Dear Parents / Guardians,
We hope you are all well. Our news is as follows:
- Debating Team Victorious in Semi-Final!: We are thrilled to share the fantastic news that our debating team has emerged victorious in the semi-final of the Concern Primary Debating Final! The competition took place this morning at the Kildare Education Centre, where our team delivered an outstanding performance against a strong side from St. Patrick’s NS, Newbridge. A huge congratulations to our chairperson, Maria, and our speakers—Arianne, Eve, and Orna—who delivered exceptional speeches, rebuttals, and arguments in proposing the motion, ‘We should only buy Fair Trade products.’ Their hard work and eloquence truly shone through, making them deserving winners. The debate was recorded and is available to watch on our school website at the following link: https://www.bunscoilbhride.ie/debating-win/ . We are incredibly proud of the entire debating team for their dedication and teamwork, which played a crucial role in this achievement. A special thank you to their mentors, Ms. Banks and Ms. Costello, for their guidance and commitment in helping the team refine their debating skills. We now look forward to the final, provisionally scheduled for Thursday, 6th March in Naas — a wonderful achievement for our school! Best of luck to the team as they prepare for the final round!
- Grandparents’ Day: I want to sincerely thank our wonderful Parents’ Association and the many parents who voluntarily gave up their time yesterday to help serve tea and coffee to our visiting grandparents. We really are blessed to have such generosity and kindness in our parent body. Allowing our grandparents to congregate over a cup of tea and a treat in the hall made a really fabulous day all the more special. I also want to thank our hard-working staff, who put so much work into preparing for Grandparents’ Day with their classes, ensuring that all our visitors had a day to remember. Ms. De Faoite has been busy collating all the photos of Grandparents’ Day and they are available to view on our school website at the following link: https://www.bunscoilbhride.ie/grandparents-day-in-bunscoil-bhride/
- Quiz: Our Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Class pupils are busy preparing for our annual quizzes, which will take place on Monday 17th (Fifth and Sixth Classes) and Tuesday 18th February (Third and Fourth Classes) in our school and in Rathangan Boys’ School respectively. Teams will be mixed and the children will get the opportunity to work with the boys in practising their general knowledge and having lots of fun in the process. We would urge you to help the children develop their general knowledge at home over the coming weeks in preparation.
- Agri-Aware Mobile Farm Visit: A mobile farm will visit our school on Thursday next, with all classes getting to visit it. It will be a lovely opportunity for our pupils to learn about farm animals and their role in food production. There will be lots of opportunities for the children to interact with the animals and learn about their importance to Irish farms.
- Irish Dancing: Carmel Somers has, yet again, kindly volunteered her time to teach Irish dancing to our girls. Every class in the school is getting the opportunity to work with Carmel over two weeks, starting on Wednesday 12th February. Carmel has also offered to help with our Céilí Mór during Seachtain na Gaeilge. We would like to thank Carmel sincerely for her kindness and generosity in giving up her time for the benefit of the pupils of our school.
- Oral Language: The theme for the month of February is ‘Socially functional language’ (introductions, giving thanks, complaints). All classes will be focusing on this theme for the month and we would ask that you, the parents support us at home, by encouraging your child to use appropriate socially functional language and by modelling good use of such language at home. We would also encourage you to discuss with them what they’ve learnt in school on this topic.
- Lego Donation Request: We are seeking donations of Lego for some of our classrooms. If you have Lego at home that is no longer in use, we would be really grateful if you would donate it to the school.
- Heavy school-bags: We are attempting to address the issue of children carrying school bags that are too heavy to and from school, by asking them to unpack fully their bags every morning and only repack books marked for homework. Your help in tackling this issue is required as many of the items contained in school-bags are unnecessary ancillary items e.g. multiple heavy pencil-cases etc. Please go through your daughter’s bag with her and remove any unnecessary items.
- School Closure and February Bank Holiday: The school will close tomorrow, Friday, for staff inservice in the new Primary Mathematics Curriculum and on Monday 3rd February for the February Bank Holiday, and will reopen on Tuesday 4th February. We hope everyone enjoys the long weekend.
Kind regards,
Maria Rogerson