October 2018

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