December Newsletter

December newsletter 2017

Dear Parents,

The count down to Christmas is on …….

Please could you return any shoe boxes immediately as the Rotary club are calling to collect them early next week. Many thanks to everyone involved with this project, the response has been fantastic.

There are quite a few dates to note this month:

  • 12th December – Nursery nativity performance for the whole school. We will dress the children in class. If the angels could please wear white tights to school on this date.
  • 13th December -Nursery trip to see Santa in Hilltown. Bus will leave school at 9.15am promptly. Children are not required to wear their uniform on this date and ALL children should take a packed lunch with them. If you have any novelty hats, hairbands etc please feel free to dress your child up to really enter into the festive spirit.   We will be back in school for the 1.30pm pick up.
  • 14thDec – Nursery nativity performance for the parents. Performance will start at 5pm sharp.   Children should come to school at 4.30in their costume. If you could leave them to the Nursery first, the performance will be in the schools assembly hall. Light refreshments will be served. Please can you advise me how many will be coming to see your child; so we can have appropriate preparations in place. We appreciate that this is a very busy week for the Nursery but the children enjoy themselves and it is an invaluable confidence building experience.15th December – Christmas jumper day and Christmas party food school dinner.
  • 19th Dec- 6.30. Launch of Big bedtime read. Information below.
  • 21st School closed for Christmas holidays – this will be a half day and no school dinners will be served.
  • Jan 4th 2018 – School reopens.As you are aware we are part of the government pre-school initiative, “Getting ready to learn”. The aim of this project is to raise awareness amongst parents about the importance of the formative early years stages. It offers parents resources, strategies and ideas to become actively in their children’s learning. There are four strands to the project:
  • The topics we are covering this month are “Toys” and “Christmas”. We will be categorising different types of toys and discussing toys from long ago. Our focus colours are “Gold” and “Silver”. We will be paying attention to scissor work and cutting out, please encourage this activity at home, old catalogues are great for helping develop this skill.
  • Big Bedtime read
  • Ages and stages
  • Happy Healthy Kids
  • Education works in the preschool

 

We are launching our first strand on Tuesday 19th December at 6.30 in the Nursery unit.  The importance of reading to your child is well documented.  At the session we intend to make it fun, engaging and topical for both yourself and your child.  Our literacy co-ordinator, Mrs Orla Murphy will model reading for us all.  We are very excited by this because Mrs Murphy is known for her flair and dramatic talent and I can guarantee it will be a lovely evening.  We ask that you take your child into the Nursery in their pjs and slippers at 6.30. You are asked to take a pillow/blanket that you can snuggle up with your child and enjoy special time during our bedtime story.

Following from this, in the new year we will set up a book borrowing service for you to borrow books from Nursery. We will also have forms for you to apply for membership to the local library services.

In order to monitor the success or otherwise of this project could you please complete the enclosed questionnaire and return it as soon as possible.

Finally could you indicate below if you are interested in attending our Christmas themed bedtime read.

I wish you all a very peaceful Christmas and best wishes for 2018. Many thanks for your support and co-operation to date.

Regards,

 

P. Byrne