Dear Parents/Guardians,

Parents Association Newsletter Piece

Valentines Bake Sale and Parents’ Coffee Morning will be held tomorrow, Friday 17th February in the school hall. Only Baking for homework today Thursday! If you are available, please come to help the children with their purchases between 10am and 1pm. Children will attend the bake sale throughout the day. Maximum spend per child €2.  Please ensure baking contains NO NUTS OR STRAWBERRIES and if you make something allergy-tolerant please mark it accordingly.  Please bring your baked goods to the hall on Friday morning, tea and coffee for parents after drop off so hang around if you can to join us for a cuppa and a chat.  If you want your container back please mark with name and mobile number. We are hoping to make a big Valentine impact for all the children in the hall on Friday morning so for those of you looking for rainy day activities we’d gratefully accept your crafty decorations to decorate the hall and will be looking for volunteers this evening Thursday 16th to help display them. The proceeds from the bake sale will be used to fund Parent Association National Parents Council membership, PA insurance and will fund PA events for the school year.

St. Patrick’s Day Parade 2017, thanks to those volunteers who signed up. Exciting news to follow shortly!!

Extra-Curricular Activities Programme

Our extra-curricular activities will break for the midterm and Term 1 will re-commence  on Tuesday 28th February after the mid-term break.

For those still wishing to register, science, athletics (jun & sen infants), chess, playball (jun & sen infants) and guitar are now full for term 1. If you wish to join the waiting list for any of these classes, please complete a registration form and leave it at Fran’s office for my attention.  We have a small number of places available in playball (2.30 class), Athletics (2.30 class), soccer (2.30 class), Irish Dancing (1.30 class) and Arts & Crafts (2.30 Thursday class). If you would like to register for any of these classes forms are available at Fran’s office.

We would greatly appreciate your support in ensuring children are picked up promptly at 2.20 (junior & senior infants) as delays are currently impacting the starting time of our 2.30 afterschool activities. Also, the 2.20 finish allows our younger children to leave the building prior to the wider school community finishing at 2.30.

We would like to advise parents/guardians that places in our extracurricular activities programme are only available to children who are pupils of Wicklow Educate Together NS.

We would ask that anyone who has not already paid the registration fees for term 1, please do so as soon as possible. Payment can be made by cheque or cash. Please drop envelopes for my attention into Fran’s office including child’s name and activity. You can also pay directly into our bank account

  • IBAN – IE34AIBK93361905417550
  • AIB – AIBKIE2D

Please ensure when making payment that you use your family name as the payment reference.  For those who have not already received their receipts, please drop in to me at Fran’s office. Full details of our ECA programme can be found on our school website. Many thanks, Lisa [email protected]

World Book Day

World Book Day is Tuesday 02nd March. We are liaising with Bridge Street Books who are organising some reading to our pupils during this week.

Bridge Street Books hosts a Junior Book Club which runs as follows:

  • 3rd & 4th Classes – the last Thursday of each month from 3.30-4.30pm
  • 5th & 6th Classes – the Last Thursday of each month from 4.30-5.30pm

If you’re interested, contact Bridge Street Books directly on 0404-62240

Percent for Art at WETNS

As you may be aware, the government provides for 1% of capital expenditure projects as funding for art projects. WETNS is fortunate to be the recipient of this funding at our new premises. If you would like more information on the scheme it can be found here https://www.education.ie/en/School-Design/Design-Guidance/pbu_percent_art_doc.pdf

A volunteer committee was formed last year including Eileen McCall, Christine Theobald, Eily Roe, Sinead Tyner, Donna Connolly and Mary Feerick-Byrne. We will be giving updates on our progress as we go in this newsletter.

We are currently in the process of formulating a brief for the project. We are facilitating an exercise in mind-mapping with the staff and students to come up with words and thoughts that define what WETNS and the school community means to them. We plan to use the outcome of this in the brief to give inspiration to potential artists.

If you would like to provide your own brainstorming of words from you and your family to be included in the process, please email them to [email protected] by Mon, Feb 27, 2017. This can be words, thoughts about the school, your comments that define your school experience, etc. Anything you think will help to represent WETNS in your view. Parents/guardians, past, current and future students are encouraged to participate.

Internet Safety Week/Stay Safe

Many of the classes in school have been learning about internet safety and a workshop for all pupils from 2nd -6th class will take place in school on Friday 31 March. This workshop will be provided by Zeeko and will cover cyberbullying, inappropriate content, social media, digital stranger danger and data privacy, for further information please visit the website at zeeko.ie

Additionally we have been made aware that some of these issues may be affecting some of our pupils. If there is a particular area that you feel an expert could cover please let us know at [email protected], and we can make that request on your behalf.  Zeeko also run parent workshops – if you would be interested in attending please let us know by email or there is a sign up sheet at Fran’s office. If we get enough interest we will book a workshop for parents in the summer term.

Healthy Eating

Please be reminded that the school encourages health lunches. Please do not give your child crisps, high/sugar fizzy drinks, sweets or chocolate. Friday is treat day and children are invited to bring in a small treat if they wish. Also, please remember that due to a number of children with allergies in our school we are not in a position to allow strawberries or nuts, including extracts.

Sundries

Reminder to anyone who has yet to pay for their children’s sundries for this school year. Please pay as soon as possible. Individual reminders will issue shortly to those who are still outstanding.

School Bus Transport for Secondary School Information Correction

It has come to our attention that the information in last week’s newsletter regarding School Bus Transport for next year was incorrect. Bus Eireann won’t actually be taking applications for the next school year until March so keep an eye on their website www.buseireann.ie/schooltransport if you are considering school transport to Primary or Secondary Schools for September. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Raising bilingual children: what every parent needs to know Department of Clinical Speech and Language Studies, TCD

In collaboration with Mother Tongues https://www.facebook.com/mothertongues.ie/

  • Location: Dept of Clinical Speech and Language Studies, TCD, 7-9 South Leinster Street, Dublin
  • Date: Wednesday 22nd February
  • Time: 5.30 to 7pm

The event is free but places are limited. To book your place, please email Francesca – [email protected]

Library – Volunteers needed

Could you give an hour or so during the week? We need help to label & catalogue books for the library. Please come in at one of the following times and we will show you our current system: Monday or Wednesday at 9am or Fri at 9.40am. Thank you.