September 2022

A September to Remember

It's hard to believe we're already at the end of September and it's been a fantastic and busy month in our school. We've been doing everything from harvesting tomatoes to scoring points on the GAA pitch! Our new Junior Infants have settled in so well and we're delighted they are so happy coming into school every day. We were also really happy to bring back our in-person assemblies this month after a 3 year absence. We ended the month with a brilliant Sports' Day and the final of our school basketball tournament. Please check out our social media accounts to see what else we've been up to. We have some news below for families so please have a read and until next month, keep happy, safe and learning.

Simon

Just a reminder for everyone about our traffic management system. Please remember, we have over 300 children leaving the building at 2:30pm and many are now walking or cycling home and will be crossing the roads. Please ensure to drive under the speed limit of 10kph and please do not use your phones while driving. As you know, children can run out very suddenly, and it's simply not worth the risk.

We also ask you not to arrive before 2:25pm any day. We can only fit 32 cards in the queue around the site so we don't have space for much traffic. Cars are not allowed to move until all buses are gone so arriving before then makes little sense. We have everyone picked up within 10 minutes so you won't be waiting around very long. We need to keep the Athy Road free from traffic and we appreciate your coooperation. If you find yourself here early, please consider supporting some of the local businesses like the Delta Centre in Strawhall who have a lovely café and loads of parking.

We are working very hard to make it safe to walk or cycle to our school. We are working with Carlow County Council to fund safer routes - obviously the biggest obstacle is the Athy Road Roundabout - so hopefully we'll have news for you. However, if you fancy a 20 minute walk in gorgeious surroundings, why not park in the Town Hall Car Park and walk along the River Barrow. There are no cars and it's perfect for a walk in nature. If you want to come a little closer, there are car parks within 800m of the school, less than a 10 minute walk away. We'd love to hear from you if you have any ideas and suggestions.

We are thrilled to have almost 20 language ambassadors in our school! A note went out to families to see if peopel would be willing to help us out with translating or interpretting and we were blown away bythe response. Here are the languages represented: Romanian, Estonian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, French, Arabic, Hungarian, Slovak, Czech, Portuguese, Polish, Bosnian, Slovenian, Latvian, Russian, German, Dutch and Afrikaans! We are delighted to have the expertise in so many different languages and look forward to welcoming more. All language ambassadors will feature on our school web site and we look forward to working on some projects during the year. We were delighted to host our first Language Café on 26th September since before the pandemic where we featured nearly 20 languages in the school.

Please see our after school clubs listed below.