6th November 2020
A quick reminder that you have a few days left to order your class photos.
https://www.mosphotography.com/store/rmds-class-photos-2020
Don’t miss out.
I'm delighted to report that there is a fresh energy and vigor back in the school. There is a buzz of excitement as the children adjust to their new pods and to seeing all the faces in the same room again. I think everyone needed a break from the routine and I hope that you all found it as beneficial as we did.
There is also a buzz of energy from the staff as we get ready for the second half of a busy term. We have been out planting bluebells all week and look forward to seeing them appear in the spring. Can we hope that it will be a spring free of the things that are making life difficult at the moment.
We are currently trying to organise the parent teacher meetings and find the best way to engage with them.
This is a very important time any year but particularly this year when it is much more difficult for the parent body to chat to their child's teacher. You should by now have received some form of communication from the class teacher about it, as they start next week. If you haven’t please check with the Aladdin connect App.
Junior Infants and Rang a Sé on Tuesday and Wednesday 10/11th
Rang a hAon and Rang a Trí on Thursday and Friday 12/13th
Rang a Dó and Rang a Cúig Tuesday and Wednesday 17/18th
Senior Infants and Rang a 4 Thursday and Friday 19/20th
We are again trying things for the first time so we don't expect everything to be perfect (despite our efforts to be just that) so please be patient with us. You will receive an email the day before your meetings with the link to join the zoom meeting.
Each parent will get 10 minutes. Our big concern is that technical issues will eat into that time. A green school committee meeting found themselves in that boat this week using ‘Google Meet’ so we have switched to ‘Zoom’ for our meetings. If you haven’t used the app before download it and check the sound and video settings before your scheduled time. If there are issues we may have to reschedule rather than go on longer as there may be other parents waiting.
The Board of Management kindly facilitate the release of the class teacher for the two days without any need for half days or a loss of teaching time so if at all possible please try to keep to the two days assigned. Aladdin Connect should allow for greater flexibility in you choosing a time slot that works for you but again it is new to us. If you need to change a time and Aladdin connect isn't allowing you, it is simpler to email the teacher directly rather than replying to the office.
I was delighted to work with a new student council and you can see what they are working on in their report later in the newsletter.
Personally I enjoyed the opportunity to work more directly with the children and look forward to seeing what we can achieve. It is another example of the value we place on the student voice.
The ‘Executive’’s ethos review highlighted a perception the children held in regard to how yard conflicts were solved. In response to this we have as a staff decided to implement ‘Restorative Practice’ in dealing with yard disputes and we will see how this impacts how children feel about yard disputes giving them valuable conflict management skills.
We will be using the following questions; What happened? What were you thinking at the time? What have you thought about it since? Who has been affected and in what way? How could things have been done differently? What do you think needs to happen next?
I had a lovely chat with the past and current ethos representatives from the Executive and the discussion that struck me most was that the recent ethos review is not a report that sits on the shelf to be taken down every few years but a live report that we will be interacting with throughout the year. We hope to be in touch with other elements which were raised in the review throughout the year and years possible conducting other surveys to further clarify how we as a school live our ethos.
I'd like to finish with a huge thank you to the Parents' Association for organising the Halloween raffle and to everyone who supported it, we raised almost double the amount we normally do. Maria Dillon and Théresè Curran are excitedly working on what additions we can add to the sensory room. Much to the disappointment of the PA there were no pictures of my Anika Rice effort running through the school in my blue jumpsuit while being followed by a camera streaming the chase from room to room. (I mentioned this comparison in the staff room and got blank stares, I am getting old ;-) ) It was great fun and it brought a degree of hilarity to the day, you’ll have to take my word for it. Thank you to everyone who supported it and the Readathon whose forms have been returning today along with some very generous donations.
Don't forget to scroll to the bottom of the newsletter to see what has appeared in lost property this week. Anne McCullagh dropped two large black sacks full of last year's lost property to a grateful charity shop. I still am hopeful that we can reduce the amount this year to almost zero if not zero.
And now a trip around the school to see what has been happening.
Paul
By Laoise, Alannah, and Oscar C.
Hello parents and pupils here are some things we (the school council) are going to do for the school.
For the next three weeks Laoise, Alannah, Oscar C, Simon, Iarlaith, Oscar M, Anna, and Zoe will be on the student council. At our first student council meeting we have discussed a lot of things including yard time/duty, suggestion boxes and making things better in school during the current pandemic.
To make yard time better, we decided to have more equipment. We are also going to make suggestion boxes. For every class there will be two student council members that will lead the class and take their class’s ideas into consideration.
This week has been a little different for Rang A Sé. Our usual teacher, Ms. Grennan was not in school this week so we had a substitute teacher named Ms Fitzgerald. We have learned a lot, and had a lot of fun with her. We are really grateful to have gotten this opportunity to do different things.
Here are the highlights:
On Monday we got introduced to our new teacher in a fun way, playing three truths and a lie. We even learned some new fun facts about our classmates. We also got some new yard equipment because the student council requested it so we got the opportunity to test it out first!
On Thursday we did PE, which this week was rugby. In rugby we learned some techniques that we might use in future matches. Ken, our rugby coach was very understanding of the fact that it was some of our first times playing! Later that day we did some art and we used fun colours to represent, what we felt a Beatles song’s lyrics were about.
On Friday we enjoyed some brownies to celebrate the end of the read-a-thon and to say thank you for the funds we collected from the Halloween raffle.
In conclusion we had lots of fun this week and are looking forward to seeing Ms Grennan next week.
Anna BC and Sarah
By: Cillian Doherty and Isabel Moran
The last day of day before mid-term everybody dressed up for Halloween.The parade was really cool and loads of people came out to watch us including the guards. We also had a competition to see who had the best costume. We voted for the top five they were, Tara-Rose, Isabelle W, Ben, Milo, Art and Jack. In the end Isabelle W won the best costume, she got a skeleton trophy as her prize. Emma won the Halloween raffle and got lots of cool things in her hamper.
This week in Maths we started fractions and we are doing really well. We think we are going to nail the test. Every Thursday from now until Christmas we are doing Rugby for P.E. with coach Ken. Our class are planting bluebells in Linear Park later in the week with Ms. Nic A’Bhaird and Ms. Brennan. We are collecting leaves so we can make foxes in Art, the leaf will be the foxes face and we will use card to add details like eyes and ears. We have had a great week!
In art we made our own greek clay pots
With designs and stories on them. We planted bluebells in linear park and for P.E we did touch rugby drills.
In maths we started learning about graphs and charts and tally marks. In english we learned about hooklines and made our own stories with them.
In irish we learned a song called ‘óró, sé do bheatha bhaile’ and in core curriculum we are doing the passover of the Jews and Moses. We are in the middle of a book called seven spiders spinning. It's really good.
We are doing mindfulness every day.
We are also doing spellings for me every Friday. Half of our class uses the chromebooks and the other half of the class uses their books. Also we use them for homework.
We started new maths groups and english groups.
By Owen And Julia
New half term,new pods. We have also given ourselves some names. Ms Blayney would like to make it known that she had nothing to do with the names!! ;) Our new pod names are :
The Pizza Bros, The Crumbly Cookies, The Chicken Nuggets, The Super Noodles and The Spuds.
Forest School was a little colder this week but we still loved it. One group got into some drama activities and the other explored making and protecting dens.
We have been writing instructions on how to trap a dragon. Ask about our story maps. We might try catching a unicorn next!
In history we have started learning about the Maya Civilisation. Ask us what we know already.
Our lovely listeners this week were Beau, Alex, Max and Dylan.
Our secret student was Dylan. Well done everyone.
Our kindness monitors noticed people sorting out their arguments by themselves this week.
This week we learned about castles.
We learned about diabetes. Matthias’s Dad kindly sent us a video of him because
He has diabetes. He showed us how he’d test his blood using a special machine.
We were learning about clocks and digital clocks
Tá an geimhreadh anseo anois is our phrása na míosa.
We are learning about Bia in Irish.
Cad atá uait don bhricfeasta?
We are also learning skipping rhymes on roof garden. Fun!
By Hal and Photos by Iris
Rang a hAon were very excited to be back in school this week and were sharing stories about all the different ways they celebrated Halloween. Some children went on Halloween Treasure Hunts and played traditional games like bobbing for apples. We have had a busy week learning about houses in the past and houses in different parts of the world but the US Election has been the big talking point! The children have been really interested in what is happening in the States and we have been checking polls during the day to check for any changes.
On Thursday we visited Linear Park for a Nature Scavenger Hunt and to plant our bluebell bulbs. Each child in the class planted their very own bulb and we are looking forward to Spring to see all the new flowers.
Senior Infants had a lovely first week back after midterm. We had lots of fun and were very busy playing in our Doctor's Surgery this week and learning all about how important a Doctor's job is. We did some beautiful winter chalk pictures too and learnt some new Winter songs and poems.
We are learning all about barn owls and sight this month. Barn owls have heart shaped faces and sharp talons. We had great fun at the Opticians in Aistear this week. We planted bluebell bulbs in the park during our outdoor learning. The whole school has planted bluebells. They will flower in the spring. The PA gave us delicious brownies on Friday.
