Dear Parents & Guardians, I hope this email finds you well. As we approach the Halloween Break I would like to tell you that the children are all well settled into the routine of school life. It has been a busy half term & I hope the children enjoy their time off over the Mid-term break. Please find below a list of recent & upcoming events. New Board of Management: As per the email sent on Oct 6 th we are in the process of putting together a new Board of Management that will manage the school for the next four years. We are having a meeting this Wednesday 25 th of October at 8:30pm in the school hall for the election of Parents representatives on the Board. We encourage anyone interested to attend. Family Fun Bingo Night: Huge thanks to the fundraising committee of Regina Fahy, Karen O’Sullivan, Veronica McDermott, Jamie Storan, Maria Beattie, Jillian Healy, Laura Mahon, John Naughton & Brian Kelly for organising this very enjoyable & successful event last Friday night. A massive amount of work went into making the night so enjoyable for everyone. We are very grateful to all involved. Thank you all for supporting the event & to all the local businesses who gave very generously. The sum raised was €10,920. We are delighted with this & it is a great start to our fundraising efforts. Below are some of the other upcoming events. Fundraising: 1. Progressive 25 Card game & Prize draw. This event is taking place on Sunday 7 th of January in the Temperance Hall, Loughrea. Tickets €10 each are to be sold after the Bingo night. Our aim is to sell 1000 tickets for the event. We will need lots of help to achieve this goal. 2. Table Quiz/Auction. We are planning to have a Table quiz & auction in mid-February in the Village Inn. We have kept some of the spot prizes from the Bingo to auction on the night. 3. School Lotto: It was decided to postpone the school lotto for the time being. We are going to look at it again in the New Year. It was felt that there was too much going on...
Read MoreDear Parents & Guardians, I hope you are all keeping well. There is great excitement in the school as we approach the Christmas break. The children in school are doing so well & there is no doubt that Santa will be good to all the boys & girls in Kilchreest N.S. I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of the Staff to thank you all for your help & support throughout 2023. I would also personally like to thank all the staff of the school for all their hard work & dedication to the children. We are so fortunate to have such fantastic teachers & SNA’s who are committed to ensuring your children receive the very best education with kindness & care. Thanks also to our school Secretary Christina, our Parents Association & all the members of the Board of Management who do lots of unseen work to keep the school running so efficiently. Please find below a list of recent and upcoming events. School Car Park: We plan to have the new school Car park open before the Christmas Concerts on Thursday 21 st of December. The day of the Christmas concerts is traditionally the busiest day of the year in the school car park. It will be great to have the car park open to help with the additional volume of cars. Once the car park is open we would ask that no cars park at the front of the school anymore. There is a one-way system in place & cars are to enter opposite the entrance to the new car park and exit from the other side. The children coming in cars will enter the school from the new car park. It would be much appreciated if cars could reverse into the spaces as it makes it safer for everyone when leaving the car park. I realise it will take some time to get used to it but I would appreciate your patience and co-operation. Progressive 25 Card game and Prize draw. This event is taking place on Sunday 7 th of January in the Temperance Hall, Loughrea. The fundraising committee have been working very hard to sell the tickets for the Progressive 25 card game. Over...
Read MoreDear Parents & Guardians, I hope you & the children are all well settled back into school routine. Our new Infants have adjusted so well in their first few days at school. Below are some items for your attention & reminders of upcoming events. Staff Meeting: There will be a staff meeting this Wednesday 13th September. The children will go home at 1:45pm. Buses will run as normal Tin Whistle Lessons: Tin Whistle lessons will commence for children from 1st-6th class tomorrow Tuesday 12th September. Yvonne Barrett will be teaching the children again this year. The price for the lessons per term are €25 for 1 child, €45 for 2 children in a family & €60 for 3 children in a family. The children do 2 terms of Tin whistle. Please ensure your child has their own Tin Whistle. Fundraising: Our fundraising committee has been doing great work in the past few weeks. We will be announcing the ideas for fundraising shortly. There is a committee meeting this Thursday 14th September at 7:30pm in the school. All are welcome to attend. Cycle Safe Lessons: These lessons will commence for 5th & 6th class children shortly. Separate communication will be issued to 5th & 6th class parents. Hurling Coach: Lauren Solan Galway Coaching & Games GPO started back coaching children in 3rd & 4th class Thursday last week This will be for the next 6 weeks. Please don’t hesitate to contact me should you have any further queries in relation to any of the above. Yours sincerely, Francis O’Connor Principal Kilchreest NS...
Read MoreDear Parents/Guardians I hope you are all keeping well. As we approach the end of the school year we are delighted how well the children have done to date. Below is a list of recent & upcoming events. School Car Park: The next stage of the car-park development, footpaths & preparing for tarring will be commencing at the end of June. We are hoping then that the tarmac & lining will be done towards the end of July. With everything being planned as it is the Car Park is on schedule to be ready for September 2023. We are preparing another application for the next round of Clár Funding. We would like to get the rest of the site cleared & to continue our walkway around the perimeter of the site. This application is due the beginning of June. We are currently meeting with our Local representatives to get their support. Massive thanks to our very hard working Committee for the hours of time they are putting into this. I would especially like to mention Shane Nash, Aidan Clarke, Mike Mahony, Michael Fahy & Mairead Daly for their efforts. Due to other commitments Mairead has had to take a step back from Kilchreest Community Recreation Group. We are indebted to her for the time she has put in to bringing the project to where it is. Fundraising: Thanks to all those who attended the fundraising meeting recently. It was a very positive meeting with some great ideas discussed. We are having another meeting this Wednesday 24th of May at 8:30pm in the school hall. All are welcome to attend. There has been a good response to the parent’s contributions. €3670 has been collected to date which is over half what we were hoping to raise. We would be very grateful if the remaining contributions were sent in before the end of the school year. For EFT purposes the bank account details are as follows: IE04AIBK93742811830012 Donation Medtronic Tablets & Laptop: We received a very kind donation of 4 Samsung Tablets & a Dell Laptop from Galway Medical Devices company Medtronic last week. The donation which is to help with the implementation of STEM practices in Primary schools was organised...
Read More27th March 2023 Dear Parents & Guardians, I hope this finds you all well. We are coming to the end of our 2nd term of the school year. It has been a very busy term with some great memories to look back on. Grandparents day, Engineers Week and Seachtain na Gaeilge to name but a few. I’m sure you and the children are looking forward to the Easter break and I hope you all enjoy some relaxing time together. Below is a list of some recent activities and some upcoming events. Child Protection/Homework Survey: A huge thank you to all who filled out the questionnaire on Homework and Child Protection Guidelines. The results of both surveys were very informative and positive. I will issue the full results of the surveys after Easter and the plans for future communication and policy development. The R.S.E. programme is one of the areas that parents were unsure about and appear to need further clarification on. R.S.E. stands for Relationships Sexuality Education and it is taught as part of the SPHE curriculum. It is one of the compulsory programmes that schools have to teach. In order to give parents a clearer view of what is taught in the programme, I will attach the content overview for each class and the vocabulary taught. If you ae uncomfortable with your child learning this programme in school, then you do have the right to withdraw your child from the class when it is being taught. Arrangements can be made for the child to go to another classroom. School Car Park Development: As you know we received funds of €50,000 through Clár earlier in the year to redevelop the school car park. The tender process for the works is almost complete and we will have the contractors ready to start hopefully over the Easter holidays. One of the conditions of the draw down of the money was that we had to raise €11,000 ourselves. Up to now we haven’t been in a position to fundraise but now that the works are starting we need to get the ball rolling. It was decided at the recent Board of Management meeting to ask each family in the school for €100...
Read MoreDear Parents & Guardians, We would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year. Please find below a list of recent & upcoming events/dates. Reading World Cup: Our annual Reading World Cup is ongoing at the moment for children from 1st-6th class. This is one of our initiatives to promote reading in the school. As we are doing narrative language throughout the school at the moment it might be a nice idea to get your child to retell the story of the book they are reading in sequence. Catholic Schools Week: We celebrate Catholic Schools next week. Starting Monday 23rd of January. The theme is Walking Together in Faith & Love. Once again the importance of the role that grandparents play in the lives of children is emphasised. We are going to celebrate Grandparents Day on Friday 27th of January. We would like to invite the children’s grandparents to visit the children in their classrooms. We would appreciate if you could let us know through your children’s diaries or Seesaw if grandparents are attending. The children will share some of the work they are doing in school with their grandparents. The schedule for the visits are: Infants 1pm-1:15pm 1st & 2nd 1:20pm-1:40pm 3rd & 4th 2:00pm-2:20pm 5th & 6th 2:30pm-2:50pm Christmas Concerts: I would like to congratulate & commend the children for their performances at this year’s Christmas Concerts. In addition to thanking the teachers for preparing the children so well I would also like to thank Tin whistle teacher Yvonne & Laura from Dance It Out Ireland for their help on the day. Swimming Lessons: Children from 3rd to 6th will commence Swimming lessons on Wednesday 15th of February for 7 weeks up to the Easter holidays. The letter with further details will go out this week & needs to be returned by Wednesday 25th January. To comply with our school policy & child protection guidelines, we require a male & female parent to be present to assist with supervision in the dressing rooms. Further details about this will issue in the letter. Enrolment for September 2023: The school is now taking enrolments for September 2023. If you know anyone that might be interested in enrolling...
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