Dear School Community,

                                                                                                                                                17th May 2019

IMPORTANT ADVANCE NOTICE:

Family Coffee Morning & Children’s Bakesale – Friday 24th May School Hall– Supporting the Dunne Family fundraiser in memory of Siobhan Dunne, to purchase a defibrillator for Rathnew Main Street and raise funds for the Irish Heart Foundation. Please come along and support this wonderful cause.

Sports Day – Tuesday 11th June.

6th Class Graduation – Thursday 27th June

Summer Camp – WETNS Summer Camp – Monday 1st July – Friday 5th July and Monday 8th July – Friday 12th July. Camp details and registration form will be sent out on Monday. If you are interested in booking a place, please contact [email protected]

Sun Protection – With the warm weather now upon us we would ask parents/guardians to please remember the importance of sun cream. The children play outside during break times, a few our afterschool activities are held outside and children attending our aftercare facility spend time outside each day. Many classes will also be doing extra PE time outside as part of active month.

School Tours – Our school tours for this year are now confirmed and a full list of tours, dates and fees will be sent out on a separate note today. The Aladdin link for online payments will also go out today and we would ask as many families as possible to pay online. If you are paying by cash or cheque, please put the exact amount in an envelope with the permission slip, your child’s name, class and the amount written on the envelope and give to your class teacher. Please note, the school office cannot provide change so please ensure you have exact amounts when making payment.

Sports Day – Our Sports Day this year will be held on Tuesday 11th June. Children from Junior Infants to 2nd Class will be having their Sport’s Day on our school grounds. 3rd – 6th Class will have their Sport’s Day at the Wicklow Rugby Club grounds.

All parents are welcome to come to watch. Please remember, if any parents wish to actually volunteer on the day, they must ensure that they are Garda vetted with our school. (Contact the school office for a Garda Vetting form as soon as possible if required). Further details including times will follow closer to the time.

Book Rental Text Books – Library Books – Oxford Reading Tree Books (Homework Readers) – Hi everyone, it’s that time of year when we are beginning to return all our book resources to the correct rooms etc. Could you have a look around at home, in case you have any books belonging to the school which your child is not using at the moment? If you find any, please return them to the school office. We’ll be collecting all books back in from the 17th June. Thank you.

1st Class Reading Volunteers: A huge thank you to all our reading volunteers who help with reading each morning. If you are interested in helping with first class reading, please contact Mercedes on [email protected]. We read each day of the week and welcome parent volunteers from any class for any day they are free. If you can spare any time at drop off it would be greatly appreciated.  Reading starts at 8.50. The more the merrier. Even as little as 10 minutes helps, reading in the morning usually takes up to 30 minutes. This is a really positive experience for both the volunteers and the children, and we are seeing a significant improvement in their reading as a result.

Extra-Curricular Update

April Homework Club/Aftercare Billing – Reminder that all remaining homework club/aftercare bills must be paid in advance of any bookings next week. Bills were sent by email on 7th May.

Term 3 Extra-Curricular Fees – Reminder that extra-curricular fees are due this month. Please pay online or at the school office.

IBAN – IE34AIBK93361905417550

BIC – AIBKIE2D

Homework Club Finish Date – Homework club for this school year will finish on Thursday 30th May. Our aftercare facility will be available from 1.30pm – 5.30pm until Friday 28th June. Please contact [email protected]

Aftercare Opening Hours – We are delighted to confirm that from September 2019 our aftercare facility will open until 6pm Monday to Friday. We are also considering an early start option for those who require our service in the morning time. If you are interested in either service, please contact [email protected]

Easypayments – We are currently in the process of transitioning our Aftercare, Homework Club & Extra-Curricular activities to the online booking and payment solution Easy payments. We aim to have this solution in place for September 2019 and will share further details closer to the rollout of the tool.

Drinks Bottles In line with school healthy eating policy and green schools please continue bringing re-usable water bottles to school each day

Requests for children to stay inside during breaktimes cannot be facilitated with the exception of children in casts. Children who are not well enough to go outside for playtime should stay at home.

Robot Demo – We would like to take this opportunity to thank Damien Leonard who came in during this term to do robot workshops with Kate & Alan’s 4th classes. The children were very enthusiastic about this. This was Damien’s 2nd year to do this at WETNS.

Junior Infants Visitors – We would like to show our appreciation to all of the parents who came in to Sharon & Leanne’s Junior Infants classes to chat to the children about their own jobs. The children enjoyed these visits tremendously. In turn the parents were kept busy as well as entertained with the level of questions they were asked during their talks.

Rental of School The school is used outside of school hours to the following groups, this opens the school to the wider community and provides an income to the school, used to help towards the upkeep of the school building and grounds

Rugbytots Saturday mornings

Wicklow Choral Society Monday evenings

Progressive College of Education Wednesday Evenings

Wicklow Brownies occasional hire

The Blood Transfusion Service 3 times per year

Please contact lisa.jervis@wicklowetns.com for further information.

Landscape Contract calling for expressions of interest – The school is seeking expression of interest from landscape contractors to help in the upkeep of the school grounds. This will be an annual contract. The requirements are 10-12 grass cuts per annum, basic weed control, tree and shrub care. We are accepting expressions from the school community in the first instance. Please forward your details to sinead@wicklowetns or directly to the school office before Friday 26 April. Many Thanks

Are you leaving WETNS? If you are planning to leave the school at the end of the year please let us know, in writing, at your earliest convenience. It is better for the school to know as soon as possible as we have waiting lists for most classes in the school.

Request from a parent – Hi, I am John Hunt, parent here at the school.  I am doing a walk for mental health awareness on Sunday 26th May as it is Green Ribbon Month. I am raising money for Shine the charity behind See Change/Green Ribbon. The walk is from Wicklow (Lidl Car Park) to St Patrick’s Mental Health Services in Dublin. It is 50km and should take about 10 hours but will be worth it to spread awareness of an issue that is really close to my heart. (See poster on the school noticeboard).

PTA Update

PTA Annual General Meeting

All parents are invited to the AGM of the Parent Teacher Association. We are delighted to be welcoming and introducing the new PTA committee. We would like to take the opportunity to review the past year and look forward to 2019-2020 term.

The AGM will take place on Monday 27th May 7.30pm – 9pm. Teas and coffee at 7.30pm, meeting starts at 7.45pm.

Agenda

Outgoing Chairpersons annual report

Outgoing Treasurers Financial Report

Introduction of new committee

Used clothes collection

Outdoor space brainstorm

If anybody would like any other business covered at the meeting please send email to [email protected] detailing the content of the topic.

Children’s Bakesale and Family Coffee Morning 24th May

On Friday 24th May we will host a children’s bakesale and a Family Coffee Morning with all proceeds going to the Dunne Family Fundraiser raising funds to purchase a defibrillator for Rathnew Main Street and also supporting the Irish Heart Foundation. Parents, guardians, grandparents, siblings and family please come along and support this wonderful cause. Cakes will be available for sale to all those attending. Come on the day, have a coffee and chat, buy a cake or bake a cake. All welcome.

For the children’s bakesale each child should bring in €2 to make their cake purchases. BAKING HOMEWORK for 3rd, 4th, 5Th and 6th classes on Thursday 23rd May. All containers to be clearly labelled with your child’s name so that the container can be returned to them.. All baking must be free of Nuts and Strawberries. While we endeavor to screen all food we cannot guarantee that food is suitable for allergy sufferers. There are many children in the school with allergies to various ingredients. If your child is recorded in school as having a food allergy, to ensure that they are not disappointed on the day of the bakesale, please send in some baking for your child specifically labelled with both their name, class and note that it is (e.g. Nut, dairy, coeliac, egg, soya) allergy friendly (name alone does not suffice as all containers must be named and allergy friendly food can be mistakenly added in to the general sale and does not reach the intended recipient).

Dates for your diaries

Parental help needed on each of these days!!!

Sports Day 11th June – Parents needed to serve fruit snacks to children.

Bike to School Day 12th June – Parents needed on all routes and to help at school to park bikes. Details to follow.

Bag pack in Super Valu. Please give an hour of your time to help your school 14th June

Teddy Bears Picnic details to follow Saturday August 24th

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Please keep up to date with information from Wicklow Educate Together NS which is available through weekly newsletter, texts to parents, school wide notices, notes in bags, homework diaries & school website wicklowetns.com. Wicklow Educate Together N.S. is not on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media. For any queries, questions or feedback please approach your child’s class teacher in the first instance or the school office Fran or Lisa (0404 62786) email [email protected] Please contact Sinead school principal for any further clarification or information  on [email protected] Please note that we will only promote school sanctioned events or those that benefit a registered charity in our newsletter.

We would like to remind parents/guardians that our enrolment policy is on a first come first served basis and would ask that you complete pre- enrolment forms for all younger siblings as early as possible. Our pre-enrolment form is available on our school website https://wicklowetns.com/.