13ú Meitheamh 2012

Student Council Cake Sale for the Make a Wish Foundation

Student Council Cake Sale

Last Friday we organised a cake sale. Everyone brought in loads of yummy cakes and we raised an amazing €710 for the Make a Wish Foundation! Check out what they do on their website makeawish.ie.

Yummy cakes

Thanks to all the people who baked some amazing cakes, and thanks to the parents that volunteered to help us. It was a great success.

The Student Council

Ethos Workshops

Emma Grainger, Ethos Officer from Educate Together will facilitate ethos workshops for parents/guardians next Wednesday 20 June 7.30-9pm. All parents/guardians are welcome. This is part of the follow-up to the Ethos Survey carried out earlier this year by the Board of Management. A good attendance will help us plan for the coming years at DSPNS. Please phone office to facilitate confirmation of numbers for the evening. Help us foster an ethos that is inclusive and respectful.

DSP Newsletter

Reminder closing date for our annual end of year newsletter is this Friday. Please send contributions to office or newsletter@dspns.ie

Sports Day Wednesday 20 June 8.30am

Sports Day will take place on Wednesday 20^th June. Please can you have your child in school on time at 8.30am as we have a prompt start with a wide variety of fun activities throughout the day.

The programme will begin with a Star Relay with J. Infants, S. Infants, 5^th & 6^th class on the Rathdown field (enter through the big yard and follow the signs). The times for the races will be as follows:

9.20 Junior Infants 9.40 Senior Infants

10.00 1^st class 10.25 2^nd class

10.50 3^rd class 11.15 4^th class

11.40 5^th class 12.05 6^th class

At 12.30 the entire school will gather at Rathdown for our grand finale, the Star Relay. If you would like to take your child with you after this please make sure that you sign out with their class teacher.

The annual Down Syndrome ice-cream sale will take place, ice creams €2.00. Each class will be allocated a time. Teas and coffee will be available for parents in the halla. There will be a bucket for contributions towards the Educate Together Second Level Schools campaign. All donations gratefully accepted.

We look forward to seeing you on the day. Please remember that Sports Day is primarily a fun day and positive participation is encouraged for everyone.

Nuacht 6ú Meitheamh

1st class dance practice

6th class art in progress

June is a very busy month in school. Senior Infants are on a trip to the Ark today. 4th and 5th classes are putting a lot of time and effort into their plays. 1st class had their dance practice out in the patio. Thanks to Ms Casey for adapting to the new location! 6th and Junior Infants had their photos taken by Barry from Photogenic, Dalkey. We are very grateful to Photogenic for providing this service free every year to the school. 6th class have begun work on an end of year art project. 3rd class are back to developing competence in writing independently, to knowing and recalling addition and subtraction facts after a great week of musical extravaganza last week. 2nd class continue to develop comprehension strategies and to prepare for their trip next Monday.

3rd class 'Treasure Island'

End of year reports are almost complete. Reports will be posted a week before school closes. Standardised test results will be included with reports for classes from 1st – 6th. As part of the National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy 2011 – 2020, all primary schools are obliged to use report templates from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). These are the first changes we as a school need to enact to fulfill the requirements of the National Strategy on literacy and numeracy. A big thank you to all the teachers who have invested a huge amount of time and reflection into preparing these reports.

This month we will make a special effort to show Responsibility:

I will take responsibnility for my actions and words.

I will take responsibility for my work.

I will take responsibility for my environment.

Cake sale in aid of Make a Wish Foundation

Senior Infants baking activity

The Student Council is organizing a cake sale this Friday the 8^th of June. All the money raised in it will be donated to the Make a Wish Foundation. The Make a Wish Foundation grants wishes of children aged 3 to 18 who have life threatening diseases to brighten up their lives.

Please bake cakes at home and bring them in to the halla on Friday morning. They will then be sold in aid of Make a Wish. There will be mixed bags of cakes for 1euro and individual cakes will be sold at various other prices.

Enrolment Review

The Board of Management would like to thank everyone who voted last week on the motions to amend the Enrolment Policy. There was a very good turnout of approximately 60% of parents / guardians. The results were:

Motions:

That the Enrolment policy is changed so that siblings of children who are currently pupils in the school will be given preference if placed on the pre-enrolment waiting list (PEL) within 6 months of their birth. Prioritisation of siblings will only apply to the JI list.

87% voted in favour of this motion

That the Enrolment policy is changed so that in the case of an adopted child or child in long term foster care, the PEL application date shall be backdated by adding to their birth date/placement date, the interval of time between placement with their existing family and the date their application for pre-enrolment is received by the school.

For example: Child B is born/placed on 1 February 2009. He/she is placed with a family for adoption/foster care on 1 August 2011. An application to place him/her on the pre-enrolment is received in the school on 14 August 2011. The date of receipt of application is calculated as 14 February 2009.

94% voted in favour of this motion

Any changes to the policy must be first ratified by our Patron, the DSP Executive, before the BoM can implement them. The results of this review will be brought to a meeting of the DSP Executive on Monday June 11^th and there is a Board of Management meeting on Wednesday June 13^th.

PTA

Congratulations to the 27 participants who took part in the PTA fundraising 100ft abseil on Saturday the 26th of May.

4 brave parents joined 23 even braver pupils from 4th, 5th and 6th class and an exhilarating time was had by all!

The event raised a staggering €2114 giving a net figure raised after costs and the 10% donation to Temple Street Children’s Hospital of €1272.60.

Well done to all the participants and everyone who kindly sponsored them.

Ronan from the Adventure Agency said that they were “a great bunch of kids” and was so impressed that he very kindly donated a €110 to our charity donation bringing the total donated to the Temple Street Children’s Hospital up to €251.40.

Thanks!

Condolences

Our deepest sympathy to the families who have suffered bereavements in the past week. We hope we can be supportive at this sad time, and in the future through various school activities and community gatherings.