Absences

Please remember to use our Aladdin App to explain any absences. An automated text messages goes out to families when they have missed 10, 15 and 20 days. Please do not worry about these messages if you have explained absences. After 20 days, whatever the reason, we must report to the welfare board of the numbers of children that have missed 20 or more days of school.

Parking

Thank you to everyone for your cooperation with regards to car parking in the school. Things are moving well at the moment and we are consistently able to empty the school within 9 minutes of the first classes coming out of school. Most people are now waiting until 2:30pm to arrive at the school so there are fewer cars on the main Athy Road. However, we still must keep pressure on the council to provide us with adequate facilities. You may have noticed that two schools in the county received council funding for car parking this year. Our Board of Management is making representations to the council at every opportunity and it is disappointing to see that our concerns seem to be falling on deaf ears. I would urge families to write to the council expressing your disappointment that our school has not been allocated extra car spaces.

Book Money

If you have any outstanding books fees, please send them as soon as you can.

Reminder: Irish Language Opportunities for Families

Our new Home School Community Liaison Teacher, Lorraine, has started in our school. We are delighted to have her! Lorraine has taught Irish in secondary school and is a great resource for our school to have. In light of this we are setting up a help group, “Ciorcal Gaeilge” (Irish Circle) for parents who want help with their child's Irish homework or just to practice or improve their Irish. We are offering a drop in service that will operate from the Parents’ Room on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1.45- 2.30, starting from Tuesday 2nd October.

Collecting Children from other families

if you are collecting a child other than your own at any time, please make sure to speak to Siobhan first. If it is a case that you are picking up someone else's child at the end of the day, please let the class teacher know that you are doing so.

Upcoming Dates For Your Diary

December:

• 19th: Winter Concert
• 21st: School closed 12pm for winter break and reopens 7th January

Breakfast Club

Our Breakfast Club is open for all children from 8:30am Monday to Friday. Come and join Gary, Laura, Rhonda, Aideen and some 6th class helpers for a slice of toast, juice and a chat before starting the day. There's no need to sign up - simply show up in the morning,

School Lunches

Please let the school know if you would like your child to receive a free school lunch. All children are entitled to the lunch. Please allow up to 5 days before orders are processed.

Cake Fridays and Knitting Club

Join the Parents’ Group for their weekly Cake Fridays and Knitting Club in the Parent Room after drop off.

Homework Club

The homework club is running well and is currently full. Please contact the school if you wish to go on the waiting list for places.

School Office Hours

Please note the school office is closed between 10:30-10:45 and 12:20-12:50.

If you need to collect your child during school opening hours please try to collect them when the office is attended.

If the office is unattended please ring the bell and wait for a member of the school staff to collect your child.

In the interest of security parents are not allowed on yard during break times.

Injuries

Injuries can happen and often do. We do our very best to help when a child gets hurt. We try to inform families of any injuries but we want to make a balance so we're not ringing parents for every little thing. We will contact parents as quickly as possible after an injury involving bleeding or the head. For more minor bumps, bruises and grazes, we tend to only let parents know if we see them. Anything more serious, we are in touch. We also have a First Aid team. For very serious injuries we may have to call an ambulance and if we cannot contact you, we may have to call a taxi to bring your child to a doctor. Have a look at our website for our policy on injuries.

Communication with Staff

Carlow Educate Together's motto is that everyone has a right to be happy, be safe and be able to learn. This includes our staff. They are all lovely people. Please ensure that you are always polite to them. For further information on our dignity at work policy, please see our website.

Attendance and Lateness

We are monitoring attendance carefully this year.

Attendance per month is

September: 93% | October 94% | November: 94%

Overall: 93.9% | Target: 95%

• Already we have 30 pupils that have missed 10 days of school or more. 2 children have missed more than 20 days.
• We have 7 pupils that have been late 10 or more times this year. Please ensure that your child is in school on time. The school opens at 8:30am for breakfast club and 8:35am for morning supervision. Classes start at 8:50am and all children must be in school by then. There are a number of children coming to school after 9am and classes are well underway by then. Our attendance team will be in touch to talk to families of children where this is proving to be a persistent issue.

Lost Clothes

Please make sure all clothing has your child's name on it. We will keep clothes for a couple of weeks in our lost and found area. However, after this time, clothes will be sent to charity shops. Please do not bring clothes into the school to be given to charity shops.

Second Level Campaign

Please register your interest if you’d like Carlow to have a second level Educate Together school. https://secure.jotformpro.com/form/52224353965962. The group also has a Facebook Page, which we’d recommend you to join.

Volunteer

We’re always thrilled to have parents and families volunteering in the school. We had over 150 parents in school last year and we’d love to see more of you.

Nut Allergy

We have three pupils and a staff member in our school with nut allergies. It is vital that no nuts ever come into our school. We cannot police every lunchbox so we are relying on you to cooperate with our nut ban.

Social Media

You can find us on various social media platforms:

YouTube – Search for Carlow Educate Together

Facebook – http://facebook/com/carlowetns

Twitter – http://twitter.com/carlowetns