Scoil Bhríde Newsletter Cill Bhríde, Clonee, Co. Meath “Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí” As this is the first Parents’ Council (PC) Newsletter of the school year 2014/15, we are pleased to advise that the PC is up and running following our AGM on 29th September 2014. Further to our AGM, which was very well attended, we are delighted to welcome some new members. The Council’s members for this school year are as follows: NAME Adrienne White Aisling Donoghue Caroline Brennan Ciara O’Driscoll REPRESENTING CLASS 3rd, 4th Class Coiscéimeanna Jnr Junior Infants th 3rd, 5th & 6 Claire Bacon Clara Donohue Cynthia Mooney Deirdre Grimmett Edel Clarkson Elaine Murphy Gemma Keely Gillian Reilly Hazel McDonagh Jacinta Devine Jennifer Glennon Kerrie Gilligan Ladan Samali Linda Clarke Louise Swords Maggie McManus Mark Duffy Mark Goggin Miriam Murray Nicola & James McGivern Nicola McCarthy Siobhan Cooke Siobhan Kelly Susan Staines Yvonne Kennedy 1st, 3rd Junior Infants Junior Infants Junior Infants Senior Infants Junior Infants Junior Infants rd Junior Infants, 3 , 6th 2nd, 4th Senior Infants, 2 , 4th rd Senior Infants, 3 nd Senior Infants, 3 Coiscéimeanna Snr rd 1st, 4th, 6th Junior Infants 5th, 6th th Senior Infants, 4 st Junior Infants, 1 Coiscéimeanna Jnr Junior Infants 3rd Senior Infants th Junior Infants, 6 Coiscéimeanna Jnr Senior Infants, 3 rd UPCOMING PLANNED EVENTS – NOVEMBER & DECEMBER Kids’ Movie Evening A Kids’ Movie Evening is planned for Friday, November 7th in the School Hall. The Junior Movie (Junior, Senior, 1st and 2nd Classes) will be held from 4:00 – 6:00pm. The Senior Movie (3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th classes) will be from 7:00 – 9:00pm. Entry fee will be €5 per child (price includes popcorn, drink & jellies). Permission slips will be circulated to all children in advance. Every child must have a permission slip signed by a parent/guardian in order to attend the event. Christmas Fair We are delighted to be holding the Annual Christmas Fair again and this year, it will take place on Saturday, 6th December, in the School Hall, from 6:30pm. This is a great community event which has been enjoyed by many families over the past number of years. Your support would be very much appreciated. • Most importantly, Santa will be there and all the children will have an opportunity to meet him and have their photo taken with him. • We will have a large variety of stalls (food, art, beauty, jewellery, plants, clothing, gifts, children’s books and lots more), so it will be a great opportunity to avail of some early Christmas shopping! • There will be lots of fun stalls and activities for all ages (Tombola, Spin the Wheel, Kids stalls). • We will be running a Big Raffle with some super prizes on the night. • For those who prefer to relax and chat, we will be serving mulled wine, tea and coffee and homemade mince pies up in the balcony of the hall. To run this event successfully, we really need help from all parents. If you can donate a prize or something for a stall, it would be greatly appreciated. Some ideas for donations include vouchers, bottles of wine, chocolates/biscuits, new toys/gifts. We will also be looking for freshly baked goods for the baking stall on the day of the fair. All donations can be left in the school office or with any member of the PC from now up until the day of the Fair. These donations will be used as prizes for our Spin the Wheel/Tombola and Kids events. Also, if you have any unwanted baskets that we could use for hampers, we would be delighted if you could please pass them to any member of the Parents’ Council or alternatively, leave them in the school office. We are always very grateful for your generosity and all proceeds raised will go directly back into our school for the benefit of our children. Christmas Cards: The children have already begun designing their very own Christmas cards. Once the cards have been printed, you will have the opportunity to buy your child/children’s card(s). The cards will be €8.00 for a pack of 8 cards. This has proved to be a very popular fund raising project over the past few years but more importantly, the cards are a great way of encouraging children’s creativity. RECENT EVENTS IN OCTOBER Book Fair Thank you so much to all parents, children and teachers who supported our recent Scholastic Book Fair event. The fair ran for three busy days and was a great success. Due to the large volume of books purchased, the school will receive €2,000 worth of new books from the Scholastic Book Company. The school will acquire these new books for each class library in Scoil Bhríde and Coiscéimeanna. Old Clothes Collection Our recent Old Clothes Collection raised €545 for the school. Many thanks to all who donated to this event. We will be running another collection in December, so keep filling those bags of unwanted clothes and keep them for this event. Please remember that you can also donate shoes, handbags, duvet covers and sheets. Fresh Fruit Fridays Following on from our aim to promote healthy eating within the school, we are continuing this year with our Fresh Fruit Fridays for all classes in the school. We held our first fresh fruit day last week and the children in Scoil Bhríde and Coiscéimeanna all enjoyed the fruit distributed. We intend to run this initiative every 4 to 6 weeks, supplying a variety of fruit portions to all students and we hope this will encourage them to eat more fruit on a daily basis whilst also introducing new fruits to some. PARENTS’ COUNCIL/ SCHOOL EVENTS PLANNED FOR 2015 • Strictly Come Dancing (Scoil Bhríde & Kilbride GAA) – Saturday, March 7th • Childrens’ Readathon – Easter 2015 • Kids’ Disco – date to be agreed • Parents’ Coffee Morning/Cake Sale • Other social, educational and fundraising events for children and parents in the pipeline IMPORTANT NEWS FOR PARENTS Road Safety/Traffic Improvements: We are delighted to inform you that Meath County Council and Rennicks Signs have agreed to help fund a proposal to implement improved traffic calming measures on the road approaching Scoil Bhríde from Hollystown and Kilbride village. With the assistance of a Fine Gael Councillor in Ashbourne, Alan Toibín, together with support from a local business, Rennicks Signs, the Parents’ Council and the Board of Management have reached agreement with Meath County Council to go ahead with the installation of two digital speed signs and rumble strips. In addition, the school road signs on both the Hollystown and Kilbride approaches to the school will be repainted. We hope that this project will commence very soon and we will keep you updated on progress. The installation of these new measures should significantly improve road safety for all at Scoil Bhríde. Car Park/ Drop off /Free Flow We would like to remind all parents (including guardians – childminders, grandparents, etc.), that the front drop off/free flow zone should not be used as a parking facility. It is very important that this zone is just used as a drop off/pick up zone only and is not blocked both at school drop off and pick up times. This also applies outside normal school hours when dropping off or picking up children from after school activities. Please park up in the inside car park or elsewhere if you plan on parking for any length of time or if you need to leave your car unattended. Update on Temporary Accommodation Following successful planning approval, the works on the installation of temporary classroom accommodation is due to commence on Tuesday 28th October. This work is expected to be completed by November 28th and transition of pupils into the new accommodation will happen gradually thereafter. As part of these works, parking and traffic managment will be modified. The school will inform you of the details of this traffic management plan in due course.  Contact us: The Pa rents’ Council’s email addr ess is knspc@ eircom.net. Please feel free to contact your PC Class Rep resentative or any council member w ith any questions or suggestions. We ar e always happy to hear from you. Communication between school and home We decided that it is imperative that we continue to improve the current means of communication between the school and home by enhancing existing methods and introducing new forms of communication, all of which we believe is of huge importance to everyone involved in Scoil Bhríde and Coiscéimeanna. These include: • Parents’ Council Facebook Page: ‘Scoil Bhríde - Parents’ Council’ • School Website – ‘www.scoilbhridens.ie’ • Parents’ Council Newsletters/ School Newsletters • Parents’ Council/School Text and Email system • School Notice Board (located on the wall beside the doors at school hall side entrance) • “Parents’ Council Suggestion Post Box” located beside the notice board. Finally, as we look forward to the year ahead, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support. Phone No: 01 821 63 59 Fax no: 01 822 05 39 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.scoilbhridens.ie Roll No: 168250 Principal: Doireann Bn Uí Dhuigneáin Deputy Principal: Ms Paula Lynch