Dear Parents/Guardians,

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success”. (Henry Ford)

We have very busy months ahead – boys’/girls’ football, swimming, mindfulness lessons, field trips, new website, working on the Meta Grant Project, Parents’ Association AGM and Board of Management meeting etc. I would like to thank ALL our staff for their dedication and commitment to the school and to the Parents’ Association for their great support of the school yearly e.g. First Communions, Confirmations, Graduations etc and for their great fundraising events annually.

Girls’ Gaelic Football
Our girls’ gaelic football team have their first game in Skryne GAA pitch this Tuesday against Dunsany at 1.15pm – leaving the school at 12.45pm. Please arrange a lift for your child if you can’t attend yourself. Please remind your child to bring a gum shield as it is compulsory. We thank Ms O’Donoghue for training the girls’ team again this year and we thank Felim who will be refereeing the girls’ game tomorrow.

Boys’ Gaelic Football
Our boys’ team are playing Mulhussey in Skryne GAA pitch this Thursday at 12.30pm – leaving the school at 12 Noon. Gum shields are compulsory. Please arrange a lift for your child. We thank Mrs Kennedy and Felim for training the boys’ team.

School Photographs
It’s been a good few years since we last had a whole-school photograph of the children. As the school photographer will be with us tomorrow she will be taking a photograph of all the children, weather permitting, in front of the school. All children must come to school in their school uniform. The girls’ football team can change into their football gear at school after the photographs have been taken.

Well-Being/Mindfulness
We completed our school Self-Evaluation in Well-Being last year. The pupils in 1st-6th class will have six weeks of mindfulness lessons starting this Friday 11th September. Mindfulness lessons may help children to improve their focus, calm big emotions and lower stress levels. It may also help them to be more in touch with their emotions and help them to deal with these emotions better. Please talk to your child/children about what they learned during these lessons and please feel free to give feedback to the school via email.
We will be doing mindfulness classes for Junior and Senior Infants in the Spring Term.

5th/6th Class Field Trip to Newgrange
Newgrange is one of Ireland’s most important pre-historic sites which was constructed approximately 5,000 years ago and is older than the pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge. It is one of Ireland’s most visited sites with people from all over the world travelling to see it. Despite being only 20 minutes from Rathfeigh many children haven’t visited the site so we
are delighted to have booked a visit to Newgrange for 5th/6th class pupils on Monday September 14th. We will be travelling by car as the cost per pupil to go on a bus was greater than €20 each. Please arrange a lift for your child if you can’t attend yourself. We will be leaving the school at approx. 9.30am and finished in Newgrange at approx. 1pm. (The pupils in 3rd/4th class will be visiting Newgrange on October 5th. Due to restrictions on numbers 3rd/4th class were unable to go to Newgrange on the same day as 5th/6th class).

Swimming
The pupils in 3rd/4th class will have their first of six swimming lessons on Wednesday September 16th. Please pay via the Aladdin app if you haven’t already.

School Website
Our new school website will go ‘live’ today. Over the next 2/3 weeks Jennifer will be given tutorials on how to upload school information/photographs so it will take a few weeks for the website to be ‘up to speed’. The new school website will give parents/guardians a better insight into the daily activities and experiences of the children and it will also be a mechanism for advertising the school.

Meta Community Action Grant
We received notification earlier this year that our ‘Hybrid Library and Learning Hub’ Meta Community Action Grant Application was successful. We are hoping to have this project completed by late September/early October. We thank Meta for looking favourably on our application for the third time in our school. The previous successful Meta Grants have made a huge positive impact on the experiences and learning of the children in Rathfeigh and we hope this project will also have positive impacts on the children in our school and in the Rathfeigh Community.
Parents’ Association AGM
The Parents’ Association AGM is taking place on 30th September @ 7.30pm in the school. All parents/guardians are welcome.

Is Mise,
Seems Seamus