Dear Parents / Guardians,
We hope you all had a fabulous summer. Our news is as follows:
- Welcome: Welcome back to all our existing parents. We look forward to meeting with you and working closely with you again during the year ahead. We would like to extend a very warm welcome to our new parents who are joining the Bunscoil Bhríde school community for the first time. We look forward to getting to know you and your child.
- New Junior Infants: We were delighted to welcome our fabulous forty-one Junior Infant girls to our school yesterday. They are a super group and have settled in so well in the two days they have been with us. We’re really excited to get to know them and see them grow and develop.
- New Playground: We are delighted to announce that our fabulous new equipment has been installed in our playground here at school. While some classes got out to it today, we hope that the weather will improve tomorrow so that all classes can get out to check it out!
- Aladdin Connect: All new parents have been sent the link to download the Aladdin Connect app. Please ensure you have downloaded the app to your device. Please note that it is possible for both parents to download the app (where applicable). All communication from the school will be sent via the app. We ask that all parents check the information recorded about your child on the app and make any necessary changes. Please ensure that there are at least two emergency contacts listed for your child. Please phone the office immediately if you are having any issues downloading or accessing the Aladdin Connect app.
- Communication: If at any stage of the year you have a concern around your child, or you wish to share information about your child with us, please contact Catríona in the office to arrange an appointment with your child’s teacher. Alternatively, you can arrange an appointment time by messaging your child’s teacher directly via Aladdin Connect. Please see our Parent Teacher Communication Policy at the following link: https://www.bunscoilbhride.ie/parent-teacher-communication-policy/ If you simply wish to make your child’s teacher aware of something that doesn’t require a meeting, you can send her a message on Aladdin Connect. As the teachers are busy teaching their classes, they will not be in a position to respond to such messages, but will always get in contact with you should you have a query or concern.
- School Photographs: ‘County Photos’ (school photographers) have been booked to take individual photos of all of our Junior Infant girls and class group photos of both our Junior Infants and our Sixth Class girls on Monday 22nd September. All photograph proofs are sent home for parents to view and there is no obligation for parents to make any purchase. Please let us know if you do not wish for your daughter’s photograph to be taken. See the flyer attached from County Photos for more details.
- Home-School Partnership: We strongly value thesupport of parents inhelping us to realise the potential of each and every child in our care. In order for us to achieve this goal, it is vital that parents work alongside the teachers and help to support the work being done at school. Checking and signing your child’s homework journal, regularly listening to reading, checking sounds/tables etc. and most importantly, speaking positively to your child about school and its importance will be of enormous benefit to your child. We recommend that you take a look at the booklet for parents developed by the National Adult Literacy Agency at the following link www.helpmykidlearn.ie. The booklet demonstrates how to practice reading, writing and math skills with your child, in a fun and colourful way. It includes games and puzzles that have a wide appeal for all age groups. In an effort to get to know your child, all teachers will be distributing a short questionnaire about your child. Should you have any queries about your child’s progress or any concern or query during the year, please do not hesitate to contact the school to arrange an appointment with your child’s teacher. We look forward to developing a strong partnership in your child’s education.
- Late Arrivals/Early Departures: For health and safety reasons, should a child need to leave the school building during the day for any reason, e.g. dentist, medical appointments, etc., or should a child arrive late to school, this must be recorded on Aladdin. It is possible for parents to inform us on the Aladdin app that your child will be arriving late to school / picked up early from school. Our secretary, Catríona will be recording late arrivals / early departures on Aladdin. The reason for the late arrival / early departure must also be recorded – please inform Catríona when you phone the school. We would ask that children are only taken out of school early if absolutely necessary. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
- Absences: Under the Education Welfare Act 2000, where a child is absent from school on a school day, the child’s parents must notify the school of the reasons for such absence. We require parents to record the reason for the absence on the Aladdin app. You will receive a push notification when your child is marked absent at school. You will then be prompted to input the reason for the absence. We are required under the Act to notify Túsla of any child being absent for 20 days or more. Our student administration system (Aladdin) automatically sends texts to parents reminding them of this when a child reaches both 10 and 15 days of cumulative absences.
- Coming to school: Our school starts at 8.50am. You are asked to drop your child(ren) to school as close to 8.50am as possible. We will open the school gate and provide supervision for children at 8.40am. The church carpark is a public place and it is not safe to drop children off out there before the school gate is opened at 8.40am.
- Medicines: No medicinesare allowed at school. If your child has a medical condition for which medicine/inhaler etc. must be administered, please contact the school, as Board of Management approval must be granted for this. Please see our administration of medication policy at www.bunscoilbhride.ie for more information.
- Cuts: We will routinely apply plasters to cuts. It is the responsibility of parents to notify the school in writing (for the attention of the Principal) if they do not wish for plasters to be applied to their child (e.g. if the child is allergic to plasters).
- Correct Footwear: Please ensure your child comes to school wearing footwear that is suitable for running. Converse / canvas shoes are not permitted at school.
- NUT ALLERGIES: We have a number of children in the school with severe nut allergies. Children are therefore not allowed to bring nuts or any products containing nuts into the school. This includes peanut butter, chocolate spreads etc. We ask parents to be vigilant in this regard, as any contact with nuts for these children can be potentially lethal.
- Infant Induction Meeting: Our Junior Infant teachers, Ms. Feeney and Ms. Costello will hold a short meeting with parents of the new Junior Infants on Monday 8th September at 11am in the school. The purpose of the meeting is to inform parents of the teaching approaches that will be used and the content that will be taught in Junior Infants. This will give parents the opportunity to meet with their child’s teacher, voice any questions they may have and get some ideas as to how they can support their child’s learning at home. We strongly encourage all parents to attend the meeting if at all possible, or to have some member of the child’s family attend. Home-time forJunior Infant pupils willmove to the permanent time of 1.30pm from Wednesday 10th September.
- Parents of Infant children: As you can imagine, teachers have to be extremely cautious at the gate when releasing children into the care of adults. If your child is being collected at 12pm / 1.30pm by another adult that is not you, or by an after-school provider, please send a message to your child’s teacher (this can be done by clicking ‘Send Notice’ on the Aladdin app).
- New staff: I would like to take this opportunity to welcome our new staff members; Ms. Ciara Flood (Fifth Class Teacher) and Ms. Johanna Fogarty (Special Education Teacher). We are also delighted to welcome back Ms. Zita Dillon (First & Second Class teacher) and Ms. Ellen Gorman (Bluebells Class Teacher), who return to our staff for this school year. Our full staff list can be found on our school website www.bunscoilbhride.ie
- Allianz 24-hour Pupil Personal Accident Insurance: On Monday next, all children will bring home a sheet detailing the optional 24-hour pupil insurance scheme. This insurance provides cover for any medical or dental costs arising from an accident in or out of school during the year e.g. in the event of your child having to attend A&E due to an accident, the attendance fee is fully covered (24 hours a day, 365 days a year) – please phone the office for the claim form. Please note that if you wish to avail of the Allianz 24-hour Pupil Personal Accident Insurance, you must complete and return the slip at the bottom of the sheet that the children will bring home on Monday (one sheet must be completed for each child) and the €10 fee per child must be paid via the Aladdin Connect app (or link that will be sent to all parents on Monday) by Friday 26th September.
- Headlice: Please check your child(ren)’s hair on a regular basis for headlice, treat where necessary and please inform the school if you have found headlice in your child’s hair so that we can inform the parents of the other children in the class. Long hair must be fully tied up in school. With all parents following the regular checking routine, we will hopefully minimise the chance of children in the school getting headlice.
- Tin Whistle classes: All children from Second to Fourth Class will begin tin whistle lessons next week. Please ensure your daughter has her D tin whistle at school every day. We would ask you to encourage your child to practise regularly at home.
- Ukulele classes: Our Fifth and Sixth Classes will begin weekly ukulele lessons with a tutor from Music Generation in the coming weeks. Ukuleles will be provided by the school. We will send more information to parents about the lessons in the coming days.
- Football & Camogie: Football and camogie training for our Fifth and Sixth Class pupils will commence on Tuesday 9th September from 2.30pm to 3.15pm. A permission request has been sent to the parents of all children in Fifth and Sixth Class. Children must have permission to attend (via the Aladdin Connect app) and must have gum-shields. I would like to thank Ms. Marrinan, Ms. Brogan and Ms. Fogarty who have very generously offered to volunteer their time to coach the girls after school.
- Permissions on Aladdin: All parents have been sent a permission request on Aladdin Connect for trips outside the school. Please click on the Permissions tab in the Aladdin Connect app to view what permissions pertain to your child. Please let us know if you have any difficulty with this.
- Oral Language: The theme for the month of September is ‘Sentence Structure and Tenses’. All classes will be focusing on this theme for the month and we would ask that you support us at home, by encouraging and modelling use of full sentences and correct tenses.
- Google Suite for Education: All our senior children (third to sixth class) use Google Suite for Education (Google Classroom / Drive / Docs / Slides etc.). While our existing fourth to sixth class pupils already have their login details, our third class and children who have just joined fourth to sixth class will be given login details in the coming days, following the granting of consent by parents on the Aladdin app (only for pupils who have not yet been assigned Google logins). Please ensure that you have ticked any permissions pertaining to your child on the Aladdin app (under ‘Permissions’).
- Parking: I am aware that there are lots of new parents using the church carpark to drop-off / collect children. We are hoping that the works to the church will shortly conclude and the full church car-park will fully reopen. Please see the plan of the church carpark attached which highlights the rules for the safe use of the carpark at school drop-off / pick-up times. Please share this information with anyone who drops off / collects your child. Parents are asked not to park in the yellow boxes, in the wheelchair parking spaces or between the wheelchair parking spaces. Parking is in a single row alongside the Noone Engineering wall and in THREE ROWS along the middle white lines. When the church car-park fully reopens, there should be absolutely NO DRIVING AROUND THE CHURCH. Let’s keep everyone safe!
Also, let’s all remember we are a Green School (with eleven Green Flags!). If at all possible, we would encourage as many families as possible to leave the car at home and children to walk or cycle to school.
- School website: Please check out our school website www.bunscoilbhride.ie. It contains lots of information about what’s going on at Bunscoil Bhríde and lots of photos of the events that take place. Photos of the new classes will be added shortly. Teachers will also shortly begin updating their class blogs (located under the ‘Our Classes’ tab on the homepage).
- After-School Providers: Currently, one after-school provider, namely ‘Linda Grogan Art Classes’ hires facilities in our school for the purpose of providing after-school art classes for children (see details below). All afterschool providers are private businesses and, as such, are separate entities to the school. Children attending such afterschool activities are in the care of the individual proprietor, while in attendance at such activities. All communication in relation to pupils’ participation in these afterschool activities should be directly to the specific provider and not through the school.
- Use of social media: Please be advised that social media or messaging apps such as Tiktok, Roblox and Snapchat have a minimum user age of 13 and are wholly unsuitable for children in primary school. We are aware of a number of children using these apps and can only assume parents are unaware of the dangers they present and the harm they can cause to children. Children at primary school level are emotionally and socially ill-equipped to deal with social media and we would urge all parents to exercise parental responsibility in ensuring their children are not exposed to the risks that come with social media use and to ensure children who are online at home are fully supervised at all times. The fallout from children using social media at home impacts upon school, taking up teaching time and affecting all children as a result. Please check out www.webwise.ie and inform yourselves of the dangers of the apps your children may be using and please take steps to address this usage.
- Dates for the Diary: We look forward to a very busy, productive and exciting year at Bunscoil Bhríde. Please keep an eye on the Calendar tab on Aladdin over the coming weeks as we will be adding important upcoming events.
Kind regards,
Maria Rogerson
Message from Linda Grogan Art Classes: Arts and Crafts class are returning after school on Wednesday 10th September for 1st to 6th class. To book a place for your daughter, please text Linda and Orla 086 1409766