This weeks newsletter

Dear School Community, 31st May 2017

Paper copies of the newsletter are available beside the new noticeboards in the main foyer.

Email Test for School Reports – Our school reports will be sent by email this year and so to ensure we have correct email addresses for each of our families we would ask that you click on the link at the bottom of this newsletter “Please help your school by clicking here to confirm receipt”.

Extra-Curricular Activities – Reminder that Chess and Homework club will finish tomorrow Thursday 1^st June. All other extra-curricular activities will finish on Thursday 22^nd June. We would ask that you ensure the children have extra water and sunscreen/sun hats for outdoor activities when the weather is good.

Contact Information – It is imperative that we have up to date address and phone contact details for parents/guardians of all the children here at the school. If you have changed your address or phone number, please email your new details to [email protected] as soon as possible.

School Photos – School photos were taken throughout the day today Wednesday 31^st May. It is not obligatory to purchase these photos. Sample photos will be sent to you so you can decide if you wish to purchase them.

Graduation 2017 – 6^th Class graduation will take place on Thursday 29^th June in the school hall at 12 noon.

School Reports – This year due to the high cost of postage and administration costs we are going to email your child’s report to you. Please ensure that the school has an up to date email address for you. Reports will be sent by email towards the end of June, please let us know if you would like reports to be translated (we will help if we can).

Book Rental & Sundry Payments 2017-2018 are now due, please keep as separate payments, online payments option will be available this week. You will receive an email request so you can avail of our new E Payments online system. If you are paying in cash at the school office, where possible, please bring exact change. Many thanks

ZEEKO Safety On Line Seminar for Parents – WETNS has organised a safety on line seminar for parents on Wed 7^th June from 7-8pm. This will take place in Room G20 (opposite the main hall). The seminar will cost the school €250 so we are asking for parents to give €5 towards the cost of this or whatever they can afford. If you haven’t already put your name down for this and would like to attend, please phone Fran 0404-62786 so that we can gauge the numbers expected on the night. The seminar will present the findings from an earlier survey carried out with 2^nd-6^th class pupils.

Garden – The garden committee will be running a stand as part of this year’s PA led Family Active Day, June 10^th. We are currently seeking volunteers to help out with this stall on the day. If you have an hour free to help, please contact the committee via our email [email protected]

Percent 4 Art Monster Art Box

Our Art Monster is sitting in the foyer and is looking forward to being fed all of your wonderful art ideas. Remember the Percent for Art committee will be publishing a brief to the art community over the coming weeks and want your input as to what you would like to see in terms of art around our school premises. This will act as inspiration for their submissions! Please submit your ideas asap to our hungry Art Monster!

Active Month We will be celebrating everything Active in WETNS throughout the month of June. Sports Day will take place on Thursday 15th June-Infants to 2nd class will be at the school, and 3rd-6th venue to be decided, further details will follow shortly. We will again take part in the Bike to School event. There will be many other in- school activities planned as well as school tours. All pupils will be encouraged to keep active and there will be no homework apart from reading homework throughout the month.

W.O.W. (Walk/wheel on Wednesdays) – We are very excited to announce that W.O.W. (Walk/wheel on Wednesdays) is starting on Wednesday the 7th of June! We want as many children to walk to school on the day. There are lots of great reasons for this. Firstly, travelling by car causes lots of pollution, it also uses lots of resources and causes traffic problems too. By walking to school, you can stay fit and healthy and be wide awake for school! Children and parents don’t travel as part of a formal walk to school scheme like a walking bus, they walk their own route & at their own time.

Don’t worry if you can’t walk on the day, there are lots of other ways to travel that are good for you and for the environment! You can scoot, cycle, use the school bus, car pool or “park ‘n’ stride”. If you do have to come to school by car, try stopping a little bit further from the school than usual and walk the rest of the way. The class that scores the most points for coming to school by walking, scooting or cycling, car-pooling, “park ‘n’ stride” or by bus, will win the ‘Golden Boot’ Award! The winning class will be announced at assembly every Friday!

Be safe, be seen! Please wear hi-vis vests if you have them. So, get those walking shoes on and we will see you all bright and early on Wednesday June 7^th!

Bike to school day – Wednesday 14^th June will be our bike to school day this year. Currently we are looking into which meeting points will be the best for our new location. We are also looking for volunteers to escort the cyclists safely to school on that day. Please contact Sue Martin on 087 6700869 or [email protected] if you would like to help. Please note bicycles only on the escorted cycles as roller skates, skateboards, scooters are unsuitable modes of transport on a public road.

Would you like to save time & your nerves on the school run?? A group of our caring 6^th class students have volunteered to wait at the drop-off zone to help our children make their way from the car to the rear of the school. They will help the child from the car and escort them right around to the back, where school staff take responsibility for them.

We are looking for parent volunteers to supervise at set-down and to help 6^th class pupils usher children to their line. This is a potentially wonderful service that would help to relieve congestion and get parents back on the road to work, home or on to another drop-off! As part of a recent WETNS school traffic audit, it was shown that on average, drop-off takes less than 1 minute from entering the gates to exiting. Would it make life easier to have someone help your child from the car & into the school? Do you have a spare 10 minutes in the morning? We need you! We can’t make this happen without your help! Contact Janice or Jenny on: [email protected] (0868703827) or [email protected](0863854411)

WETNS Teddy Bears’ Picnic – Our annual Teddy Bears’ Picnic for the Sept 2017 incoming junior infants will take place on Saturday 26^th August in Kilmacurragh from 11 – 1pm. (Please note time change!). All are welcome to join us on the day. Don’t forget your teddy!

https://wicklowetns.com/2017/05/22/teddy-bears-picnic-colouring-sheet/

Library Update – Donations of Books – NO MORE FOR THE MOMENT PLEASE. Thank you so much for the kind donations of books for our library. We need to finish off processing the ones we have, before we accept any more. Next academic year we will draw up a ‘wish list’ based on suggestions from pupils, teachers & parents. Books on this wish list may then be donated – good second hand or new. More information will follow in September. Thank you everyone.

Library – new email address – Our new email address is [email protected]. It will be checked by some of our committee as regularly as we can but not daily, so please do not use it for anything urgent.

Library – Suggestions for how our library should look – As you may know, the current layout and furniture in the library are temporary. Classes are beginning to use the library and we are learning to run this as we go along. We need to finalise our furniture order soon and would like to hear your ideas about how the library should look. Everyone in the school community is welcome to put forward suggestions. These will be taken into consideration as we finalise our furniture order and following that, as we decorate the library. Obviously, we will not be able to act on every suggestion but they will all feed into and influence the outcome. Please place your suggestions in the suggestions box in the Foyer or email them to [email protected] by Wed 7^th June.

Lost Property – We have a large amount of Lost Property here at the school and would really like to return all the coats, jackets, hoodies, cardigans, t-shirts, hats and gloves to their owners before we close for the Summer break. The children have worked hard over the last few days sorting all the lost property and returning any labelled items to their owners. All remaining unlabelled items are now on individual hangers in the main foyer. One rail for smaller items and one for larger. Please click on the link below to see 3 short videos of all the individual items in lost property. They can be collected in the main foyer.

https://wicklowetns.com/2017/05/22/lost-and-found-22052017/

Board of Management – Vacancy for Male Parent Nominee There are 8 members of the Board of Management (BOM) of a National School. Two are nominees of the Patron body (Educate Together), two are Staff Nominees (the Principal and an elected teacher), two are elected by the parent body to be the Parent Nominees (one male and one female) and two further members are nominated as Community Representatives.

We now require a nominee from the male parents of children enrolled in our school currently and who will continue to be enrolled until June 2019. Under the Education Act (1998), the Board of Management must undertake to run the school according to the ethos determined by the Patron. Members of the Board of Management participate as volunteers in the school community and generally serve for a four-year term of office. Boards operate under Dept. of Education & Skills (DES) rules which are clearly laid out in the Governance Manual for Primary Schools 2015-2019.

The BOM acts professionally, collectively and on the basis of consensus i.e. the board acts as one unit in terms of its function in addressing the business of the school. The elected parents and teacher, once elected, do not act as a representative of those who elected them.

Parent/Guardian Nominee Election Process

The BOM is following Option 1 from the DES Governance Manual (Appendix B)

*Please note: Parents who are employees of the school cannot be on the Board of Management. Parent nominees should be from separate families and should bear no relationship to any staff member.

31^st May (Wednesday) at 7.30pm – Please note change of date!

Parents are invited to a meeting at 7.30pm to nominate one male parent to the Board. This meeting will be chaired by Caoimhe Doyle (Chair of Parents Association) and Rob Greene (Chair of Board of Management). Those standing do not have to attend but will need to have a proposer and seconder present on the night. If only one person is nominated they will be deemed elected, otherwise a postal election will be held. Ballot papers on which nominees can include a short piece about themselves (if all candidates agree) will be issued to all parents/guardians.

Voting will be on a ‘first past the post basis’ i.e. each person shall have one, non-transferable vote. Posted votes should have envelope clearly marked ‘Parent Elections’. Alternatively, a locked ballot box will be in Fran’s office for hand delivery.

22nd June (Tuesday)

2.30pm: closing date of polling.

There will be an open count of ballots that evening (time tbc) by Caoimhe and Rob.

In the interests of clarity please note that the term “Parent” includes a foster parent, a guardian appointed under the Guardianship of Children Acts, 1964 to 1997, or other person acting in loco parentis who has a child in his or her care subject to any statutory power or order of a court and, in the case of a child who has been adopted under the Adoption Acts, 1952 to 1998 or, where the child has been adopted outside the State, means the adopter or adopters or the surviving adopter.

This is your school so please get involved and if you have questions feel free to call or talk to any member of the Board of Management.

Rob Greene (Chair) 086 167 6270

Koryne Smyth (Parent Nominee) 086 326 3840

Jerry O’Neill (Parent Nominee)

School Tours

WICKLOW EDUCATE TOGETHER – SCHOOL TOURS – 2017

CLASS	LOCATION	Date	Time Leaving School	Time Returning To School	Cost Per Child
Kate – Jun Infs	Kia Ora Farm	Wed 21^st June	9.15am	1pm	€12.00
Eileen – Jun Infs	Kia Ora Farm	Wed 21^st June	9.15am	1pm	€12.00
Paul – Sen Infs	Tick Tock Activity Farm	Fri 16^th June	9am	1.15pm	€14.00
Brian & Caoimhe 1^st Classes	Festine Lente	Tue 20^th June	9am	2.15pm	€21.00
*Sally & Leanne* 2^nd Classes	Clara Lara	Fri 23^rd June	9am	2.15pm	€26.00
Alison x 35 3^rd Class	Squirrel Scramble	Mon 19^th June	9.30am	2.15pm	€25.00
Adele & Janet 4^th Classes	Fort Lucan	Thu 08^th June	9am	2.15pm	€26.00
Rory 5^th Class	World of Adventure Courtown	Fri 02^nd June	9.30am	2.20pm	€30.00
Edele & Eamonn 6^th Classes	World of Adventure Courtown+Archery	Fri 16^th June	9.30am	2.20pm	€36.00

PARENTS’ ASSOCIATION PIECE

Family Active Day Saturday June 10^th – We are all looking forward to a great family day here at the school on Saturday 10^th June. We have a lovely new school building but much work is needed to improve the teaching garden space. The aim is to develop the teaching garden to allow the children to get truly hands on, growing plants, flowers and vegetables with enough space for a whole class to have time in the garden together. The development of the teaching garden will provide a significant enhancement to your child’s outdoor school experience. All funds raised from Family Active Day will benefit improvements to the teaching garden. On the day, each family will take part in a scavenger hunt! This will include the opportunity to take part in:

– a family obstacle course,

– dance a jig at the ceili,

– try your hand at camogie/hurling,

– shoot some hoops on the basketball court,

– chill out at the family yoga session,

– create a unique family portrait,

– build a spaghetti and marshmallow tower

– create a garden design in the garden corner

Please join in the fun on Saturday June 10th! Show your support by coming along with your trainers on, volunteering on the day or bringing some baked goods for the tea stand! Entry will be €5 per adult. Children will be free. The maximum Family charge will be €10. Children must be accompanied by an adult. All families who attend will be entered in a raffle on the day to win family prizes such as a family pass to Squirrel Scramble, Family tour of Turlough Hill, a hanging driftwood ornament and more to be confirmed!

Martin Family Coffee Morning & Bake Sale – Thank you to all who supported last week’s bake sale in aid of the Martin Family. We raised €257.00!

The National Parents Conference will take place on June 10th and is open to all those who are interested in attending, not just those on Parent Association Committees. Entry to the event is free. For more info http://www.npc.ie/news-post.aspx?contentid=9989

Minutes of PA committee meetings are available in the Parents area of the website:

https://wicklowetns.com/2017/04/26/minutes-pa-committee-meeting-25th-april-2017/

Monster art