Our fabulous new sensory garden/path is in full swing and already looking like a beautiful new addition to the school. Melanie, Thomas and Fiach are working super hard to get it finished in time for the children to enjoy it as the weather hopefully improves.
Pupils from the Senior Room today completed their last week of a 6 week module in the new Primary Language Sampler with tutor Sophie.
The sampler module was a means for raising awareness among pupils of the range of languages used in their community and in the world around them. Over 500 schools nationwide are taking part and offering modules in a range of modern foreign languages and Irish Sign Language. The module introduced the pupils to Spanish and was taught over a 6-week period during the normal school timetable.
The children thoroughly enjoyed the 6 weeks. They learned a huge amount of different information from Spanish greetings, colours, body parts, to days of the week, numbers and lots of interesting facts about Spain. They looked at the way words are similar in different languages.
Today Sophie brought in some Spanish Food - Homemade Churos for the children to taste and showed the children how the Spanish use cutlery
The children have now completed their Language passport and done all the activities. They will bring these home to show off to you all and I’m sure they will all look forward to telling everyone about what they have learned over the 6 weeks so ask lots of questions!!
They also received some nice badges and Keyrings as keepsakes.
Overall it was a fantastic 6 weeks of learning and memorable ones I’m sure for the children.
For any parents wishing to continue the Spanish learning experience with Sophie, she runs online classes which can be accessed at https://www.exploringlanguagesforkids.ie/
We have received our 2nd certificate for the Woodies Budding Gardeners competition that we have entered our Junior Room pupils into.
The task for March was to plant lettuce seeds. The children are really enjoying the tasks set out each month.
We are making excellent progress in the school garden thanks to Melanie, Fiach and Thomas. Our new polytunnel is in place and has new bedding tunnels where broccoli, carrots, onions have been planted. There are also lots of trays with seedlings with many different vegs and herbs, such as rocket, rainbow corn, courgettes tomatos etc.
Because of the tree stumps in the dedicated veg area Melanie is working super hard to make a special kind of raised beds which is called "Hügelkultur". This is the layering of degradables, such as tree logs, branches, grass cuttings, straw and soil/compost as the top layer. Melanie hopes that this way it will cover the stumps and will accelerate the decompositioning. The end result hopefully will be that the surface area will be increased and therefore provide more space for plants/vegs.
There are lots of exciting plans for the school garden in the coming months and the children are really enjoying being outside and working in the garden. They are learning so much about planting and growing.
Thank you again to Melanie for all her time and effort.
Our school will be running a Scholastic Book Fair from Monday 04th - Thursday 07th April. The book fair will feature lots of lovely books for the children to buy. The more books purchased the more rewards the school will receive which will give us the opportunity to purchase some beautiful new books for the school library,
Please see attached an invitation and some books on offer for our Book Fair. The book fair will be open to the whole community on Monday 04th and Weds 06th April from 1.15-3.15pm.
We are offering parents the option of paying by cash or via online for books purchased.
The online payment link for paying online for books is www.bookfairs.scholastic.ie/pay Please select our school from the drop down menu. Please Note that ordering from the Scholastic Online shop is separate from the book fair and the school does not receive the full rewards therefore please ensure that you select Scoil San Eoin.
If you’re unable to visit the Book Fair, your child will be sent home with a Wish List and you can pay for their chosen books using our online payment system. Please make sure the Wish List is returned to your child’s class teacher.
Pre-paid gift vouchers are available in €5, €10, €15, €20 and €25. Go to www.bookfairs.scholastic.ie/gift-vouchers to buy vouchers for your child before the Fair
We would love your support! Please spread the word.
Thank You
For engineering week this week the whole school took part in a computer coding workshop with Ciaran from Coughlan Web.
Our Junior room completed a Melodic Name Badge using the fantastic BBC Microbit.
The micro:bit’s LED display output can show words and numbers as well as pictures.
This program scrolls text across the screen to let people know your name and show a picture.
An infinite loop keeps the sequence going until you unplug the micro:bit from its battery or USB lead.
Scrolling text on LED displays are often used to show bus and train information.
Our Senior room
The senior classes built a Traffic Light Sequencer. Again using the very versatile BBC Microbit and an RGB Led board. This project was a bit more hands on as the students not only had to build code, they had to use crocodile clips to connect the external RDB Led.
The children all thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Check out our videos at the end of this post which shows the pupils name being spelt out on what they built with Ciaran.
Dear Parent/Guardian,
NEPS have published and sent the below advice to schools for Parents and School Staff in relation to supporting children and young people in a time of war.
https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/e003e-supporting-children-and-young-people-in-a-time-of-war/
Thank You
Dear Parent/Guardian,
Please see below a notification from the Board of Management regarding the annual review of the school anti-bullyting policy completed.
The updated policy can be viewed on the website under policies. A hard copy of the policy is also available from the school office. We are are asking all parents/guardians to read the updated policy please and make your child/children aware of any changes.
Thank You,
Linda Greene
Principal
Dear Parent/Guardian,
This week at Scoil San Eoin your child/children will be participating in the Food Dudes Healthy Eating Programme, which aims to encourage children to eat more fruit and vegetables.
Previously we have participated in a 8 days/16 days Food Dudes intervention under which pupils received daily deliveries of fruit and vegetables and were rewarded with stickers and small rewards for participation. At the end of the intervention, pupils were encouraged to bring in and eat fruit and vegetables from home as part of their daily diet.
We are very pleased to inform you that your child/children will have the opportunity to participate in the next phase of the programme this week. Under this phase, we will receive 5 days of fruit and vegetables – a “Food Dudes Week” – to help maintain the healthy eating ethos in the school.
Pupils in Junior Infants and pupils new to the school this academic year, will be provided with a reusable Food Dudes Lunchbox, to help encourage this healthy behaviour.
To support the school based activities that will be running alongside Food Dudes, your child will be given a Passport to Healthy Eating. This passport contains a number of fun activities and is designed to be completed with you at home during the course of the Food Dudes week.
The completion of the passport by you and your child will further enhance the healthy eating ethos in school and at home.
Parent’s may wish to adjust the amount of food in your child’s lunchbox next week, to accommodate these additional foods.
We are looking forward to a great week ahead!
We’ve been super busy in the Senior Room…sit back and have a look!!!
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Our Junior Room pupils have been planting bulbs and working in our new greenhouse with Ms Nuzum and Melanie Byrne (parent of Ben/Sam).
Melanie has entered the school in the Woodies ‘Budding Gardeners Competition’ which gives the school the chance of winning a garden makeover of 2,500 euro and lots of other prizes.
Melanie has submitted the 1st part of the competition. See below our certificate to confirm the 1st task has been completed.
The children are loving being outside and getting to take part.
Thank you to Melanie for taking the time to work with the children and to Thomas and Fiach for getting our greenhouse ready for lots of work ahead for the Spring and Summer months.
Dear Parent/Guardians,
Yesterday 22.02.22 we had a full day workshop with Dale Treadwell from Hertiage Ireland.
The children in our Junior Room had a very busy day.
They got to listen to a lovely Hedgehog story, and spent some time examining woodlice, ladybird, centipede and spiders through lenses which was super interesting for them to see.
They Listened to the story Patricia The Planted Butter Fly written by Dale who gave the workshop and learned about dinosaurs and saw lots of interesting artifacts, bones and teeth
They played lots of games outside in a circle and got to plant wildflower seeds at the bank outside of their classroom. The pupils also planted a Tree (Mountain Ash) over by the corner of the pitch. This will be such a lovely memory for the children and they will get to watch what they have planted develop and grow.
All the children in the Junior Room finished the day with artwork on drawing dinosaurs and using playdough to make one.
Overall everyone had a super interesting and exciting day and I am sure there were lots of lovely stories for parents afterwards.
Thank you to Dale for visiting us at Scoil San Eoin
In the Senior Room they made a bug hotel, learned about echo location and had to work together as a team to put together a geometric dome. It was tougher than it looked and they learned some engineering skills and some skills about job delegation and patience!!
Dear Parent/Guardian,
Wicklow Libraries are running the following parenting events over the coming weeks, which are all available free of charge to anyone interested;
Addressing school avoidance -Tara Kelly - January 12th, 7pm on Zoom
Managing anxiety in children - Tara Kelly - March 15th 7pm on Zoom
Building strong relationships with your Tweens and Teens - Madeleine Connolly - March 22nd, 7pm on Zoom
How to talk to your children (under 13) about porn - Sarah Sproule - 5th April, 7pm on Zoom
ADHD Explained with Ken Kilbride of AHDH Ireland - 6th April, 7pm on Zoom
Please feel free to contact braylib@wicklowcoco.ie to book your place or find out more.
All classes took part in a workshop with Conor Halpin on Thursday. There was lots of fun and games and everyone really enjoyed the day.
Dear Parent/Guardian,
Please see below updated isolation quick guide guidance from the HSE - Issued 06.01.2022
Isolation quick guide Isolation quick guide - Adults and children from their 13th birthday
Thank You
Dear Parents,
Our 5/6th class are getting in the Christmas Spirit and done a performance of Jingle Bell Rock on the Ukulele. They have done an excellent job and you can really see they are progressing from their lessons with Sean in music generation.
We hope you enjoy!!
Merry Christmas Everyone!
The junior room children have been very busy in the month of December and the lead up to Christmas. Our theme for the month was Winter where we talked about Winter weather, Winter clothes and some animals associated with Winter such as the Penguin and the Irish Seal. In Gaeilge we covered An Aimsir learning lots of new vocabulary about Winter weather.
In the run up to another COVID Christmas we unfortunately were unable to have any visitors to the school or any outside trips but we made the best we could of this situation with lots of arts and crafts activities and of course plenty of practise for our classroom concert - we hope you all enjoyed this video posted on seesaw! Take a look at all the lovely work the children have completed and we hope their log decorations will bring joy to all households for many years. Nollaig Shona daoibh go léir!
School Office: 0404 41 727
Email: schoolofficeredcross@gmail.com
Roll No: 14829M