Dear Parents,
With just over sixty per cent of this school year completed we are now looking forward to the longer evenings and warmer months. We’ve been continuing with our assemblies and visits to classes and there is lovely balance of work and play ongoing in our classes.
School Calendar to Easter
The H.S.E. have informed us that holding a vaccination clinic in Mountmellick Primary Care Centre on Wednesday 16th March for Junior Infants so they may be absent if attending same. These are MMR and 4:1 Booster vaccinations.
Thursday 17th and Friday 18th March are public holidays. The school will be closed on those days.
Bishop Nulty will celebrate Confirmation for the boys and girls in sixth class on Thursday, March 24th@ 2p.m.
Primary Language Curriculum In-Service Day – Friday 25th March. The school will be closed for children on that day.
First Confession will take place on Monday, March 14th @7.30p.m. in St. Paul’s church in Emo and First communion will take place on Sunday 1st May at 11a.m.
The final day of this term will be the 8th April. The school will close for the Easter holidays on that day.
Parents Association Notices
Our Parents Association had their first face to face meeting for some time on Tuesday 1st March. Among other things agreed at the meeting, the PA will be providing treats for second class after their First confession. Each class will also be provided with an Easter egg to raffle. Board games for the children for wet days were purchased recently and the Parents association are kindly funding same (€887). There was also funding ratified for educational assessments and plans made for two events up to the Easter holidays.
Wednesday 16th March will be a Lá Glas (green day) where children are encouraged to wear green into school on the day. The Parents Association will collect either €2 per child on the day or €5 per family. The Lá Glas will coincide with Seachtain na Gaeilge events that are planned at that time.
The school will host a cake and book sale on Wednesday 6th April. We will provide more details closer to the time.
See details regarding the Ukrainian Refugee Appeal at the following link.
https://www.emons.ie/ukranian-refugee-appeal/
Health and Safety
Parents have reported a couple of dangerous incidents in the car park over the last few weeks. Our teachers have revised safe cross code procedures with the children and gone through how they should only walk in the car park and use footpaths as much as possible.
Please see the document at the link below which guides how we use the car park outside the school gates. It’s important for the safety of all the children and adults using the car park that these guidelines are observed. It is particularly important that you make your child minder, grandparents or any other possible car park user aware of these guidelines.
Many thanks in advance for your co-operation on this important matter.
Enrolment
Our current enrolment is 209. The attendance for this school year so far has been 90.7% We recently enrolled 25 pupils for junior infants for the next school year.We will meet with new parents and children on Friday 1st April here in the school at 1.30p.m. More details later.
Special Class
As you are aware one of two special class has now been sanctioned for our school in line with Department of Education and Skills (DES) criteria. The second class will open subject to demand. The Board of Management submitted an application for the building of these classes last October. This application is being processed at the moment and will include the provision of a backup heating system for the school.
In the meantime, the DES has approved the provision of temporary accommodation for Sept 22. The Board of Management will work towards putting that in place in a suitable location on the site to allow for building to take place at a later stage.
Scholastic Book club
Closing date for purchasing books for your child is next Monday March 7th.
If your order is over forty euro you can have it delivered free to your home address. All other books purchased will be delivered to the school for convenience and the school will distribute accordingly. The school also gets credit for books purchased and can subsequently use the credit to purchase books for class libraries.
Go to https://schools.scholastic.ie/emo-n/digital-book-club to browse the latest books and order online.
Curriculum
Carmel Linehan, PDST is still supporting the staff of the school with the new language curriculum. Her latest visit was last Friday 18th February. Her final day with staff will be a in-service day with all staff and school will be closed on that day. ( Friday March 25th )
The focus has been on:
- Gaeilge –
- English – writing genres
- Planning
Mathletics
Well done to all the boys and girls engaging with Mathletics each week. Mathletics keeps maths fresh, varied and enjoyable. The combination of exciting interfaces, awards and rewards ensures engagement with the activities. Children in our school have succeeded in acquiring 172 gold certificates, 533 silver certs and 2,738 bronze certs in this school year. Well done to all. See second class enjoying some Mathletics activities here.
Sports
Football leagues have started for 3rd 4th 5thand 6th class children. Football leagues for 1st and 2nd will commence after the mid-term break. See our 3rd and 4th class teams at this link.
Hurling coaching will start next week for third and fourth classes.
Cumann na mBunscol leagues have re-started.
Chess ongoing with 3rd class
Bluiríní; Snippets
- Sincere thanks to Paula Crowley and the previous Parents Association committee who made an application for funding for our Special class. They were successful in in acquiring €5,618.55 to cover the cost of IT and sensory equipment for the special class.
- Our thanks to Gary O’Keeffe member of Board of Management, who has been an excellent help on our application to the DES for the building of two special classes.
- Pancakes Tuesday ; The children had a great day on Tuesday. Our thanks to Ms. Casey and TY helpers, Louise Doyle and Katie Donoghue for their wonderful work on the day. See some pictures here.
Kind regards,
Cyril Duggan