St. Kilian s Junior School Newsletter Christmas 2017
School Calendar & Christmas Cards Our school calendar 2018 is still on sale @ 5. Thank you to all our sponsors. Please support us if you can. Good quality school Christmas cards are still available at 3 for 6 cards or 2 packs for 5. Science Week Science week took place from 12th to 19th November this year and St. Kilian s Junior School were actively involved. Each year group worked on a separate science theme, and engaged in experiments and activities as follows. All science activities will be entered in this year s STEM project: Junior Infants: Working with Magnets Senior Infants: Investigating Materials around the school. First Class: Investigating Temperature Second Class: Investigating Sound The best scientist was selected from each class and they received their prizes and their special Science Certificates from Ms. Sweeney at Assembly. Congratulations to the following class winners: Room 1: Kara Pemberton Room 2: Bobby George Perris Room 5: Lena Kesik Room 6: Holly Lyons Room 7: Zach Flanagan Room 15: Keallan MacDomhnaill Room 16: Sena n Farrell Room 9: Isabelle McHugh Room 10: Adel Bensaad Room 11: Lily Kavanagh A mobile planetarium visited our school on Tuesday 14th and set up in our school hall. All classes visited the planetarium over the course of the day and the children really enjoyed watching 3D movies relating to space themes. Room 10 and Room 16 visited The Natural History Museum on Thursday and took part in the Skullduggery Tour. It was a very informative and enjoyable trip.
Hour of Code Week December 4 th -8 th Congratulations to the following children who received their certificates from Hour of Code.org and were awarded their prizes by Ms. Sweeney. St.Kilians Junior School took part in International Week of Code from 4 th 9 th December. Hour of Code Week is a global movement by Computer Science Education Week and it is completed by children in 180+ countries around the world during Hour of Code Week, through a one hour introduction to computer science and computer programming. St. Kilians JNS supported 32 pupils to complete their hour of code, working through a series of steps to complete their own game. Children from Junior Infants to Second class were involved. The children had great fun with hour of code and it is a great way to improve maths and literacy skills. Senan Cooper Edgeworth Evie O Connor Lucy McDonnell Aoibheann Wright Katie Zambra Riley O Connor Siofra Cooper Edgeworth Mark Prior Ethan Dunne Matthew Anderson Cameron Roche Byrne Emma Mockler MJ Tighe Isabelle Corcoran Jack Moore Ava Byrne James Lagan Isabella Taylor Saoirse O Connor Isabelle Feighery David Power Pender Lily May Cleary Cody Doyle Mark Widel Marcin Pirog Brian Bradley Jessica O Leary Eryk Sawicki Lucie Byrne Amelia Goode Jamie Byrne Lexi McGovern
Active Schools Ready Set Maths Well done to senior infants and first and second classes for taking part in our school penalty shoot out with our very own Paul Owens. The children had great fun doing this as part of European Sports week. Unfortunately, we were not successful in winning the voucher up for grabs for P.E. equipment, however we gave it socks. The first and second classes enjoyed their cricket lessons immensely and a big shout out to Ms. Coll for organising this. Keep an eye out next term for Active Week where we will be organising lots of fun activities for our whole school. Green Schools Thank you to all the parents who have so generously offered their time to help support Maths teaching and learning in the school. Our roster is now up and running. We are looking for additional volunteers to put on a back-up list, so if you are free please contact the office for a vetting form. Health and Wellbeing We are looking forward to holding new workshops in the New Year. These will help us to build a greener environment and help us on our way to obtaining our 6th Green Flag Global Citizenship Litter and Waste. The Green Schools Committee would like to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas. Tuesday November 21st was Christmas Wish Day at St.Kilians. All children wrote or drew their own personal wish for Christmas on their red bauble and hung it on Our Tree of Thankfulness in the hall. All these wonderful wishes create a very positive feeling around our school in the run up to Christmas.
St. Kilian s Senior School Panto : Jack & the Beanstalk Our pupils will get an opportunity to see the Panto on the 12 th or 13 th December. The entry cost is funded from your school fee. Teachers Course Days Information for Parents Most if not all primary teachers take a course/s to upskill during their summer holidays. The Department of Education & Skills directs that teachers are then entitled to take between 3 and 5 days leave during the following school year. The Department of Education & Skills does not provide substitute cover for this leave, so classes are split. Teacher Substitute Cover St. Kilian s Junior School Board of Management The Board would like to convey sincere thanks to all parents who have paid the School Fee for 2017-18. This money funds teaching and learning requisites, printing, massaging, ICT and sports equipment, Pupil Personal Accident insurance, and entry to three school events. The Board wishes every family a very peaceful and very happy Christmas. The Department of Education & Skills does not provide substitute cover for any self - certified teacher sick leave. In the case of certified illness, The Department does fund the hiring of a substitute teacher. Due to the current severe shortage of teachers, often we cannot secure cover, especially at short notice.it is therefore unfortunately necessary to sometimes cancel support teaching or to split classes. This is very disruptive for children and teachers, and is far from ideal in terms of teaching and learning. Please convey your views to our public representatives.
Maths Eyes All classes have been busy taking photos with their digital cameras and looking at all the maths in their environment. The children have taken many beautiful photographs and these have been entered in the annual maths eyes competition. The children s digital camera work will be displayed in the hall in the New Year. We wish all our entrants the very best of luck! School Routines We encourage all children to arrive on time in the mornings so they can come into school with their class line at 8.50a.m. 10 minutes late every morning adds up to 30 hours of instruction time by the end of the year. That amounts to a full week s work! When children arrive late it affects the general running of the classroom and can be disruptive to others and embarrassing for the child who is late. Timeliness is an important life skill that all children should learn. It will help them to keep commitments and organise themselves in later life. We ask that all children enter the school in the mornings by their own end doors and not through the main front door, unless, as an exception you arrive after 9 a.m. We also ask parents to abide by all parking restrictions around the schools. Both school car parks are for staff use only. We request that all visitors to the school, including parents, report to the secretary s office. There is no direct access to classrooms. Official school opening and closing times are 8.50 a.m. and 1.30 p.m. (infants) and 2.30p.m. (first and second classes). The school cannot accept responsibility for children outside these times. We thank you for your continued co-operation to ensure the safety of all children and staff.
School Book Fair The Scholastic School Book Fair took place in November. Book sales totalled over 2,700. The school earned a commission of 60% of the total sales. Thanks to book sales from the Book Fair, the school will be able to claim over 1600 worth of books from Scholastic. Thanks so much to everyone who supported the Book Fair and helped us to acquire new books for the school. A very special word of gratitude to the Parents Association for their invaluable help in running the Book Fair. Parents of children in 2 nd Class St. Kilian s Senior School will be accepting applications for 3 rd class in 2018-19 between January 15 th and January 26 th 2018. Application forms will be available on the school website, www.st-kilians.com or from the Senior School office between 9am and 2pm. Please ensure you return your application and all supporting documentation requested on time. You must supply all supporting documentation and information for your application to be deemed complete. Please do not miss the deadline if you are interested in applying. Christmas Fair The annual Christmas Fair, organised by the Parents Association took place on Friday 24 th November. All the hard work and preparations paid off. The Fair was a wonderful success, and enjoyed by all. Thank you to Joe, Tara and all the committee.
Christmas Concert Dates for Your Diary Christmas Break Fri 22 nd December closing 12 noon. Reopening on Monday 8th January. Book your diary for the 19 th December, our annual Christmas Concert, not to be missed!! Staff Training Day 5th March 2018 School closed to pupils. Parish Carol Service School Website Some of our second class children performed at the annual Carol Service under the guidance of Ms. Holmes, Ms. Bradley and Ms. Maguire in St. Kilian s Church on Sunday 10 th December. The Carol Service was beautiful and a great start to the Christmas lead up. Well done to the boys and girls. www.stkiliansjns.ie There is plenty of information about the school available on our website.
Season s Greetings As Christmas approaches, we would like to wish you and your family peace and happiness throughout the festive season. We hope all the boys and girls manage to have their names put on Santa s list before the Christmas holidays arrive. If we re very lucky Santa might call to check on us!!!