MOVEmber

Alan, who has been teaching in 1st Class for the past few weeks, has taken on a goal of doing 600,000 steps in the month of November to raise funds for the Movember Campaign which supports mens’ health organisations. A collection will be made tomorrow at drop-off in each classroom, and all the children will be involved in trying to join Alan in being active by walking or running tomorrow at the school. Thanks in advance for your support.

Parking

Please exercise caution when dropping off and collecting children before and after school. It is very important that all parents ensure a safe arrival and departure for the children. We’d ask that a one-way flow occurs, with parents turning at the top of the road before entering the Garraí Dhónaill estate. Turning in the middle of the road, and particularly at the first bend, is causing a safety problem. Also, please park in the direction of the flow of traffic rather than crossing to the opposite side. We are working on a clear plan for this with signage and request your cooperation in the interim.

Flu Vaccine

The HSE is providing free flu vaccines, available from pharmacies or your child’s GP, for children this year. The are administered using a nasal spray. For more information, see

https://www.hse.ie/eng/health/immunisation/pubinfo/fluvaccination/flu-vaccine-for-children/

Parent-Teacher Association

Many thanks to those who attended the PTA meeting last night. It was agreed that the same committee will continue that was elected last year for the balance of this school year. There was a good conversation about how parents can be involved in supporting the school under the present circumstances. More details will follow about plans for fundraising, creating a group of volunteers to help tidy the school premises and plans to make drop-off and collection times more safe.

Green School

Many thanks to all the children who are bringing in reusable drinking bottles. Our recent survey showed that of the children who had a drink container, 96% had a reusable bottle. This is a great start! We have some reusable water bottles and distributed those to children without one. If anyone would like one, please speak to Matt. Our goal is to use 100% reusable drinking containers in our school. Of note, some children didn’t have a water bottle with them. It is important to always have water to stay hydrated. Also, well done to the many children who made such a great effort to remove as much single-use packaging from lunch boxes as possible. The range of healthy options being brought for lunches is commendable. Keep up the great work! Below are photos of some of these amazing lunches.

STEM Activities

Our Science Week activities continued this past week. One highlight for 3rd and 5th Class was extracting banana DNA with the help of Cell Explorers. 5th Class also have been busy over the last few weeks doing Scratch programming with Claudia. They are in the process of making pac-man games.