Congratulations Ella!

Over the Easter holidays, Ella Thompson competed in the Leinster Championships in Kilkenny.

She fought a very tough fight against a girl from Wexford which qualified her into the Leinster finals. Unfortunately she was unlucky in the finals and lost in a split decision. 

She is second overall in Leinster and got a lovely Leinster medal.
Well done Ella!

School Uniform available at Ted Murtaghs

Easter Fun

Many thanks to our P.A for organising an Easter egg hunt for the junior room & fun activities for the middle & senior room this morning. 

Follow our Blog

If you want to subscribe to email updates about posts on our blog, please fill your email address into the 'Follow by Email' feature on a laptop or computer (it doesn't show up on mobiles).

You will receive an email if there is a new post on the blog between 3pm-5pm with a link to take you to the blog. This part should work perfectly on mobiles!

Baking with Bernie!

Many thanks to our SNA & in-house baker Bernie for helping the senior room children bake some delicious buns today...

*Trim GAA Easter Camp*

From Trim G.A.A.

Please see details of the upcoming Trim GAA Club Easter Camp which is being run by our clubs schools link coach Neil Heffernan and some of our adult players. 

 

This is a great way for the boys & girls to have fun, make friends and keep fit over the Easter break and good value for money too!

 

Free 'cool' Trim GAA t-shirt for every participant!!!

 

Its a fun camp with loads of activities that includes football, camogie & hurling in a fun way - Note it does not matter if you have not played some of these sports before -  you are guaranteed loads of fun with all your friends!

Follow our Blog!

We have a new 'follow by email' feature at the top of our blog. 

Please enter and submit your email address to receive email notifications if a new post is published on our blog. This will ensure you are kept up-to-date with what is happening in the school. Emails will be sent out on days when the blog is updated between 3-5pm. 

This is all part of our Green School campaign to reduce the amount of paper used in our school. This blog will be used instead of notes sent home in bags where possible. 

Buddy Reading

Today we started a new whole-school initiative called "Buddy Reading". Each class group has been paired with a group from another classroom. The older children in each group were invited to bring in books today to read to their buddies in the other rooms. Books were also available from our wonderful school library and classroom readers. 

Many studies have observed a link between reading and spelling, which is our school's focus for self-evaluation at the moment. We hope to encourage children to read independently at home through fun activities like this and to promote more positive attitudes to reading at home and in school.

*Trim GAA Easter Camp*

Hi All, 

Please see details of the upcoming Trim GAA Club Easter Camp which is being run by our club-schools link coach Neil Heffernan and some of our adult players. 

This is a great way for the boys & girls to have fun, make friends and keep fit over the Easter break and good value for money too!

Free 'cool' Trim GAA t-shirt for every participant!!!

Its a fun camp with loads of activities that includes football, camogie & hurling in a fun way - Note it does not matter if you have not played some of these sports before -  you are guaranteed loads of fun with all your friends

Thanks as always,

Darren

Darren McMahon

Juvenile Chairperson

Trim GAA

087-2395597 

Ditching Plastic!

Did you know that one million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute?

According to Sandra Laville and Matthew Taylor of the Guardian, 

"More than 480bn plastic drinking bottles were sold in 2016 across the world, up from about 300bn a decade ago. If placed end to end, they would extend more than halfway to the sun. By 2021 this will increase to 583.3bn, according to the most up-to-date estimates from Euromonitor International’s global packaging trends report."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/a-million-a-minute-worlds-plastic-bottle-binge-as-dangerous-as-climate-change

You might say to yourself, "So what?" "How does that affect me?" Well, much of what we throw away in the form of plastic does not actually get recycled and ends up in landfill or in our lakes, rivers, seas and oceans.  The danger here is that as plastic breaks down over time into micro-plastics, it is ingested by sea animals and birds and is now ending up in our food chain (in fish and shellfish)! We have seen the impact they have caused on large sea mammals such as seals and whales but the impact on human health in the long term can only be imagined!

As part of a drive to reduce our dependence on and over -consumption of plastic bottles and plastic packaging, we are asking you as parents to consider approaching your local supermarkets to urge them to go plastic-free and to avoid buying bottled water for your household. You can invest in a reusable bottle instead. 
For more ideas on little things we can all do to end plastic pollution and calculate your own plastic usage, have a look at the following link:https://www.earthday.org/2018/06/08/what-you-can-do-to-end-plastic-pollution/ 

School Self-Evaluation Report

Our Self-Evaluation Report and Improvement Plan

School Focus: Literacy-New Language Curriculum-Spelling

In the last year, we have looked at teaching and learning in our school to find out what we are doing well. This is what we discovered:

1. ·         Spelling was chosen as our area to prioritise
2. ·         Above average standard test scores in literacy
3. ·         High percentage of children in our school enjoy reading (strong link between good readers and good spellers!)
4. ·         All classrooms are increasing time spent on free writing
5. ·      Inclusion of dictation to revise previous spellings as part of weekly spelling tests
6. ·     Touch typing programme rolled out to all classrooms (touch typing can help with remembering spelling patterns)

This is what we did to find out what we were doing well, and what we could do better:

1. ·         Pupils and parent attitudes to spelling and reading were surveyed
2. ·         We examined our standardised test results in comparison with the national average

This is what we are now going to work on:

1. ·         Introduce “Buddy Reading” initiative to increase reading for pleasure in school to supplement free reading children do at home
2. ·         Update booklist to include new spelling programmes
3. ·         Introduce pre-cursive in the Junior Room. Cursive writing encourages and helps children to remember sound patterns and spellings.
4. ·         Continue to increase awareness of commonly misspelled words in the classroom

This is what you can do to help:

1. There is a strong link between reading and spelling. As well as helping your child with their spelling homework, encouraging reading would also be a huge help.
2. ·         Read with and to your child
3. ·         Model reading-children will be more encouraged to read if you are too!
4. ·         Include reading as part of night time routine
5. ·         Consider swapping “device time” to “book time"