Dear Parents/Guardians,

We hope you are well as we adjust to our first full week back at school. Our news this week is as follows

• Swimming lessons start today for 5th and 6th classes and will run for eight weeks. The lesson is €4 this year due to increase in costs.
• From next Wednesday Junior Infants will have a full infant day in school and will not go home until 1.40p.m. Juniors will then need two lunches – a small snack for small break and a sandwich/wrap/roll etc for their big lunch. We are delighted with how well all our new Juniors have settled into school and they have learnt so much already!
• Thank you to all parents who have paid for their children’s books. We kindly request that any outstanding monies owed for your child’s books be paid to the school office by this Friday 8th September. It is our policy to issue receipts for all monies received for books.
• Literacy Lift Off will start next week in 2nd class and run for the next six weeks. A team of teachers will work with the class for an hour a day Mon-Thurs to develop reading fluency, word attack skills, writing and comprehension. The teachers involved are Ms. o’ Neill, Ms. Riordan, Ms. Hogan, Ms. Halliday and Ms. Fitzgerald.
• Over the last number of years we have used a team teaching approach in many of our classes throughout the school especially for literacy and numeracy. This means that our support teachers work closely with class teachers to deliver tailored and differentiated support to groups of pupils both in the classroom alongside the class teacher or in the support rooms. In some instances the class teacher works with the groups who need more support and the support teacher works with the rest of the class. We have found this approach to be very effective for many pupils. We will continue to work in this way for the coming year. If you have any query or question in relation to this please contact your child’s class teacher or the
• The East Clare Athletics competition will take place on Thursday next 14th September in Lee’s Road. This does not give us much time to train but already Ms. Burke and Ms. O’ Neill have started to take pupils interested in athletics for training at lunchtimes. We wish all involved the best of luck.
• Our Mass to celebrate the new school year will take place on Thursday 21st Sept at 11a.m. in the school hall. Parents/guardians and family members are welcome to attend. If you do not wish your child to attend please let your child’s class teacher know in writing. ( a note in the journal for older pupils is fine)

Kind regards,

Mary Dunlea Fitzgerald, Principal