Principal’s Note
I had just finished the newsletter today, complaining that we hadn’t received details of our SNA allocation, when it duly arrived. We have held onto our present SNA allocation and that is a great result for the school. We are blessed with the calibre of our staff and it will allow us to continue to give a very high standard of care to our children with special needs.
Staff News
Ms. Lyng has finished her term with us and we’ll miss her for all her hard work and for helping Caroline with the victorious girls’ camógie team. Ms. Cullen will be walking down the aisle shortly and we hope that she has a very special day with her husband to be, Brian. Lastly, a big welcome back to Ms. Nolan!
Homework Journals
The new homework journals will be printed over the summer and will be available to buy when the children return in September.
Handwriting
The school handwriting programme is going really well and we recently held a competition to encourage the children to new heights of penmanship! Well done to all the winners. Second class to fourth class will now be following the handwriting programme and we will extend that to fifth and sixth in the next two years.
Bounce!
Well done to the children on collecting sponsorship and bouncing! Thanks to the parents for supporting us, and to Martin Scallon of Wexford Bouncy Castles, Anthony Walsh of Pallas Foods, Ruth Carley of ValueCentre, Declan Fortune, Marisa Barron and our own Ms. Nolan in particular for their help. Keep an eye on next week’s newspaper for photos. The draw will take place on Friday. All winners will be notified.
POD
The Dept. of Education is developing an electronic individualised database of primary school pupils, giving schools the ability to make online returns to the Dept. of Education. The Primary Online Database (POD) will collect information on each pupil, so the school is obliged to ask parents for extra details such as PPS numbers, etc.
Fundraising Committee
The Oylegate NS Fundraising Committee will hold a cake sale in the church yard on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th July in conjunction with the patron. Please bake and show your support!
School Self-Evaluation
The focus for next year’s School Improvement Plan (SIP) is Oral Language. Questionnaires were completed by parents and children during the year, and these were used to inform our self-evaluation process. Last year’s focus, problem solving, proved to be a great success as our Sigma T results in the area of problem solving went up considerably. The SIP will be published on the school website.
Congratulations
Well done to:
• The Oylegate Féile squad
• All the children who participated in our sports days. Great sportsmanship was shown.
• The 6th class for their excellent behaviour on the 6th class night out when we went bowling and to the cinema.
Building Project
The school building project is expected to resume over the summer. The Board of Management and the school solicitor have been working hard to address the issues, and significant progress has been made in recent weeks.
Oylegate National School Parents Association.
School Contribution: At a recent parent association meeting the school fund raising committee put forward a proposal of increasing the school contribution by €1 per week, bringing it to €90.00 per year per family instead of the current €65.00 per year. The increased amount would go directly towards the repayments on the purchase of the land adjacent to the school. The contribution has not been increased in quite a number of years and the committee said that the new amount of €90.00 is on par with most of the schools around the county that they have researched. The proposal was put to the floor and seconded by all those present. The contribution increase will take effect from September.
Parish Journal: The Parents Assoc has been approached by a member of the Parish Journal committee to produce an article on the school for the journal which will be available for the Christmas Market. The article will cover news items from 2010 to date.
Cheese & Wine Night: Our recent ‘Cheese and Wine’ social night out was a great success and all who came along on the night thoroughly enjoyed it , there was complementary wine , crisps, dips ,nuts , cheese and a fabulous array of Vol-u-Vents ! . A raffle and quiz were held on the night, the quiz was really a test of who could Google the quickest!, 250 Euro was raised on the night for the school. We would like to thank Wexford creamery for sponsoring the cheese on the night and Value Centre Wexford for sponsoring a case of Doritos.
The next PA meeting will take place in September which will be the AGM. We urgently ask people to consider joining the committee.All the work of the Parents’ Assoc is now outlined in a folder containing the constitution, all activities and rules of the PA, photographs (taken by Bernie Hayden) of various events from themed cakes sales to raffles etc. So joining the PA committee has never been easier!! Please spread the word, we hope to see a big turnout at the AGM in September.
Enjoy the summer break,
Marian Downes , Chairperson
G.A.A.
Congratulations to the girls’ camógie team who won the district final with a great display against the Gaelscoil. They were beaten by a very strong Horeswood team in the county semi-final.
Many thanks to Niall, Eamonn, Caroline and Ciara for their terrific devotion and support. It’s very much appreciated.
Uniform
When parents are readying the school uniform for September, could they please ensure that children have black or navy shoes? This year there were a lot of runners and when the Parents’ Association collaborated with the school on the uniform policy, it was felt that shoes were much healthier for children’s feet. Thank you for your co-operation.
A Sincere Thank You
Many thanks the the parents for their support throughout the year in so many ways. We are in the middle of a very important time for our school, and a lot of fundraising will be required but we will have a beautiful and modern school when we are finished. Thanks again for your patience with regard to the building project!