Cricket

Our cricketers had a great start to the 2012 season with a victory over St Andrews School Malahide.  It was our first game on the new cricket pitch at Newbridge Park.  While our team is extremely grateful to Malahide Cricket Club for hosting us to date we are delighted to be able to host our home games on the peninsula.

Working in Harmony

Every Wednesday we have the wonderful sight of GAA and FAI coaching taking place side by side.  Over 200 boys and girls are learning the skills of two fantastic games.  Our brilliant GAA coach, Mark, is now joined by Ronan and Melvis from the FAI. 

We began our journey this week with a resounding success against St. Fergal's National School in Finglas as part of the Fingal Junior Boys' Football League.  The Fingal Soccer League is also under way and we are hoping our soccer team will be as successful as the GAA team.

Welcome to the parent's section of our website.

We hope to ue this section of the webiste to provide advice and information for parents. 

The PTA is committed to providing information and support for parents and teachers in the best interests of our children's education. It aims to promote and uphold the Educate Together Ethos of our school: the main points of which are; co-educational, multi-denominational, child centred and democratically run.

Membership of the PTA is open to all parents/guardians of children enroled in the school and teaching staff. We encourage male and female representation.

The PTA Committee meets once a month during the school year. During the year we organise Extra Curricular Activities such as Art, Chess, Basketball, Swimming and music. A full schedule will be published in September.

We offer Pupil Insurance, organise a coffee morning, art exhibition, assist in running the school sports days and try and help out with any major school events. We also help review school policies and produce a newsletter.

Our AGM takes place in September where our new PTA Committee is elected – All are very welcome.

As a voluntary organisation, we welcome any help whenever you can give it. Please contact any member of the PTA or e-mail us at pta@dpetns.ie

AGM

The PTA took place on Tuesday 4th October; a new committee for 2011/2012 was formed. Details will be posted here as soon as possible.

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The PTA is committed to providing information and support for parents and teachers in the best interests of our children's education. It aims to promote and uphold the Educate Together Ethos of our school: the main points of which are; co-educational, multi-denominational, child centred and democratically run.

Membership of the PTA is open to all parents/guardians of children enroled in the school and teaching staff. We encourage male and female representation.

The PTA Committee meets once a month during the school year. During the year we organise Extra Curricular Activities such as Art, Chess, Basketball, Swimming and music. A full schedule will be published in September.

We offer Pupil Insurance, organise a coffee morning, art exhibition, assist in running the school sports days and try and help out with any major school events. We also help review school policies and produce a newsletter.

Our AGM takes place in September where our new PTA Committee is elected – All are very welcome.

As a voluntary organisation, we welcome any help whenever you can give it. Please contact any member of the PTA or e-mail us at pta@dpetns.ie

AGM

The PTA took place on Tuesday 4th October; a new committee for 2011/2012 was formed. Details will be posted here as soon as possible.

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We have a brand new extra curricular activity that is not shown on the timetable. SCRATCH is a course based on the basics of computer programming and will run every Monday from 2.30 until 3.30.  SCRATCH is free software developed by MIT to introduce children to the basics of programming without having to learn a programming language.  See http://www.scratch.mit.edu for more information.  This course is open to children from 5th and 6th class only at this stage. Watch this space over the coming week for more information.

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Our whole school community were involved in celebrations this week to mark the official opening of our wonderful school building.

Children and staff prepared a special performance entitled 'Raindrops to Rainbows' which told the story of our school from its beginnings to present day in terms of a storm.  Each class group performed a segment illustrating the stages of the strom beginning with the Infants and their 'Raindrops', First Class dancing the 'Winds of Change', the storm troopers from 3rd and 4th classes representing the 'Storm Building' and 5th 6th classes representing the Rainbow and revitalising rains following the storm.

The children worked very hard and staged four performances to make sure that all parents past and future would have a chance to view the show.

Watch this space for photos and video footage to be published as soon as possible.

Our Board of Management (BOM) is responsible for the day to day running of our school, in accordance with Department of Education and Skills rules for National Schools.

Members

Board members usually serve for four years. The current Board members were appointed in October 2012

Seachtain na Gaeilge 2012 was a very busy week in school.  We always enjoy this week and make the most of the opportunity to celebrate Irish language and culture, with the emphasis being on fun and participation for the students.

Fourth class visited Leaf and Bean Coffee Shop for a cookery lesson - they made gallons of buttercream to decorate cupcakes to serve to parents at our Tráth na gCeist the following day.  All done through Gaeilge!  Míle buíochas to Ollie for his time and expertise.

We were delighted to welcome Swords Music School for some Seachtain na Gaeilge themed sessions for the children - go raibh maith agaibh!

Our Tráth na gCeist was a great success - we were thrilled that so many parents turned up.  Rang a sé were on hand to help out with the Gaeilge, and Ciarán our MC made sure that noone took the questions too seriously!  We hope this will become an annual event and are already making plans for next year!

As is our tradition the grand finale to the week was Lá Glas on Friday; when the whole school dressed in green and all the classes gathered in the hall for our annual Ceol Choirm.  Denis and provided some traditional music for the students, and each class prepared a small piece to perform to the rest of the school.  We were also treated to some amazing Irish Dancing courtesy of Louise Flood's students. 

Take a look at the videos taken on the day - see the links on the right hand side of this page.

Fourth Class visited Newbridge Park this week and learned all about the history of the house and the residence.  Watch this space for our reports on what we got up to!

There is a wealth of fun and exciting Maths activities going on in the school.  Parents who wish to help their children at home might consider checking out a few of the websites listed below.  We will update our list with three new websites and a tip every month so watch this space and don't forget to leave us a comment and let us know how you are getting on.  Finally, why  not follow us on twitter (@dpetns) for regular tips and advice!

November 2011

• Scoilnet is a fantastic place to find links to help your children with all sorts of subject areas.  There are even Theme Pages for help with projects.  Go to the Maths page for lots of free Maths related activities   
• Kidzone is another place to spend hours developing your Maths skills.  Check out their word problem page to help approach Maths from a 'real life' point of view.
• Activity Village is a website with lots of activities that are based on the Primary School Curriculum (1999) and provides activities for children from Junior Infants to Third Year in secondary school

Tip of the Month for November

If you are free on Tuesday evenings, why not pop over to the school for Micheal's Maths for Parents sessions. The first session took place on November 22nd. Contact the office or speak to Micheal for more information.

October 2011

• Math Playground
  Another set of fun games to help with a whole range of mathematical concepts.  
• Kidzone is another source of hours of fun for the whole family.  Click here to see their fantastic Word Problem page.  It is extremely useful to tackle Maths from a 'real life' point of view so this will help!
• Multiplication
  From printable resources to interactive games - you'll be kept busy for hours with this one!

Tip of the Month for October

Make Maths real for your child.  Try to spot different ways we use Maths throughout the day - distances on signposts, numbers on buses, estimating the cost of the shopping, etc.  You can also direct dinner time conversations to when family members use Mathematics in work.  Making Maths real for children will make them understand the uses and the importance and will also make it more interesting.

September 2011

• Sumdog 
  Join for free to play fun and exciting educational games!  Don't forget to link your account to your school when you register so we can see how great you are doing.
• Math Fact Cafe
  Work through the pre-made worksheets or build your own, depending on what number facts you are working through!  You can also practise your number facts using the flashcards!
• ICT Games
  Some nice simple maths games for children of all ages.  There is also a section containing literacy games - hours of endless fun!

Tip of the Month for September

If you are dividing by 3, just add the digits together.  If the resulting number is divisible by 3, then so is the original number.  For example, 357 is divisible by 3.  We know this because 3+5+7=15.  As 15 is divisible by 3, we know 357 is also divisible by 3!  This trick also works when dividing by 9!