Dear parents/guardians,
We hope you are all keeping well. As we approach the end of term I wish to thank our staff, pupils and parents for their continued engagement and positive feedback as we all adapted to this new way of learning.
Thank you all again for your cooperation and patience as we all try to operate in these very challenging and different times.
We wish our 1st Class pupils well as they transition to 2nd class in their new schools. We hope you enjoyed our slideshow celebrating your time with us in St Joseph’s Infants School. We look forward to seeing you soon when it is safe to do so. It has been our pleasure to teach you all.
We look forward to welcoming our incoming Junior Infants for September and indeed all of our pupils who will be returning to school. The past few months have been extremely difficult and we want to reassure all parents that every child’s needs will be fully supported as they return to school life in September.
Just a few updates-
You should receive school reports and book lists in the coming days. Details regarding your child’s class teacher and room number for September are outlined at the top of the book list.
Our incoming Junior Infants should also receive their book list with our school handbook included in the coming days.
The school has set a provisional reopening date of Thursday 27th August 2020. We will inform parents & guardians of the arrangements for the next school year as soon as we receive further detailed guidelines and procedures from the Dept of Education and Skills.
We will keep you informed via text messages, emails and here on the website in the coming weeks. I will be in touch with more information early next week.
Take care
Brian Fitzgerald
Home School Community Liaison
Thank you to all who supported our coffee mornings, English classes and Parenting classes during the year. We will be delighted to continue these courses in the new school year with some new additions. Any suggestions for new classes or parent social activities are most welcome.
As building, developing and promoting partnerships between home, school and community is at the heart of my work as a Home School Community Liaison Coordinator, I am available in school in the Parent’s room or to make home visits to discuss any concerns you may have.
From time to time you will see me out and about distributing information about the school and about services available in the community.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy safe Summer!
Annett Hendrick – Contact Details: 086 8383248 // email : homeschooljs@gmail.com
Food Dudes
The school participated in the Food Dudes Healthy Eating Programme. Children received free fruit and vegetables at school for 16 days.The aim of the programme is to encourage children to emulate the superheroes and repeatedly try fruit and vegetables so that with each successive trial, the children come to enjoy the taste of the foods and eat them for this rather than for the reward. The children were encouraged to begin by tasting a piece of fruit/vegetable and eventually building up to eating a full portion size. They also come to think of themselves as healthy eaters who enjoy fruit and vegetables. The children participated in a Food Dudes colouring competition and reward certificates and prizes were due to be presented to the winners the day after the school closure. The children will receive their certificates when the school reopens. Remember Food Dudes have moved to Food Dudes Fun at Home with lots of activities, games, videos and resources available to do at home to help maintain the healthy eating momentum the children began at school. We thank Ms McKenna for coordinating the programme in our school.
Green Schools News
Our school was awarded the Green Flag for Global Citizenship Energy on the 7th of May 2020. The team at Green-Schools were very impressed with our application. Miss Murphy, the Green Schools Co-ordinator would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs. Buckley for her advice and expertise and to the very dedicated Green Schools committee; Gabriela Staniszewska, Alison Treacy, Odhran Lowe, Alex Moran, Caoimhe O’ Halloran and Allyssa Kennedy who worked so hard to help us get the flag. The committee had regular meetings throughout the year where we came up with slogans, made plans for climate action week, learned about how to be good global citizens and so much more. The committee were due to perform a play called ‘The Green Schools Committee Saves the City’ the day after the school closure. It was a team effort from the whole school community that really paid off. As soon as the schools re-open we will receive our Green Flag and certificate.
On the 5th of June we received some more fantastic news that our school was selected as a winner of the School Drinking Water Refill Station Competition funded by Cork County Council’s Environmental Awareness Office. Miss Murphy and the committee put together an application outlining our commitment to litter free lunches and our potential to reduce single use plastics. As competition winners, our school will receive a drinking water refill station at a total prize value of approximately €1,300. We look forward to having filtered drinking water in our school from September and contributing to a greener environment at the same time.
School Activities & Events 2019/20
Here are some of the activities our pupils have participated in this year :
Bricks4Kidz Lego workshop
Dancing with Derek
Drumming workshop
GAA skills with Mark
Maths Week activities
Science Day experiments
Food Dudes programme
Show & tell presentations
Green Schools initiatives