Dear Parents,

National Parents Council would like to hear from parents about any impact the closure of early learning and care services including childminding and school age childcare during Level 5 restrictions has had on your child.

This information will help us to hear and understand your views and experiences and  represent you nationally as parents.  The findings will be compiled into a report and may be shared with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and other relevant stakeholders.

All responses are anonymous and no personal information will be shared.

Please fill out a separate survey for each child.

Please click this link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Early_learning_and_Care_Services_during_Level5 to give your views

We would like to thank you for taking the time to complete this survey, if you have any questions you can contact us at cdowney@npc.ie

Clare Downey

NPC Early Years’ Services Manager

Over the coming weeks we are making a big push to encourage reading at home.

Your child will have a book in their bag each evening for homework. This book is at the easy level for your child.

We ask that you and your child spend at least 15-20 minutes reading and talking about the book. Your child should be reading the book with fluency. This means that they should not be stopping regularly on unknown words and will be reading using the punctuation (i.e. stopping at full stops and pausing at commas). If your child is stopping and pausing on many unknown words, please let the teacher know so a more appropriate level text can be given. The easy level of the text is important as we want the home reading experience to be as positive as possible.

Home reading enables your child to practice and consolidate learning. This practice is most important in ensuring that your child’s reading continues to improve. Reading the same book over a couple of nights can be very beneficial in developing reading confidence.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher.

Kind regards,

Conor Mc Donald

We are delighted to announce that we will be having a virtual book fair in our school on April 22nd.

Over the coming weeks all our teachers will be showing your child images of the books that will be available to purchase, talking to them a little about the books and encouraging them to read more at home.

As well as that a copy of each book will be sent to the school so that your child will get to look at the physical book before purchasing.

Reading is so important for children and their learning and has so many benefits some of which include strengthening the brain, building vocabulary, reducing stress, aiding a good nights sleep and increasing our knowledge.

The best news is that to enjoy these benefits you only need to read for as little as fifteen minutes a day.

Another benefit of this book fair is that for every book bought the school will be given a free book which will go towards upgrading our classroom libraries which will give your child access to fresh books in school.

Having looked at the books in school your child can tell you which ones they would like to have and if you are interested you will be able to order the books via phone.

More information on this process will be sent out over the coming weeks so for now you do not need to do anything.

If you would like to have a look at the titles that will be available before the book fair please click here

And, as always there is no obligation to buy.

County photos will visit the school next Thursday march 25th.

All pupils will have their photo taken but as always there is no obligation or pressure on anyone to purchase.

This year the event will be run in accordance with strict Covid-19 safeguarding protocols.

More information can be found by clicking here

You can also contact the school on 053 93 88728 or via email stcolmansnsballindaggin@gmail.com for further information

School will be closed next week on Wednesday March 17th for St. Patrick’s Day.

Traditionally we have a mini parade around the village and the year before last we finished with a Céili in the Community Hall.

This year we invite all pupils to don their green attire on Tuesday March 16th. They can have an Irish flag or a shamrock painted on their face if they so wish and a badge or pin on their top too.

We may not be able to have our traditional celebration but we are still going to mark the occasion in school and we have organised a little surprise for all of our pupils on the day too.

We ask that any novelty glasses, hats and larger items remain at home this year because inevitably sharing of such items occurs and we do not want that happening this year due to the risk involved.

We will be posting photos of the day to Twitter and our school website so please stay tuned.

On November 24th our school was visited by a member of the inspectorate team from the Department of Education.

Our school was inspected to ensure that we are in compliance with the Covid-19 Response Plan for Safe Re-opening of Primary Schools as set out by the Department of Education.

The report is now available to view by clicking here

Today is World Book Day!!

It is hard to believe that this day last year our entire school community was dressed up as one of their favourite book characters in school.

We also did lots of shared reading on World Book Day last year where the senior pupils read stories to the junior classes.

Unfortunately, this year we decided not to dress up because we are only just back in school and we did not want to add any extra pressure on people trying to source costumes.

We also can’t do shared reading this year which is a pity.

However, our teachers have lots of fun activities planned for the afternoon both online and in school.

Furthermore, those pupils that are lucky enough to be in school will all receive a World Book Day voucher before they go home today. This can be used in Eason’s in Enniscorthy to get a free World Book Day book, if that suits you.