Newsletter 15th October 2016

Dear Parents and Guardians,
I hope you're all well and enjoying the weekend. 
With just two weeks to our mid-term break I'd like to update you on what's been happening and what is planned for the coming weeks.

• Maths Week will be celebrated with parents helping out with Maths Activities between 8.30 and 9.00am on Tuesday 18th and Wednesday 19th October in all classrooms. Thanks to this of you who've let us know you can join us and if you'd like to help out please tell, or send a note to, your child's class teacher on Monday.

• Book Fair will be held again by the PGTA starting on Thursday 20th October in the Reception area of our school and you are all welcome to buy books at reduced prices which in turn raises money for books for our school.

• Green School Action Day of cleaning the school and surrounding areas with the help of Parents/Guardians will take place on Wednesday 26th October at 12.30pm. Infant Classes will then go home at the usual time of 13.10 and 1st and 2nd Classes and Parents/Guardians will continue the area clean up until 14.10.

• Human Rights awareness lessons are taking place in all classes during October, in line with our Learn Together Curriculum and will culminate with our annual 'Self Expression Day' on Friday 28th October as we close for mid-term break at the usual home times of 13.10 and 14.10. Our  'Self Expression Day' is about dressing up as someone you admire and/or in a way that expresses your personality, your dreams, your moments of happiness etc. The possibilities are endless! We understand that our Infant Classes will see it as a Fancy Dress/Hallowe'en scary costume event and this is ok as this is their expression of themselves dressing up at this stage in their lives. As children get older the aim of holding this  'Self Expression Day' is to encourage them to express themselves and their thoughts and ideas on life.

• Arts: All children in our school designed a shoe in the past two weeks and ten entries from our school, two from each class, were entered into the 'Design a Shoe' Competition at Greene's Shoes in Galway. We will let you know if there is a winner from our school. Most Classes have their shoe designs on display in the main corridor of our school so be sure to come in and have a look as they are really amazing. Our school song this term is 'Hello to all the Children of the World'.

• Active Schools: We've had two 'Move It Mornings' so far this term and I'd like to thank Dora for leading both. If you would like to lead a 'Move It Morning' with any form of exercise/dance please let us know when you could do so. Also if anyone would volunteer to lead the school in a short morning jog around the field below our school, please let us know when you could do so. If anyone has any more ideas for a 'Move It Morning' please let us know.

• Forest Schools: Thank you to our part-time caretaker Brendan Scully who delivered pallets to our garden area and we are going to turn these into a 'Bug Hotel'. Please bring in items that will help to create interesting snug places for bugs to check-in to: small wooden boxes/containers; bits of plastic/clay pipes; wool; bricks; stones; twigs; moss; grass sods etc.. See photo attached.                                                                                                          We are also linking up with Sharon to start planting trees in pots which we can then plant in the earth around our new school building next year. 

• Resource Teaching Meetings and Learning Support Meetings began during the past week and I'd like to thanks Triona, Cillian and all the Class Teachers for their very thorough observations and assessments of the educational and care needs of the children in each class. Remaining meetings with Parents/Guardians will be completed before mid-term break.

• Friendship Bench: if any of you has an idea of how our Friendship Bench can be secured to the ground in th garden area of our yard will you please let us know? It is a pity the bench is indoors on the corridor most of the time and we would really like to have it outdoors for the children to benefit from.

• PGTA: Thank you so much to all of you as our PGTA has made another donation of €3,000.00 to help with our school's general running costs. This is also much appreciated by the Board of Management.                                                                                                              We'd also like to welcome and congratulate our new PGTA committee and wish them the very best for the year ahead. 

• After School Classes: Catholic Faith Formation Classes began with Carmel last Wednesday. A big welcome back to Carmel and best wishes to the children in her class who will make their First Holy Communion next year.    

• Reminders:                                                                                                                                                                                     1. We have a healthy eating policy which we need you to adhere to for your children's lunches and it is particularly important that No Nuts or foods containing NUTS are ever brought into school.                                                                                                               2. Please return UNDERPANTS to school if your child was given a change of clothes during school time. We cannot afford to buy new underwear every week.                                                                                                                                                                                3. If anyone has children's track suits / underwear / socks they could donate to the school we'd appreciate them.                                                                                                                                                                      4. Please take great care of and return reading books to the school. We have spent €9,000.00 on graded PM, Connect and Collins Big Cat reading books for the children and every time one book is not returned it leaves a gap in the grades of readers for other children. 

We look forward to seeing as many of as possible at our Maths Week in class sessions, our Book Fair and our Green School Action Day before we break for mid-term on Friday 28th October at the usual school closing times of 13.10 and 1410. 
Meantime, if there's anything you'd like to discuss please call me on 087 330 1332.
Very best regards,
Collette and all the team at Firhouse Educate Together National School.
Collette Dunne: Principal: Telephone: 087 330 1332