Christmas Newsletter
School Holidays
The school will close @ 12.30pm on Tuesday 22nd December for the Christmas holidays. The school will re-open on Wednesday 6th January.
Confession & Communion 2021
No date is yet set for 2021 First Confession or First Holy Communion. Confirmation for the school will be next held in 2022.
Thank You!
On behalf of the school, I wish you and your families a happy Christmas. Thank you for your support and co-operation during the first term. It has been a uniquely challenging time for us all.
Despite everything, it’s great to see the that pupils are happy, safe and learning. In that regard, I know that you will want to join me in expressing our sincere thanks to the teachers, SNAs, school secretary and school cleaners who have worked tirelessly during this term. They have been so positive and so supportive of the children, I can’t thank them enough on your behalf.
A special thanks for respecting the car parking arrangements along the front of the school. Thank you also for helping keep our school open as we avoided having to send home any classes this term due to Covid.
Keep safe
As families everywhere prepare to enjoy their Christmas holiday, it is important that we all remain mindful of national guidelines on keeping safe during this pandemic. I appeal to all families to follow the guidelines from the HSE in regard to gatherings, socialising etc. during Christmas. This will maximise our chance of continuing to keep our children at school and progressing their learning during our second term.
Your Child’s Learning
Follow your child’s class twitter account and our school website to get almost daily snapshot of all the great work going on. You will get a glimpse of the superb displays of pupil learning in classrooms and corridors. On-going assessments show that good progress is being made by pupils.
Parent-Teacher Meetings
Parent-Teacher Meetings will be held in late January/early February. More details will follow after the Christmas holidays.
Sports
Gaelic coaching will continue for the junior classes during January. We are very grateful to David McHugh and David McBrien for the many weeks of coaching to date.
Hurling and Tennis coaching will start early in the new term.
Thank you to teachers and SNAs for running the Active School Flag events throughout term 1. The lunch time soccer leagues were very successful and congratulations to the winners and all who took part. We hope to be awarded our Active School Flag in the coming months in recognition of all of the great work going on in our school.
Discover Primary Science
Some classes are participating in the Discover Primary Science initiative run by the Dept. of Education and Skills. Follow their great investigations on the class twitter accounts and school website.
Music
Marian Egan, the school’s visiting music tutor for the past nineteen years, has announced her retirement. Many thanks to the pupils and staff for their gifts and good wishes. Thanks also to Roisin Maloney, a past pupil. Marian has contributed so much to our pupils’ interest in music over the years. The school band will not be the same without her. We hope to have a new visiting music tutor after the Covid-19 restrictions will be finally lifted.
Digital Learning
All pupils are now using Seesaw (junior classes) and Google Classroom (senior classes) on a regular basis in support of learning.
Sixteen new Chrome Books will be available from January for use by the senior classes.
Thank you to the teachers for adopting these new technologies.
Enrolment 2021/2022
The Enrolment Application Form is now available on our website or phone the school office and we will post you on a form.
New School Buildings
The board of management will appoint the Design Team in January for the new €3,000,000 extension. The tender process for applications is now closed. The Design Team will be made up of an architect, civil engineer, mechanical engineer and quantity surveyor. We will share more updates as time goes on.
New front wall for school
The new front wall for the school should start early in the new year.
Charity Fundraiser
Our school Santa Dash fundraiser was held last Friday. The pupils raised almost €200.00 for the Ballaghaderreen Resource Centre. Thank you to everyone involved.
Parent Association (PA) Fundraiser
The PA Christmas Card fundraiser came to €1285.00. Thank you for your support. On behalf of all our school community, we express our collective thanks to the PA for their continuing voluntary support.
SNA
Ciara Cooney, SNA, has been granted parent leave from early in term 2. A substitute SNA will be appointed. We will update you when the new SNA will be appointed.
Nollaig Shona agus athbhliain faoi shéan is faoi mhaise daoibh go léir ó chuile duine i Scoil Naomh Attracta.
