and we can share our hopes and dreams for our school. It will be a most enjoyable and relaxed evening so be sure to join in.  
GMM: on 2nd February our school will host the Educate Together General Members’ Meeting. More details will be circulated once received from our patron Educate Together.
January: Our school value for this month is Respect.
Shared Reading will start in First Class with parents coming in from third week of January.
January 21st:  Martin Luther King Day.
January 27th/28th: Holocaust Memorial Day: Anne Frank story / crocus blooms to remind us of renewal.
January 30th: Grandparents’ Day: we would like Grandparents to come in to talk to the children about how life was when they were children and or to share their favourite book or poem or game. 
Please let your child’s class teacher know if their Grandparent/s would like to come in. This was a very enjoyable day for children and Grandparents when we last did it.
February: Our school value for this month is Love.
February 1st: Saint Brigid’s Day (Christianity) 
February 1st: Imbolc (Ancient Irish Festival) Traditionally seen as first day of Spring.
February 1st: Chinese New Year - Year of the Pig
February 2nd: Educate Together General Members’ Meeting (time/agenda to be confirmed)
February 4th: Start of our School’s Spelling Bee (We love spelling!) 
February 12th: Darwin Day 
February 14th: Valentine’s Day and…
          Cross Country Races begin for 3rd and 4th Classes in Tymon Park
February 18th to 22nd Mid Term Break 
February  25th Exceptional Closure for Special Education Training for all Staff
February 26th to March 1st: Fairtrade Week: Story of the banana.


I'm also sure there will be more as we go along but the above list is certainly a great start to the New Year.
As always if there is anything you would like to discuss please give me a call on 087 330 1332.
Very best regards,
Collette and all the team in Firhouse Educate Together N.S.
Collette Dunne: Principal: Firhouse Educate Together N.S. Tel. 087 330 1332

Hello Everyone,
Firstly, if you or your child/children are baking for Fourth Class' Bake Sale tomorrow, please bring the cakes in to reception area in the morning and place them on tables we will have there especially for them. I'd also like to thank you all in advance for supporting this very first Bake Sale organised by our pupils ...who are very excited about it!
This week in school has been very interesting:

• Junior Infants took their first bus trip of Primary School to the DSPCA and they enjoyed every minute of it.
• Forest School with parent Rachel for Senior Classes was good fun (waterproof shoes would make this activity more comfortable for the children).
• Move It Morning yesterday with parent Dora was energising.
• Children have begun using the school library which parents Deirdre, Edell, Mari, Amanda, Marta and Magda set up with Sinéad of Griffith Barracks MDS and I'd like to thank them again for their wonderful work and the enormous amount of time they put into it over many months
• I had an initial meeting with Aimee and Elizabeth, the Speech and Language Therapist and Occupational Therapist, who will work with our school under the In-School Therapies project we have signed up to. The next step is they will survey the teachers and they will be back in mid November with a plan as to how they can best support our pupils. Meantime I will be sending an explanatory letter to every family in our school as the therapists will work with all children throughout our school.

The biggest news of the week came in today and I'm delighted to tell you our application for a revised Fire Certificate has been granted which means:

1. We may now fit “Hold Closed” devices to the escape doors to outside from Class Base 1 and Class Base 2 in our Evergreen Classes.
2. The Reception area may now be fitted with a hatch (i.e. doesn’t need to be fixed pane of glass anymore), as long as a Fire Curtain (from ceiling to floor) is fitted in the lobby area. The idea is that in the event of a fire, the fire curtain will drop down over the reception hatch area and it will be safe for people to pass and escape. There needs to be a smoke detector near the fire curtain (perhaps inside reception area too) that is linked to the fire alarm system, so that curtain will release automatically if smoke detector detects smoke in the area.

I would like to note our thanks to parent Eamonn Young for advising us in the first instance and putting us in touch with Pro-Fire Consultants who advised us on content and submitted the application on our behalf.


Next week we'll have:

• School Photographs on Tuesday (Junior & Senior Infants, 1st, 3rd & 4th Classes) and Wednesday (2nd & Evergreen Classes)
• Move It Morning with Dora on Wednesday
• Children's artwork based on our Human Rights Book 'My Princess Boy' will be displayed in reception stairwell from next Tuesday
• Update Meeting with Parents/Guardians of children in Evergreen Classes on Tuesday 23rd October at 8.25am
• Self Expression Dress Up Day on Friday 26th October when we encourage children to dress up:  as someone they admire / in a way that expresses their own individual style and personality / in a way that expresses their interests etc. ...... and yes some children will want to wear their Halloween Costumes and that is their right as it is how they choose to dress up for the day. 
• If you've any books, toys, gardening equipment, cups/mugs, fabrics, cushions, bean bags etc you could donate we'd be delighted to receive them. Thank you so much to those of you who have sent in some lovely resources for the classes, library and sensory room over the past few weeks. 

In addition the PGTA are organising a Harvest / Halloween event on Friday 26th October from 18.30 to 20.00, in the school hall, for all families. The poster will be emailed to you all tomorrow with more details.


 That's all for now and if there's anything you'd like to chat about please give me a call on 087 330 1332.


Very best regards,
Collette
Collette Dunne: Principal: Firhouse Educate Together N.S.  Tel. 087 330 1332

Firhouse Educate Together National SchoolMon 17 Sep, 20:19 (8 days ago)

Dear Parents and Guardians,
We are delighted to see all of the children settling into the new school year so well. For the year ahead we are planning a rich programme of events which isn't yet completed but below is a list of current events and celebrations planned for Term 1. We have many more items planned for 2019 which we will publish shortly and in the meantime please note Swimming will start on 30th April 2019 for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Classes.There is also a great set of events planned by our PGTA (Parents', Guardians', Teachers' Association) which we are waiting for the Board of Management to approve in the coming days and then we can send it on to you. Remember to keep 4th October free to join us for the PGTA AGM at 8pm. 
Our Library will soon be having its major opening and many thanks to parents/guardians Magda, Amanda, Edel, Deirdre, Mari and Marta who have worked so well together with Sinéad (former Principal of Griffith Barracks Multi Denominational N.S.) to ensure we have a fully digitised library for our pupils. 
I hope many more of you will apply for Garda Vetting so as you can partake in many in-class activities.
Please also put September 26th 8pm into your diary and come to our school hall to hear our School Choir sing with the Knocklyon Concert Band. This promises to be a very special event altogether. 
Very best regards,
Collette.
Collette Dunne: Principal: Firhouse Educate Together N.S. Tel. 087 330 1332


Events in Firhouse Educate Together N.S. for school year 2018 - 2019: Term 1
Every Wednesday: Move It Mornings with Dora Dora is a parent in our school community whose daughter Robin has been in our school since we opened in 2013. Dora is also a qualified fitness instructor and she very kindly comes in at 8.20am on Wednesdays to do ‘Move It Mornings’ in our school yard for our pupils, parents, guardians and staff to join in. Please encourage your child to get involved in our ‘Move It Mornings’ and give good example by participating yourselves.
P.E. In Class: we continue to have P.E. on Mondays and Thursdays for most Classes and now there will be also be P.E. for a couple of classes on Fridays as we are growing and two days doesn’t allow for all Classes to have sufficient time. Conor is organising the P.E. Timetable and Teachers will give you good notice for Friday P.E. if it applies to your child’s Class.
September: Our school value for this month is Friendship (In our school we celebrate a value from our Learn Together Curriculum each month)
September 19th: Our School Choir will practise singing with the Knocklyon Concert Band in St Colmcille’s Community School from 7pm to 7.45pm.
September 26th: Our School Choir will sing with the Knocklyon Concert Band in our School Hall at 8pm (choir will rehearse beforehand between 7pm and 8pm) 
European Week of Sport: September 24th -28th: we are celebrating this week by rolling out the plan for yard games our 4th Class has announced. They worked hard on this at the end of last year and now have everything ready to go. 


October: Our school value for this month is Equality. Throughout October we focus on Human Rights and finish with Self-Expression Dress Up Day.
October 1st: World Habitat Day: The purpose of the day is to reflect on the state of our cities and towns and the basic human right to adequate shelter. 
October 4th: Tree Day: Forest School Activities throughout the day for all classes. 
October 10th: World Mental Health Day: we will wear odd shoes or odd socks etc to draw attention to the importance of accepting and celebrating difference and having fun in order to keep our minds healthy.
October 10th: Dogs’ Trust visiting 2nd, 3rd, 4th Classes
October 11th: Dogs’ Trust visiting 1st Classes and Senior Infant Classes
October 13th - 21st:  Maths Week: watch how we’ll be integrating fun maths throughout our schoolwork.
October 17th: Heritage Day: Workshops for pupils throughout the day with Lisanne O'Loughlin from the Heritage Council.
October 19th: Educate Together: One Day Together: when all Educate Together schools hold a fundraiser for Educate Together.

October 23rd: Class and Individual Photographs for Junior Infant Classes
October 23rd: Class Photographs only for Senior Infant, 1st, 3rd and 4th Classes. If you would like siblings photographed together or individual photographs taken of your child in Senior Infants, 1st, 3rd or 4th please let your child's Class Teacher know in writing before the 12th October 2018.
October 24th: Class and Individual Photographs for 2nd Class and Evergreen Classes

October 25th: Dogs’ Trust visiting Junior Infant and Evergreen Classes
October 26th: Self Expression Dress Up Day: to encourage children to express themselves their values and their personalities through their clothes. Naturally many of the younger children will want to wear Hallowe’en costumes and that is their right. We will all be dressed up in some unusual way…. perhaps as someone we admire!


November: Our school value for this month is Sharing. We can share our toys, our books, our kind words and compliments, our green thoughts, our news, our helping hands…….
November 7th: Diwali Festival of Light (Hinduism & Sikhism)
November 11th - 18th: Science Week planning underway! 
November 14h: Stand Up! LGBT Awareness: all classes in our school will respond to the story: ‘My Princess Boy’ with art display.
November 16th: World Philosophy Day: Each Class will discuss the topic of ‘Doing Nothing’  and responses recorded with pictures for display.
November 20th: Universal Children’s Day: We will celebrate children from all over the world by playing games from different cultures. Any parents/guardians/grandparents who’d like to come in to share some of their childhood games with our pupils please let your child’s class Teacher know as soon as possible. 
November 23rd: Guru Nanak’s Birthday (Sikhism) 
November 23rd-24th Educate Together Ethical Education Conference: Changing Our Ways, Changing Our World - Educating for a Sustainable Environment.
November 27th-28th: Parent Teacher Meetings


December: Our school value for this month is Kindness. 
December 2nd - 10th: Hanukkah (Judaism) 
December 2nd - 24th:  Advent (Christianity) 
December 19th - 20th: Winter Wonderland Shows (As we cannot accommodate all parents/guardians together in our school hall we will be holding the shows on for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Classes on Wednesday morning 19th and for Junior and Senior Infants on Thursday morning 20th). 
December 21st: Winter Solstice
December 21st: School Closes for Winter Holidays at 11.30am.

Hi Everyone,
The New Year has started very well for us here in Firhouse Educate Together as the children returned from the holidays with a real sense of ease and belonging in our new school building as indeed we on staff did too.

This week our Parent-Teacher Meetings are taking place and I'd like to thank all of you who helped to move furniture, boxes and rubbish around the building today as you came and went from your parent-teacher meetings. That's the kind of spirit that makes a great school community. So, if you're coming in for a meeting tomorrow be prepared to give a hand if you have a few minutes to spare. We really want to get our school into ship shape.

Next Tuesday politicians will meet with the Staff, PGTA Committee and parents regarding the high percentage of children in our school with Special Educational Needs. 

Also if you are free tomorrow evening, Wednesday 17th January, up to 8.30pm, or Saturday 20th January 10am to 12 noon please call in to the school and help us to sort PCs, move furniture, fix furniture, hang noticeboards etc. 

Today we also started our 'Volunteer Sign Up Drive' where we have a table, in yard in the morning and in reception after that, with 7 different school initiatives we'd like you to volunteer to help with:

1. Coffee Morning for Politicians on Tuesday 23rd January 10am -11am in the school P.E.Hall. We need people to speak to politicians, to take visitors on a tour of the school, to set-up and serve tea/coffee and to clean up afterwards. If you are free to do any one of these things on Tuesday morning please sign your name on the page or let your child's class teacher know.
2. Green School Committee: we need two parents to join this year's committee. You would need to be able to attend meetings twice a term during the school day to motivate and encourage the children with recycling, reducing water and energy usage etc. Our teacher Jen co-ordinates our Green School initiative and we're aiming for our 2nd Green School Flag.
3. Forest School Committee: we need parents to get involved with furthering our Forest School programme. You would need to be able to give a couple of hours to gardening and other outdoor activities during the school day throughout the year. If, you can only join us once a month or so that would be great. If Grandparents are interested please encourage them to join us and share their love of gardening with the children. Our teacher Rachael co-ordinates the Forest School initiative. 
4. Active School Committee: we need parents to get involved with developing sports in our school and planning sporting events. You would need to be able to attend meetings twice a term during the school day to motivate and encourage the children to plan Active School ventures. Our teacher Conor co-ordinates the Active School initiative. 
5. Learn Together Committee: we need two parents to form a Learn Together Committee with two teachers and two pupils from each class to further develop the programme in our school. Our teacher Lynne co-ordinates the Learn Together Programme.
6. Student Council Committee: we need two parents to join this year's committee. You would need to be able to attend meetings twice a term during the school day to motivate and encourage the children on the Student Council. Our teacher Sarah co-ordinates our Student Council. 
7. Library Committee: Sinéad (former Principal of Griffith Barracks MDNS) will lead the setting up of our school library on Fridays (start date to be confirmed). Initially, there will be a lot of books to catalogue and scan into the system and there will be the setting up of a library room while we wait to move into our Curved Library downstairs. After that there will be much to do getting the children used to a proper library in our school where we will have sections for books in English, in Irish and in many other languages. 

There will be more opportunities for the Arts, SESE (Social Environmental and Scientific Education), the Book Fair from November 6th to 9th 2018 and  in-class activities coming up later in the year but in the meantime please consider helping with any of the above that you can.
Roots of Empathy: this programme is continuing with 1st Class as the children eagerly await baby Axle's next visit tomorrow. Many thanks to our Special Needs Assistant Geraldine who co-ordinates this programme and to Bernadette for volunteering and being so committed to bringing Axle along and engaging fully with the children. 
Swimming: 1st Class enjoyed their first school swimming lesson last Thursday and we are looking forward to going agin this week. We only left one bag on the bus and we were a little late getting out to the yard at collection time.... so if we are running late this week we will have the children go home from the front door of the school at reception as soon as they have collected their school bags. If we are on time it will be collection from the yard as usual. We would also like to have two parents, from 1st Class, join us each week for the swimming between 12 noon and 14.05. Please let Eamonn know if you can join us.

Photographs: please let your child's class teacher know if you haven't received a class or group photo you ordered from Vincent McNamara.

Clothes Collection: this fundraiser collection continues daily at the school until January 25th. If there's no-one in reception to let you in (our Secretary, Lisa, works from 8.30 to 12.30) please leave bags in the reception lobby or phone me on 087 330 1332. Many thanks to those of you who have very kindly donated already.

Lost Property: the lovely clothes in our school's lost property container in reception are overflowing. If your child has lost clothing please check the Lost Property. Please also put your child's name on their clothes. If there's no-one in reception to let you in (our Secretary, Lisa, works from 8.30 to 12.30) please phone me on 087 330 1332.

Internet: we are still without internet in our school building. The saga is long and the amount of time it has taken chasing after Schools Broadband, Eir, Viatel etc is outrageous but there is light in sight and we should have temporary Wifi working within the next two weeks. Please note we continue to be unable to print / use internet for teaching/learning/roll books/ email etc unless we have data available on our personal phones and these are then dependent on accessing a signal which is very poor in the school. Thank you for your understanding as we struggle on with this. 

ICT: When our Wifi is up and running we'll share with you all the ICT news we have as we've signed up for two exciting initiatives involving Camara, Google and five other E.T. Schools. Our teacher Conor will co-ordinate the projects and our teachers Eamonn, Sarah and Lynne are also involved.

After-School Classes: Drama, Irish Dancing and Ballet are in full swing with Stage School and ArtZone about to start.                                                                                                                                               

CFFC (Catholic Faith Formation Classes) will start on Wednesday 24th January once we have enough children signed up. Please phone me if you wish your child to take part and prepare for First Communion. 

Suggestion Box: our Suggestion Box in reception is feeling very much neglected as it has been empty for months! Our school has had a Suggestion Box ever since our first year in Tymon Bawn Community Centre and it has been very helpful for generating new ideas over the past four years. So if you have any ideas or suggestions for new initiatives or how we can improve anything in our school please drop a note into our Suggestion Box. 

Reminder: School will be closed on Friday 13th April 2018 as Department of Education and Skills holds Language Curriculum Training for our Teachers.

I'm looking forward to chatting with many of you tomorrow as you call in for Parent-Teacher Meetings and or to help with furniture moving etc tomorrow evening or Saturday morning. I'm also looking forward to discussing with politicians, our difficulty, as an inclusive school, meeting the needs of our pupils simply because the class sizes are too large to give children with additional needs an equal opportunity. Most of all, I'm looking forward to your help with this and with all of the above.

​Very best wishes and sincere thanks for all that you do everyday for our school in so many ways.
Collette
​

Hello Everyone,
It is so lovely to be in our new school building and the best part is each class has a classroom and we have a special classroom for Aistear .... and we have our own School Hall for P.E. and so many other activities. This week the PGTA are holding the Book Fair in our new hall. The children are also enjoying the extra yard space and the gardens. 

We are awaiting connection to the internet by Schools Broadband and ask for your understanding as this means we have no internet access as yet and emails are backing up. We are also figuring out the most secure system for children getting into and out of school so please bear with us as we make changes as we go.

However, we are very happy to have such a fantastic building with a beautiful courtyard in the centre around which our sixteen classrooms and Special Needs Unit are wrapped. If you haven't been in to visit yet, give me a call on 087 330 1332 and I'll organise something. Or better still make a date to attend the PGTA (Parents' Guardians' Teachers' Association) AGM on November 28th in the school hall at 8pm. 

We are also very pleased to welcome Gaelscoil na Giúise to our new building too as they wait for their own to be completed.

On Saturday 18th November between 2pm and 3.30pm if you would like to volunteer to do some sorting and cleaning in the school I would very much like your help. Please text me if you're available and would like to help.

On November 28th all classes are looking forward to visiting the Synagogue during school hours. Collection of children will be at the normal times. 

That's all for now and I look forward to seeing you all on the 28th November for the PGTA AGM at 8pm as well as around the school in the meantime.

Very best regards,
Collette

Subject: More sad news.....Hi Everyone,
Well, I must say this week has been stormy from Hurricane Ophelia to our disappointment at not moving into our new school building this weekend. Then, this afternoon we received news that our appeal to keep two teachers has been refused on the grounds that our appeal did not warrant the allocation of an additional post under Circular 0017/2017. The letter also states that the Appeals Board operates independently of the Department and its decision is final.
​
The number of pupils who were enrolled in our school on 30th September 2017 did not meet the required 177 or 182 to keep one or two teachers respectively. Therefore we have to let two teachers go at the end of next week. 
This will result in us splitting our Infant Classes as follows:

• 1 Junior Infant Class with 30 children
• 1 Split Junior / Senior Infant Class with 27 children 
• 1 Senior Infant Class with 32 children including

The other classes will remain as they are. While the teachers of the Infant Classes will work together and have all Senior Infants only  / all Junior Infants only  together for certain lessons we will have to change the base classes to have the above numbers. Next week we will decide the new classes based on criteria of age, ability, social skills, friendships, special educational needs and as soon as we have drawn up the new classes we will talk with all parents concerned. 

In the meantime, I have spoken with our Chairperson Francis Fullen and we will be asking for your help to highlight our need for another teacher. 

Regarding moving to our new school building we hope to have news on Monday as to when the new date will be. Much of our furniture/resources is stored in removal company's container and we're operating with very limited supplies. Depending on weather forecast we may take children out for a day walking along the Dodder. 

I must say our staff have been fantastic this week with packing and teaching and keeping spirits high throughout and not letting the hits get them down at all. Mind you the refusal to our appeal was devastating for everyone today.

Have a good weekend everyone and I hope to have some good news on Monday/Tuesday re moving into new building and I'll definitely have some news on how you can help us to highlight our need for another teacher.
 
I just know next week is going to be a better one for our school! 

Very best regards,
Collette
Collette Dunne: Principal: Firhouse Educate Together N.S.  Telephone: 087 330 1332

Hello Everyone,
With all our resources packed today in anticipation of receiving keys to our new building tomorrow we were all very excited. 
However, it is with great disappointment I'm writing to you all this evening as the handover of keys has been postponed.
Unfortunately, there is currently no further information from the Department of Education and Skills on when the new date for handover of keys will be. We are hoping to hear more tomorrow and I will let you know as soon as we receive any news. In the meantime, we've cancelled all other deliveries etc. 
Thank you to those of you who volunteered to help on Sunday morning and I hope you'll be able to do so when we eventually get access to the building.
So, chins up! Let's show our strength and....... keep calm and carry on doing what we do best..... smiling and making each day a really, really good day.
Have a very relaxing evening.
Very best regards,
Collette
Collette Dunne: Principal: Firhouse ETNS  Tel. 087 330 1332