News Update – 17/01/2025
Dear Parent / Colleague / Board Member,
The Weir. Tickets are on sale at the school or from any staff member for Brideview Players performance of The Weir on Fri 31st January at the Community Centre. They go on sale at €15 each. We ask as many as possible to come along and enjoy an evening’s performance. The school will benefit from any profits earned. A small style poster (not an actual ticket) was distributed to each family today, in an effort to spread the word far and wide.
Catholic Schools Week. Our school will participate in CSW 2025 next week. The theme for the week is ‘Alive in Christ.’ On Wednesday, Fr Michael will celebrate mass on Grandparents Day in FMW at the usual 10 am time. We plan to participate in this mass and hereby invite the grandparents back to the school immediately afterwards for some light refreshments. The following are the themes for each day; Monday – Life to the Full in Our Community of Friends, Tuesday – Life to the Full in Our Faith Community, Wednesday – Life to the Full in Our Families, Thursday – Life to the Full, for and with Others and Friday – Life to the Full for the Common Good of All.
Bi Cineálta. – All schools will adopt the new Anti-Bullying Procedures, called Bí Cineálta before the start of the new academic year. Some staff received initial training on its rollout this week and this will be extended to all staff in due course. We will be interacting with stakeholders later to formulate policy.
Aladdin Connect. Following parental requests and subsequent agreement at BOM level, the school has now upgraded to Aladdin Connect for school administration purposes. Each family will be encouraged to download an app to facilitate more efficient communication with the school. Later this year, School Reports will be sent out via Aladdin Connect and our next round of Parent Teacher Meetings will also be timetabled through it. Parents can inform us of reasons for absences and will also be able to monitor pupil attendances, write notes and forward permission slips etc. Furthermore, families will be able to make any payment in excess of €10 to the school via the online portal once up and running i.e. swimming, school tours etc. As this is a further substantial yearly cost to the school, we kindly ask that families would contribute €10 in January to subsidise costs. We hope that you will be in a position to do so. A letter will issue to families next week, detailing how to operate our upgraded system.
Family Quiz. We hope to host an audio / visual Family Quiz, similar to last year’s version at the Community Centre in late March. A link to express your family interest will be issued in the near future. If we have the necessary demand, we will run it and issue more information in due course. It would entail teams of no more than four persons with two being of primary school age.
GAA Coach. Conor Prendergast’s scheduled visit to us on Wednesday will be rescheduled for another day, owing to CSW.
Reminder. The school and associated Before and After School Club will be closed on Monday 3rd February next to celebrate the holiday in honour of St Brigid.
Is mise,
Michael J. O’Ryan – Principal.