Today we had great fun planting our own crocus bulbs in Junior Infants.
Well done to our football team who had a great win over Kilcummin in Fossa today but unfortunately were defeated by a strong Fossa team. We play Cullina next week in Beaufort.
Our Senior Infants had lots of fun making and painting their hedgehogs. Some got names and some are still thinking! They will be going into hibernation soon!!!
The Tommy Marken Cup visited Holy Family N.S. today along with past pupil Mark Ryan,Rathmore player Brian Friel and Glenflesk's Chris O ' Donoghue. It was a hugely enjoyable experience for everyone!
Might be of interest an interview by Kieran McCarthy with the O Donovan Brothers
Please click on the link below
Kieran Mc Carthy's Interview with O Donovan brothers
We had great fun making our Kerry flags today in Junior Infants. Best of luck to Mark, Brian and all the Kerry team on Sunday!
Very Best Wishes to our past pupil Mark in the All Ireland Minor Final on Sunday
Holy Family National School
Rathmore, Co. Kerry
Tel. 064/7758492
e-mail hfnsrathmorekerry@gmail.com
http://hfnsrathmorekerry.blogspot.ie/
13th September
2016
Dear Parents,
We welcome everybody back from their summer holidays and pray that
the children in our care will be happy and that they will grow in knowledge and
understanding during the year ahead.
Junior Infants
Junior Infants
go home at 12.00 noon for the first two weeks of school. From Monday 19th September they
will go home at 1.50p.m. There will be a
meeting in the school for parents of Junior infants on Monday night 19th
September at 7.30pm.
Beginning of Year School Mass
The beginning of
year school mass will be celebrated on Tuesday 20th September in the church at
9.30 am. We will be leaving the school
at 9.15am and if children arrive after this time please bring them to the
church. Children who do not wish to
attend the Mass may come to school at 10.30 am on the day but are also welcome
to join us in church. Everybody welcome.
Team Teaching
At Holy Family National School team teaching is
implemented in all classes. Team
teaching is whereby the Learning Support teacher along with the classroom
teacher combine to deliver the Literacy/Numeracy programmes by dividing the
class into groups. If your child is
withdrawn from class for Learning Support or Resource teaching we ask
Parents/Guardians to sign a permission slip.
Team teaching may involve withdrawal of groups of pupils from class but
we do not ask for permission slips for this.
It is important that parents understand that if a child is being
withdrawn for team teaching, it is not the same as being withdrawn for Learning
Support or Resource. If you have any
concerns please contact the Principal.
Parents Committe - Family Bingo Night
Unfortunately the Family Fun Day had to be
postponed due to adverse weather conditions and while we had hoped to
reschedule this event for September, this was not feasible. The Parents Committee will be meeting on
Wednesday night to plan for fundraising Bingo night which is planned for Rathmore Community
Centre in October (Date to be decided).
If anybody would like to sponsor a prize for Bingo games or raffle
please let us know as soon as possible.
Parents Committee
Election
We will be electing new parent representatives for
Junior Infants, First, Third and Fifth classes.
Ballot papers will be issued to these classes shortly.
First Communion and
Confirmation
Enrolment Ceremony for First Communion and Confirmation children
will be held on Wednesday 12th October at 8pm in Rathmore church. There will be a talk for parents of First
Communion children in Teach Iosagáin on Tuesday Oct 25th at 8.00 pm
Confirmation will be held in St. Joseph’s church Rathmore
on Tuesday 21st February 2016. First Communion will be held on
Saturday 20th May 2017.
Pupil Personal Accident
Insurance
You have all been notified re Pupil Personal Accident
Insurance for your child(ren) by letter and by text. If you paid by debit/credit card, please complete a form for your child(ren) and return to the
class teacher before the end of September. People are free to avail of it if they
wish.
e-Payment
System
The ePayment system is up and running as of 31st
August. A lot of parents are using the system for the
different contributions. Certainly it has streamlined the collection of monies
and made it easier for both teachers and administration staff. A few little glitches at the start but that
is to be expected. It seems to be the
way to go as regards the management of monies in the school. Of course you can still pay by cash/cheque
and receipts will be issued by their class teacher for all monies
received. Please place money in an
envelope with amount child’s name and what money is for on same.
Music/Drama
lessons
Music
lessons re-commence on Thursday 15th and Friday 16th
September. These lessons are being given
by Henry Cronin (Thursdays 1st, 2nd & 3rd
classes) and Pádraig Moynihan (Fridays 4th,
5th & 6th classes) and are funded by the Parents
Committee. Every boy and girl from 1st
to 6th classes are encouraged to learn to play a musical
instrument. Generation “D” tin whistles
are available from the school @ €8 each.
If you wish your child to learn accordion or fiddle you would need to
provide these instruments yourselves.
All children are provided with a music book when they commence lessons
in first class. If they lose or misplace
the music book it will cost €2 to replace it.
We
also hope to organise Drama lessons for all the children in the school and this
will also be sponsored by the Parents Committee.
Library
The
mobile Library visits our school fortnightly on Thursday afternoons. Children from First to Sixth classes avail of
this service and parents are encouraged to go to the library with younger
children. Visiting the library will help
in encouraging your children to read.
Next visit of Mobile Library – Thursday 15th September.
Change of address, tel. no
If any of your child/childrens’ details
have changed e.g. address, contact details, illness, etc. please contact the
school as soon as possible. Thank You.
Mobile Phone Numbers
We have a facility for texting parents. This is very important now
that we have set up the e-Payment system. If you have not received any text message from
Holy Family N.S. please let us know. The
text automatically goes to the mother’s mobile phone unless we have been
instructed otherwise. Thank you.
Attendance
School begins at 9.10 a.m. and ends
at 2.50 p.m. The school authority will
not be responsible for children on the school grounds outside of these hours. If your child has to leave school for
part of the day, please send in a note informing the class teacher of his/her
absence. Children must be signed out
by whoever is collecting them if they leave for part of the day. Again if the child is returning to school,
they must be signed in by whoever is returning them. There is a copy for this purpose near the
main door. This has been introduced for
the safety of your children.
Parking/Traffic Control – Speed
Ramps
Please note that cars must not park on the bus route and cars must
never be abandoned where they could obstruct other traffic. If you
need to leave your car so that you can come in to visit the school, then please
park in the car park on the site of the old Boys’ School down near the road. We
feel that children in first and second class may be too young to walk down to
the car park or main gate on their own when school finishes. In the interest of children’s safety it would
be best if younger children were collected at main door.
Speed ramps have been installed to remind drivers to drive slowly
and carefully at all times particularly on the school grounds.
Visiting
The School
If
you need to meet a teacher at any time, please make an appointment by ringing the
school before hand.
Uniforms
Congratulations
to pupils and parents on the way children are dressed in their proper school
uniform including the wearing of black shoes. From time to time children mislay their
jumpers, cardigans and jackets during
the school day. To ensure that they find
their own item of clothing Please
ensure that jumpers, cardigans and jackets are marked with child’s name.
Healthy Lunches
We are encouraging a healthy
lunch. To that end we discourage chocolate or sweets and chewing gum, fizzy drinks, and crisps,
are forbidden. Also, as there is carpet
in all the classrooms, we are banning yogurts
and all yogurt products in Junior Classes.
Our aim is to continue with the good work
of the Food Dudes programme, which began in our school in 2013/2014, to
increase and maintain children’s consumption of fruit and vegetables. Fruit and
vegetables are no longer provided to the school and the focus shifts to
encouraging parents to provide children with fruit and vegetables in their
lunchboxes.
National Education
Welfare Board
Please remember that schools are now
legally bound to notify the National Education Welfare board if pupils are
absent from school in excess of twenty days.
Please note we require a written note on each
occasion your child is absent explaining the reason for absence. The note should be written on a separate
piece of paper so that it can be kept in the pupil’s file.
Danu Afterschool
Service
If
your child will be attending Danu Afterschool Service please send in a note to
that effect so that we can put same on file. If anyone wants to avail of this
service please contact
Siobhán
at 064/7758700.
Encouraging Children to develop the habit of saving
As part of learning for life,
children should be encouraged to develop the habit of saving. Rathmore and District Credit Union have
installed the Vending Machine just inside the front door in the school. Savings
Stamps will be available shortly.
Children who are interested in
using this facility should join the Rathmore and District Credit Union if they
are not already members. Members of the
Credit Union can purchase €1 savings stamps.
They put them on a card which, when full, will realise €20. They take this to the Credit Union and
exchange it for cash or add it to their savings.
Children who are Members of the Rathmore and
District Credit Union who wish to use the machine will be given a savings card.
§ The card takes €20
§ Stamps can be purchased at €1 each
§ Cards must be kept carefully by
the children
§ We cannot take responsibility for cards lost or mislaid
Lee
Strand
We are very grateful to Lee Strand who have provided free
homework journals to our school for the past 4 years. This year we collected ten tokens for each
homework journal. It was a whole school
effort and we were able to get a free homework journal for each pupil in the school. We wish to thank all the parents, their
relations and neighbours for sending in all the tokens. Again this year we are asking you to send in
milk tokens so that we can avail of free homework journals for all pupils next
year. The tokens to collect are Mighty Mike tokens
from Lee Strand milk cartons and bottles.
They will also accept the bar code from Dawn Dairies cartons and
bottles. As you collect the tokens you
can send them to the school office.
School
Blog
On the blog there is information for parents in the “Parent
Zone” e.g. Internet Safety tips, how to help your children with homework,
etc. For the children there are useful
links to websites in the Maths and English section. Click the “latest posts” for most recent
entries on the blog. Pictures of recent
class activities will be posted from time to time.
This newsletter will be available under “Current
Newsletter” to read on our blog. In order to reduce the cost of printing we
would be happy to email newsletters to your email address. If you would be happy to receive future
school newsletters via email please sign slip at end of page and return to
school in next few days. http://hfnsrathmorekerry.blogspot.ie/
or google holyfamilynsrathmorekerry blog
Dates to Remember
School Year
2016-2017
Term 1: School
opens: Thursday 1st September
2016
Halloween
Break:
Closed Monday
31st October to Friday 4th
November
Reopening:
Monday 7th November
Closed Thursday
8th and Friday 9th December
Christmas
Holidays:
Closing for
Christmas holidays on Thursday 22nd December
Closed
Friday 23rd December to Friday 6th January 2017
Term 2: Reopening - Monday 9th January
2017
Closed Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th
February
Closed Friday 17th March
Easter Holidays:
Closing Friday 7th April
Closed
from Monday 10th April to Friday 21st April
Term 3: Reopening
Monday 24th April
Closed
Monday 1st May
Closed
Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th June
Closing
Friday 30th June, 2017
If during the
school year there are any changes to school closure dates we will
let you know
Please note all Newsletters
will be given to oldest child in family
Le gach dea ghuí,
Diarmuid McCarthy,
Principal.
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Senior Infants enjoyed looking at all the wonderful nature on the school grounds today.
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