A Board meeting took place in the school on Wednesday 23rd October at 7p.m.
The meeting was opened by Chairperson Keith Dransfield. The opening prayer was led by Martin Delaney.
Minutes of the previous meeting were proposed and seconded.
Correspondence
Correspondence was read out
Principal’s Report
Principals Report was presented. It included the details of enrolment, staffing, curriculum, the Summer Provision Programme, ethos, extracurricular and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
Principal’s Report 23/10/2024
All the children returned to school on Wednesday 28th August.
Enrolment
We have an enrolment of 192 pupils for the 2024/25 school year and this is the number recognised on the POD system as of 30th September 2024. There are fifteen new pupils in the Junior Infants mainstream class and there are three new Junior Infants in Le Chéile 1. There are also new pupils in 1st, 2nd and 3rd Class this year.
Staffing
Welcome to Karen Murray who is covering Breda Feeney’s maternity leave in 6th Class.
Work Placement
Principal | Martin Delaney |
Deputy Principal | James Casey |
Special Education Teachers
| James Casey Máire Kearney Aisling Fennell/Tracy Hogan |
Le Chéile Class 1 Le Chéile Class 2
| Caoimhe Ní Chuirrín Jenny Kiely |
Junior Infants | Leonie O’Brien |
Senior Infants | Maria Moore/Susan Amy Scanlan |
1st Class | Caroline Price |
2nd Class | Eilish Curran |
3rd Class | Louise Lyons |
4th Class
| Laura Roche |
5th Class | Mairéad Veale |
6th Class | Breda Feeney (Karen Murray) |
15 EAL Hours 5 SET EAL Hours | Louise Kennedy Catriona Bulman |
Special Needs Assistants | Olivia O’Daly, Deirdre Cahill, Therese Walsh, Mary O’Brien, Deirdre Buckley, Cathy Halley, John Twomey and Aileen Buckley. |
Bus Escorts | 5 |
School Secretary | Mary Casey |
School Maintenance | Jamie Corcoran, Lois Crotty & Janice Barry |
Ethos
On Wednesday 2nd October Fr Keogh celebrated an Opening Year Mass with the whole school. Thanks to Mr Casey and Fr Keogh for organising the Mass and thanks to all the boys and girls who read or carried gifts for it. First Holy Communion will take place on Saturday 10th May at 11 a.m. in Cappoquin.
Curriculum
New Primary School Curriculum
There is a new primary school curriculum currently being phased into primary schools in Ireland replacing the 1999 Curriculum. It started with the introduction of the new Language Curriculum (English agus Gaeilge) over the last few years.
New Maths Curriculum
We are now on the 2nd year of a new Mathematics curriculum. 2023/2024 school year was introducing the new Maths Curiculum and this year, 2024/2025 school year is embedding the new curriculum in schools.
The aim of the new Primary Mathematics Curriculum is that children see maths as important and useful to their everyday lives.
On Thursday 3rd October there was in-service training for all the teaching staff in Waterford Teachers Centre. This training day was run by Oide. The school was closed for the children on this day.
Maths
Maths Week Ireland took place from 14th to 20th October. Thanks to the children and parents for participating in Maths Eyes –taking photos and sending them into the school of the different mathematical objects in our environment. Other extra mathematical based activities took place in many of the classrooms, some classes logged into live online Maths Week lessons and there were Maths trails around the school as well. A number of classes also used Maths apps on the ipads and we continue to use Mathsletics this year. Just to also mention a huge thank you to Fresh Today for sponsoring the cost of our Mathsletics subscription this year and Fresh Today sponsored our Reading Eggs subscription last year. Thanks to Mr Casey for organising Maths Week in the school.
Station Teaching
A number of classes are currently using station teaching in Literacy or Numeracy when the SET teacher is timetabled to work with their class.
Summer Stars
Well done to the pupils from Bunscoil Gleann Sidheáin who participated in the Summer Stars reading programme in Lismore and Dungarvan Libraries (unfortunately Cappoquin Library is still closed but will hopefully be back open soon.) Sheilia Curtin has sent in the certificates and medals to the school and we will present the children with their medals and certificates at Assembly this Friday before the mid-term break.
Music
Mrs Veale has set up our school choir again this year and it is made up of pupils from 4th, 5th and 6th classes. The choir will be participating in Peace Proms again this school year.
The Choir will also perform at Santa At the Strand in Lismore on Thursday evening 28th November.
SESE (Social Enviromental & Scientific Education)
Science Week Ireland is from 11th to 17th November. We will have a Science Day here in the school on Thursday 14th November. There will be plenty of science activities in school and we will be encouraging the children to carry out their own investigations and experiments as well. Thanks to Ms O’ Brien for co-ordinating Science Week this year.
Ms O’Brien is also going to have a look at our Science Plan with a view to updating it in the coming months.
NEPS Psychologist Teresa Thornton was in the school in early October and she is due back again after mid-term.
PE, Sport and Extracurricular
GAA
Gaelic Football for all classes will take place on Thursday 24th October and Thursday 7th November with Conor Prendergast. Congratulations to Lily Quann on winning the Division 2 under 13 Ladies Football Championship Plate with St Oliver’s. Well done to Cailean Nixon, Kain Keniry, Odhran Prendergast, Daniel Whelan and Adam Wilkinson who were on the Cappoquin/Tourin/Naomh Bríd panel who won the under 13 Divison 3 County Final in September. A number of our past pupils were also involved.
Cuman Na mBunscol
The Cuman na mBunscol Primary games Gaelic football competitions started back in September. Our boys’ and girls’ teams were both in groups with the same schools, Ballymacarbry, Lismore and Scoil Na Leanai. The boys blitz took place in Cappoquin on Tuesday 1st October and the girls blitz took place on the same day in Lismore. Both teams finished 4th in their groups. Next up were the Shield semi-finals where the girls lost out to Garranbane and the boys lost out to St Joseph’s after a great battle.
Gymnastics
DK Sports will be in to do a six week block of gymnastics with all the classes after mid-term.
Cycle Right
5th Class are participating in the Cycle Cycle Right programme with Donal Jacob and Ollie every Tuesday morning for four weeks.
Athletics
A number of our students participated in the primary school cross country took place in St Augustine’s on Friday 20th September.
Active Schools
Ms Lyons and the Active School Committee organised a European Sports Day in the school on Friday 27th September.
Social Media
Thanks to Mrs Scanlan for looking after the school’s Facebook page.
School Lunches- Hot meals
We had a School Meals Inspection through the Department of Social Welfare on
Wednesday, 18 September.
Assembly
We had a whole school Assembly on Friday, 27 September and Junior Infants led the Assembly with a song and a few words as Gaeilge.
The committee members of the Parents Association/Council held a meeting in the school on Wednesday evening 11th September. The Parents Association suggested that we get the children to design their own Christmas cards this year through Christmas Cards for Schools and we agreed to do this.
Current Committee Members:
Chairperson Kathleen Coffey
Secretary Rachael McLaughlin
Treasurers Elaine Singleton & Angela Wilkinson
Committee Members: Ita Fitzgerald, Christine Coffey, Tim Lobby, Stephen O’Rourke, Mairead Prendergast, Billy Garvey, Megan Hurley,Tracey Quann and Rebecca O’ Farrell.
Blackwater Community School had an Open Night for 5th & 6th Class pupils and their families on Tueday 1st October.
Photographs
Billy Whyte took school photographs of the Junior Infant pupils and their siblings on Monday 30th September.
Halloween Dress Up will take place in the school this Friday 25th of October.
Maintenance
Jamie Corcoran painted the hall in Le Chéile during the summer months.
This was the end of the Principal’s Report.
Child Protection
Oversight Report was presented by Martin Delaney.
Health and Safety
Thanks to James Casey for the Health & Safety Report.
Enrolment
Next year’s potential enrolment numbers were discussed.
Summer School Programme
Martin spoke about the four weeks’ school provision. There was positive feedback from children and families who participated. Between Summer Provision and DEIS camps we had almost 60 children participate this year. This was our first year of the DEIS camps.
Pre- School
A conversation took place about the demand for pre-school spaces in the Cappoquin area.
Solar Panels
Martin said that the school are still waiting for solar panels, he doesn’t know why this is the case.
Uniforms
The new school tracksuit was introduced at the start of the school year.
Parents Association
December is a busy time with the Kelleher’s Raffle. Parents Association will pay for the Little Red Kettle Theatre Company for every class in December.
Finance
Mary Casey is using a new accounts system from FSSU, we will move over to this system now that she has trialled it for September and is pleased with it.
As Sheila Curtin was unable to attend the meeting, Martin presented the financial report.
Plans & Policies
Bí Cineálta – New Anti-bullying policy has to be in place for September 2025.
A.O.B.
Votes of sympathy to the Wilkinson family of Mary Wilkinson (sister of Ollie Wilkinson) on her passing.
A Board meeting took place in the school on Thursday 20th June 2024 at 2p.m.
Keith Dransfield, Chairperson, chaired the meeting. The opening prayer was led by Fr Keogh.
Minutes of the previous meeting were read, proposed and seconded.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented.
It included details of
Enrolment
Our official enrolment number with the Department of Education for the 2023-2024 school year is 196 as that is the number of children that were on the POD system on 30th September 2023. We currently have 206 pupils in the school, which again is two up from our last Board meeting in May.
Our Open Day for the incoming Junior Infants took place on Wednesday 5th June. Thanks very much to Leonie O’ Brien in all her work preparing for the Open Day. We received 14 enrolment forms for Junior Infants (1 up since our last meeting.) This is a much smaller number than normal and as mentioned previously could possibly put us under pressure to retain a mainstream class for the 2025-2026 school year. We will just have to wait and see what happens and develops over the summer months.
Staffing
Thanks to Lisa Barry for teaching 4th Class over the last two months.
Curriculum
Standardised Testing
Standardised testing in Literacy, Numeracy & Spelling took place in the school in mid-May. The results of the tests were added in to the report cards, which were released to parents on Aladdin last week.
Music
As part of the Opera Festival Activities Music Generation came in and did 4 music lessons with our 3rd class pupils in May. This was then followed by a 3rd class Discover Opera class visit to Lismore Castle Gardens with Blackwater Valley Opera & Music Generation Waterford on Tuesday 28th May.
Summer Provision
Summer Provision will run in the school from Monday 26th June until Friday 21st July. Two DEIS Camps will run during the first two weeks of July.
School Tours
Junior and Senior Infants went to Pirates Adventure in Tramore on Friday 31st May. 1st and 2nd Classes went to Activate in Waterford city on Thursday 13th June. 3rd & 4th Classes went to Cuskinny in Cork on Monday 17th June. 5th and 6th Classes went to Dunmore East on Wednesday June 12th and on the same day Le Cheile went to Treasure Cove in Tramore.
Ethos
Our End of Year School Mass took place in the church in Cappoquin on Tuesday 18th June. Fr Keogh celebrated the Mass.
Graduation Mass for 6th Class took place earlier today, Thursday 20th June in the school.
Sport – Hurling
Cuman Na mBunscol
In the Roinn A Hurling Shield Final the boys had a fantastic win over Ballymacarbry at Dungarvan GAA grounds on Wednesday 22nd May. Kieran Bennett came to the school on Tuesday 7th June to present the boys with both their hurling and Gaelic football medals from this year. Kieran also presented the badminton team with their medals from the All Ireland series.
Thanks again also to Fintan Murray who came in numerous times during the year to train the boys hurling and a number of other classes as well.
Camogie
The Roinn A Shield Camogie was played in Dungarvan on Tuesday 28th May. The girls had a really good victory over Garranbane in the semi-final and then lost out very narrowly to St Mary’s in the final. The girls played very well and were unlucky not to come away with a victory in the final.
Thanks to Tricia McCarthy for helping out with camogie training for the panel this year.
Hurling
Also in hurling CP as a GPA with Deise Og came to the school to coach hurling on 11th and 17th June.
2nd Class students recently took part in a GAA blitz organised by Déise Og. The blitz took place in Cappoquin on Monday 10th June.
Swimming
4th Class had swimming lessons in Aura Leisure Centre Youghal during May and June.
Athletics
The heats of the primary schools’ athletics competitions for schools in our areas took place in Balinameela over two Thursdays in May. Finisk Valley organised the races for our area. We had a number of boy and girls reach the finals and we also had a good number of relay teams reach finals as well. The West Waterford Athletics finals took place in Abbeyside on Thursday 30th May. Well done to boys and girls who won medals on the night, a great achievement. A huge thanks to Ms Lyons and Mrs Veale for organising, co-ordinating and preparing the students for the athletics and for giving up 3 evenings to attend the Athletics. Thanks to Dee Buckley for helping out in Abbeyside and to Lisa Barry for helping out in Balinameela.
Sports Day and Active Schools Week
Active Schools Week took place from Monday 10th June to Friday 14th. Thanks to Ms Lyons, her Active School Committee and 6th Class pupils for organising the timetable for Active Schools Week. There was a wide range of activities throughout the week and every class had great fun that week. Sports Day took place on Tuesday 11th June, we were lucky with the weather. It was a terrific day of activities with hula hooping and skipping as 2 different activities this year. There were bouncy castles and everyone was thrilled to hear the sound of the ice-cream van coming into the school. A massive thank you to Ms Lyons for all her work and indeed Ms Lyons was successful again in renewing our Active School Flag (3rd time we will be presented with the flag, not an easy achievement.) Thanks again to our local soccer club Cappoquin Railway Football Club for making their facilities so regularly during the year. This concluded the Principal’s report.
Child protection – Principals Oversight Report
This report was presented by the Principal
SEN/EAL and SNA
SNA allocation for 2024/2025 as per this school year. 6 full time SNA’s(4 in Le Cheile and 2 in mainstream.)
SET– 2.9 posts for 2024/2025
EAL – 15 hours per week for 2024/2025 – Ms Kennedy
SET EAL – 5 hours for Ukrainian pupils – Ms Bulman
Text Book Scheme
Books are purchased at the moment.
School Summer Provision
4 Weeks:
Leonie O’Brien Manager Weeks 1 & 2
James Casey Manager Week 3
Martin Delaney Manager Week 4
Active Flag
Active Flag renewed by Ms Lyons.
ISM
Reports from ISM members were read out at the meeting.
James Casey – Deputy Principal
Máire Kearney – AP 11
Eilish Curran – AP 11
Breda Feeney – AP11
Pre-School Numbers and Capacity in Cappoquin
Pre School setting in Cappoquin Community Childcare is full for 2024-2025 year and a discussion was held on this topic.
Parents Association
The Parents Association helped out for Active Schools Week. They paid for ice-cream, bouncy castle, hula hoops and skipping. They are also organising the recycling of old school uniforms
Uniform Review
K Sport came to size children for new tracksuits.
Finance
The report was presented by the Treasurer, Síle Curtin.
Plans and Policies
Anti-Bullying and Critical Incident Policy ratified by the Board.
Critical Incident updated by Board.
AOB
Martin thanked all staff and Board of Management for their help throughout the year.
Next Meeting – September / October 2024
A Board meeting took place in the school on Wednesday 15th May 2024 at 7pm
Keith Dransfield, Chairperson, chaired the meeting.
Fr Keogh said the opening prayer.
Minutes of the previous meeting were read, proposed and seconded.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. The Principal’s Report included details of following:
Enrolment
Our official enrolment number with the Department of Education for the 2023-2024 school year is 196 as that is the number of children that were on the POD system on 30th September 2023. We currently have 204 pupils in the school, which is two up from our last Board meeting in February.
Staffing
Work Placement
Curriculum
Standardised Testing
Standardised testing started in the school this week with spelling and will continue with tests in numeracy and literacy next week. The senior classes will also complete a standardised test in Gaeilge this year again. The results of the tests will be added in to the report cards, which will be released to parents on Aladdin in June.
PLC
English – the staff have started the process of reviewing English in the school with the view to having an updated English Plan for September. The first area we are looking at is reading and the resources we have for reading especially in relation to graded readers. We also discussed spellings and will come back to both of these topics in the coming weeks. Mrs Eilish Curran as an AP2 Post Holder with responsibility for English will lead this review.
Geography & Science-Sustainability
There was an ACRES talk on sustainability for 4th and 5th Class children on 27th February.
Music
As part of the Opera Festival activities Music Generation are coming in once a week during April and May to do 4 music lessons with our 3rd class pupils.
World Book Day
World Book Day took place in the school on Thursday 7th March where many of our students came in with one of their favourite books and dressed up as a character from that book.
Visits to the School
Lismore Towers and Tales
As part of the Lismore Towers and Tales author Sheena Dempsey visited First & Second Class to talk about her book.
Heritage in Schools
Anthony Galvin a heritage in school expert visited all the classes on Wednesday 8th May to give a talk on Artic/Antarctic exploration and Tom Crean. There were very positive reviews on this.
S Na G
S NA G agus Lá Glas- Seachtain Na Gaeilge took place for the first 2 weeks of March up to Friday 15th and we had our Assembly that day. Thanks to Ms Kearney for organising and co-ordinating all the S Na G activities. There was a Trath na gCeist for 4th to 6th class pupils on Thursday 14th March.
Summer Provision
Summer Provision will run in the school from Monday 24th June until Friday 19th July.
Ethos
First Holy Communion and Confirmation
In preparation for Confirmation the 6th Class pupils had a retreat with the Holy Family Mission on Wednesday 10th April. Confirmation took place on Monday 15th April and Bishop Cullinan confirmed the boys and girls in 6th Class. Again thank you very much to Mrs Veale for all her work in preparing the class. Thank you to Fr Keogh for looking after the staff involved in Confirmation with a meal afterwards in Barrons. It was lovely.
First Holy Communion took place on Saturday last, 11th May. Fr Keogh celebrated the Mass. Well done to all the boys and girls in second class who made their First Communion. Thanks to Mrs Curran for preparing them so well and thanks to Mr Casey, Deirdre Cahill and Ms Kearney for all their help. The Parents Association organised teas/coffees and refreshments for the Communion families in the hall afterwards.
Sr Antoinette visited all the classes in the school on Wednesday 13th March.
There will be Graduation Mass for 6th Class on Thursday 20th June in the school. There will be an end of year school Mass for infants to 5th Class in June with Fr Keogh. Date tbc.
School Tours
School Tours will take place for all classes starting at the end of May and continuing throughout June. School tours are very expensive for parents.
Sport – Hurling
Cuman Na mBunscol
In the hurling, the mini 7s were played in Lismore and we participated in the boys and girls competitions.
Then in the 15 aside the boys lost out to Lismore and Scoil Na Leanai but enjoyed a good victory over Ballymacarbry in the group. The boys are due to play St Joseph’s in the shield semi-final tomorrow in Dungarvan. The girls camogie team lost against Lismore in the Roinn A competition. The shield competition will be played off as a blitz one day over the coming weeks. Congratulations to our 6th Class pupils who played or will be playing for Waterford primary games during the half time of intercountry matches. Sam Cahill played with Waterford Primary Games team in Gaelic football at half-time of the Waterford v Clare Munster SFC game. Aaron Coughlan played with Waterford Primary Games team in hurling at half-time of the Waterford v Cork Munster SHC game. Bonnie McLaughlin will play with Waterford Primary Games team in camogie at half-time of the Limerick v Waterford Munster SHC game.
There was a 3rd and 4th Class camogie blitz in Lismore in April.
Soccer
Brideview United in Tallow organised a very enjoyable soccer blitz for 5th and 6th class boys and girls on Friday last, 10th May. A number of schools from West Waterford and East Cork participated. We entered two teams and our A team went on to win the competition out. The team defeated Lismore in the final 1-0 which had followed a very exciting penalty shootout victory over Tallow in the semi-final. Well done to all the boys and girls on both teams.
Badminton
Waterford schools Competion was held in the Community Centre in Cappoquin. The school entered two boys’ teams and one girls team. We had children from 4th to 6th class participating. It was a very enjoyable day of badminton. Thanks to Mary McGrath for helping out the school with the competition.
Swimming
4th Class will have swimming lessons in Aura Leisure Centre Youghal during May and June. Again this is very expensive between the costs of buses and the swimming pool itself. Le Cheile had regular swimming lessons during the year. It was less expensive for Le Chéile.
Athletics
The primary schools’ athletics competitions have started back up this year. The format has changed from the previous version before Covid. Schools are divided into local regions. Finisk Valley organised the races for our area. The boys from Cappoquin competed in races in Ballinameela on Thursday last 9th May and many of them performed very well with some individuals and a number of our relay teams qualifying for the West Waterford finals which will take place in Abbeyside. The girls were originally to compete on Thursday 2nd May but were postponed until tomorrow, 16th May due to bad weather two weeks ago. Thanks to Ms Lyons and Mrs Veale for organising, co-ordinating and preparing the students for the athletics.
Student Coaches
The student coaches from Dungarvan College finished up in April. For their last few weeks they did tip rugby with the children.
Break In
Break in on the school premises on Saturday May 4th at 2.25 a.m. Gardaí are still dealing with the situation and they currently have an ipad which was stolen and it will be returned to the school. The glass on the door needs to be replaced.
This concluded the Principal’s report.
Child protection – Principals Oversight Report
This report was presented by the Principal
Health & Safety Report
See attached report from James Casey. James is the Health & Safety Representative in the school. A new Health & Safety officer needs to be appointed from the BoM.
Enrolment
Parents Association
Parents Association organised the teas and coffees for the morning of the First Holy Communion.
Uniform Review
School Summer Provision
Leonie to become DLP for the first two weeks of July Provision
James Casey Week 3
Martin Delaney Week 4
Solar Panels
Solar Panels to be installed soon. No date is given. Three quotes were submitted to Department.
Finance
Sheila presented the financial report.
Plans and Policies
AUP – Proposed by Fr Keogh and seconded by Leonie O’Brien.
Reviewing Child Protection and Child Safeguarding Statement – following template given by Department.
Policy was approved – proposed by Brian Murray and seconded by Fiona Tobin.
All school personnel to receive a copy of Safeguarding Statement.
Votes of Sympathy
extended to
This concluded the meeting.
A Board meeting took place in the school on Thursday 1st February 2024 at 7pm
Keith Dransfield, Chairperson, chaired the meeting. This was the first meeting of the new 2023-2027 Board of Management. The members of the 2023-2027 BoM are as follows: Keith Dransfield (Chairperson – Bishop’s Nominee,) Sheila Curtin (Community Nominee & Treasurer,) Martin Delaney (Principal & Secretary of BoM) Fr Keogh (Bishop’s Nominee), Brian Murray (Community Nominee,) Pat Glasheen (Parents Nominee,) Fiona Tobin (Parents Nominee) and Leonie O’Brien (Teachers Nominee & records minutes at BoM meetings.)
The BoM Governance Manuals were distributed and the importance of confidentiality within the Board (Page 31 of manual) was emphasised. Pages 17 – 31 of the manual are very important to look at.
Minutes of the previous meeting were read.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. Please see some of the details here from the report.
Principal’s Report
Enrolment
It included details of enrolment, three new Ukrainian pupils started in BGS this week (29th January.) Our current enrolment on Aladdin is 202 pupils. However, our official enrolment with the Department of Education for the 23/24 year is 196 as that is the number we had on September 30th last. Unfortunately, we are due to intake only nine Junior Infants this year from Cappoquin Preschool and there will be one or two others enrolling who are not attending Cappoquin Preschool and this still be a very low intake in comparison to all other years and will put pressure on our staffing allocation for the following year. There are 27 pupils in the mainstream 6th Class due to leave.
Work Placement
Ethos
Thanks to Jamie Corcoran and James Casey for putting up the crib and the Advent Wreaths as well as the Christmas tree and other decorations in preparation for Christmas.
All classes attended Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th.
Catholic Schools Week was last week, running from Sunday 21st to Saturday 27th January. Wednesday 24th January, was Grandparents Day and Second Class attended Mass in Cappoquin that day. As is tradition the school also invited in the grandparents of the 5th Class children to come to visit their grandchildren at school but we did this on Friday last, 26th January. Firstly, the grandparents went to Mrs Moore’s & Mrs Scanlan’s classroom where the children participated in a prayer service led by Fr Keogh. There were a few other activities, poems read out and a question & answer session. Afterwards all the grandparents and the children went down to hall for some refreshments. Thanks to the grandparents for coming in, thanks to Mary Flynn with help from Mary Casey and James Casey for preparing the hall and serving the teas/coffees. A big thank you also to Mrs Moore & Mrs Scanlan for all their work in preparing the class. Thanks also to Mr Casey for organising and overseeing Catholic Schools Week here in the school.
Today 1st February is St Brigid’s Day and seven classes went to the church for Mass.
Confirmation will take place in Cappoquin on Monday 15th April.
First Confession
Our First Confession tbc
First Holy Communion will take place on Saturday 11th May
Curriculum
New Primary School Curriculum
There is a new primary school curriculum currently being phased into primary schools in Ireland replacing the 1999 Curriculum. It started with the introduction of the new Language Curriculum (English agus Gaeilge) over the last few years.
New Maths Curriculum
Now we are in the process of phasing in a new Mathematics curriculum.
The aim of the new Primary Mathematics Curriculum is that children see maths as important and useful to their everyday lives.
An initial training day on the new Mathematics curriculum took place for all the staff on Thursday 23rd November in Waterford Teachers Centre. This training was run by OIDE (formerly known as the PDST.)
Literacy & Maths Stations Literacy and Maths Stations are taking place across a number of different classes in the school with SET teachers going in to support classroom teachers for these.
Paired Reading
All of the classes will start up paired reading in February and will continue with it once a week for a few weeks. This will then change to paired Gaeilge comhra in March for Seachtain na Gaeilge. 6th Class are paired with 2nd Class, 5th Class are paired with 1st Class, 4th Class are paired with Senior Infants and 3rd Class are paired with Junior Infants.
Reading Eggs
Breda Feeney as IT co-ordinator introduced Reading Eggs app to the ipads for all our classes. This is following on from the introduction of Khan Academy and Mathsletics apps for Maths in September. Reading Eggs is currently on a free 30 day trial period. If it goes well, we will then pay for a yearly subscription and we have heard good feedback from other schools about it. Well done to Ms Feeney on getting this set up.
Library Visits
Unfortunately, the library in Cappoquin remains closed at the current time. Teachers are able to order class novels to be delivered to Lismore.
World Book Day
World Book Day will take place on Thursday 7th March and we will plan some activities in the school for that day.
Music
Mrs Veale continues to prepare the choir (comprising of children from 4th to 6th class) for the Peace Proms, which takes place in SETU Waterford on Saturday March 2nd at 8p.m. Thanks to Mrs Moore and Ms Lyons who will help Mrs Veale on the day of the peace proms concert.
The choir also performed at Santa at the Strand in Lismore on the evening of Thursday 30th November. We had a Christmas Concert in the school hall on Tuesday 19th December at 10 a.m. Junior and Senior Infant classes combined to perform their Nativity play while first to sixth classes combined with their partner classes to perform a song. There was a lovely atmosphere that morning and there was a great turnout of parents, grandparents and other relatives. Thanks to all the teachers for preparing the children for the performance.
Little Red Kettle Production Company
Little Red Kettle Production Company were in the school on Thursday 14th December to perform their interactive play Squidjoooom. Again this performance seemed to go down really well with the children. Thanks to the Parents Association for paying for this.
SESE (Social Enviromental & Scientific Education)
Science Week Ireland took place from the 12th to 19th November. The pupils and teachers were very active carrying out science experiments and investigations during the week. Ms Feeney also booked in science workshops from Lismore Heritage for each class.
Art – Credit Union
The children participated in the Credit Union Art competition.
Credit Union Quiz
2 teams from the school entered into the Credit Union quiz in Dungarvan which took place on Monday last, 29th January. There is an under 11 and an under 13 team and thanks to Mrs Veale for attending on behalf of the school.
Safer Internet Day
Safer Internet Day will be on Tuesday 6th February.
Parent Teacher Meetings
Parent Teacher meetings took place in the school on Tuesday 21st November and Wednesday 22nd November.
Sport
Gaelic Games
A big thank you to Cappoquin Camogie Club who for donating €200 worth of sliotars recently.
Thanks to both Cappoquin Camogie Club and Cappoquin/Affane GAA Club for helping with coaching in the school. Fintan Murray and Tricia McCarthy are currently helping out on Thursday afternoons with the school’s hurling and camogie teams respectively.
Cuman Na mBunscol
Our Cuman na mBunscol Gaelic Football Roinn A gaelic football shield finals were originally postponed in late October and they then took place in Dungarvan on Thursday 9th November. The girls played St Mary’s in a shield semi-final first and after a close match, Cappoquin won by a point. Then the boys’ final took place and Cappoquin defeated Garranbane with a last minute goal. Garranbane had a big lead mid-way through the second half but the Cappoquin boys never give up and got a great run of scores to come back and gain a narrow victory. The girls then played Garranbane as well in the Shield final. Garranbane won the game well but the Cappoquin girls could hold their heads high after giving their all in tough conditions.
The mini 7s will take place soon and the hurling Cuman na mBunscol hurling competitions will be on after Easter.
Soccer
We have also entered teams in the FAI primary schools 5 a side which will take place on Friday 28th February. Again thank you to the soccer club for continued access to the astro pitch.
Swimming
Le Chéile 1 and Le Chéile 2 have had regular trips to the swimming pool in the Aura Leisure Centre Youghal during the first term.
Active Schools
For active schools we are focusing on the fundamental skill of side stepping during January.
Current Committee Members:
Chairperson Billy Garvey
Secretary Rachael McLaughlin
Treasurers Elaine Singleton & Angela Wilkinson
Committee Members: Ita Fitzgerald, Christine Coffey, Tim Lobby, Stephen O’Rourke, Mairead Prendergast, Eilish Fenton, Kathleen Coffey and Rebecca O’ Farrell.
The Parents Association/Council were extremely busy in December. Firstly, they ran a Christmas Table Quiz on Friday 8th December. The quiz took place in the Sportsmans Inn and Kevin McCarhy was the MC and Tricia McCarthy recorded the scores and helped with correcting. Parents Association members also helped out with this. The Parents Association were a little bit disappointed with the turn out on the night but it is a busy time of year for people. But between the quiz and a raffle on the night approximately €1000 was raised. Two days later on Sunday 10th December, the Parents Association hosted a Santa Visit and a Mini Disco in the school hall. The children who attended this seem to really enjoy it. The Parents Association also organised the rota for Kellehers Christmas raffle. Thanks also to Tom Kelleher and Supervalu for sponsoring the €500 shopping voucher and congratulations to the winner Michael McGrath from Mellerary who has grandchildren in the school. It was a very successful fundraiser and €2,650 was raised. A lot of time was given by a number of people to sell the tickets in Kellehers. Thanks to all who supported it.
The Parents Association are also interested in helping the school create a nice school library in the room across from the staffroom. We are looking at getting the children involved in creating possible designs for the library.
Fire brigade Fundraiser
Cappoquin Fire brigade had their annual fundraiser in December and they donated over €1,000 to the school as one of the local charities.
Child protection – Principals Oversight Report
This report was presented by the Principal
Health & Safety
Health & Report from James Casey (Health & Safety Representative) was resented by the Principal.
Uniform Review
A report was presented on the school uniform review. The final statistics of the Uniform Review Poll which was on Aladdin for parents & staff . The majority voted for a crested school tracksuit. A Board discussion was held on this topic and the Board agreed to approve school tracksuit for next year.
School Solar Panels
Martin registered the school and needs to get two more quotes. 100% grant approved.
Finance
Sheila Curtin is going to take on the role of Treasurer. Accounts for 2022/2023 are with the accountant at the moment. They will then be sent to FSSU for approval. A current Financial Report was presented.
Plans and Policies
Digital Learning Plan – Year 2 – Reviewed / Agreed upon
SPHE, RSE and Stay Safe Policies were all agreed upon.
Votes of Sympathy
Date for next Meeing
The date for the next meeting was scheduled for mid-April.
A Board meeting took place in the school on Wednesday 25th October at 7pm
The meeting was opened by Chairperson Kevin McCarthy.
Minutes of the previous meeting were proposed and seconded.
Correspondence
Letter from Bishop acknowledging the work of the BOM.
Letter from Credit Union to update documentation.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included the details of enrolment, staffing, curriculum, The Summer Provision Programme, ethos, extracurricular and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
Principal’s Report
All the children returned to school on Wednesday 30th August.
Enrolment
We have an enrolment of 196 pupils for the 2023/24 school year and this is the number recognised on the POD system as of 30th September 2023. At the start of September, we did have 200 pupils on our roll but unfortunately a family of four children moved house and moved school as well during the month bringing our number back to 196. Two new pupils are due to start in Le Chéile any day (waiting on transport approval.) This will mean that we will have 198 children in the school. There are twenty-six new pupils in the Junior Infants mainstream class. There are two new Junior Infants in Le Chéile 1 with as already mentioned 2 more due to start. We also have two new pupils in Senior Infants, one new pupil in 1st Class, two new pupils in 3rd Class, two new pupils in 4th Class and one new pupil in 6th Class. Five of our new pupils are from Ukraine.
Staffing
Welcome back to Maria Moore who is job sharing with Susan Amy Scanlan this year, welcome also to Tracy Hogan (who has been regularly here over the years) and to Ms Fiona Tobin in their roles job sharing in SET & Senior Infants. Ms Louise Kennedy joined us in mid-September when we were allocated 15 EAL hours per week. Thanks to Ms Catriona Bullman who is covering leave in this first term.
Principal |
Martin Delaney |
Deputy Principal |
James Casey |
Special Education Teachers
|
James Casey Máire Kearney Aisling Fennell/Tracy Hogan |
Le Chéile Class 1 Le Chéile Class 2
|
Caoimhe Ní Chuirrín Jenny Kiely |
Junior Infants |
Leonie O’Brien |
Senior Infants |
Laura Roche/Fiona Tobin |
1st Class |
Caroline Price |
2nd Class |
Eilish Curran |
3rd Class |
Louise Lyons |
4th Class
|
Breda Feeney |
5th Class |
Maria Moore/Susan Amy Scanlan |
6th Class |
Mairéad Veale |
15 EAL Hours |
Louise Kennedy |
Special Needs Assistants |
Olivia O’Daly, Deirdre Cahill, Therese Walsh, Mary O’Brien, Deirdre Buckley, Cathy Halley, John Twomey and Aileen Buckley. |
Bus Escorts |
4 |
School Secretary |
Mary Casey |
School Maintenance |
Jamie Corcoran, Lois Crotty & Janice Barry |
Work Placement
Ethos
On Wednesday 4th October Fr Keogh celebrated an Opening Year Mass with the whole school. Thanks to Mr Casey and Fr Keogh for organising the Mass and thanks to all the boys and girls who read or carried gifts for it. First Holy Communion will take place on Saturday 11th May at 11 a.m. in Cappoquin.
Curriculum
New Primary School Curriculum
There is a new primary school curriculum currently being phased into primary schools in Ireland replacing the 1999 Curriculum. It started with the introduction of the new Language Curriculum (English agus Gaeilge) over the last few years.
New Maths Curriculum
Now we are going to have a new Mathematics curriculum.
The aim of the new Primary Mathematics Curriculum is that children see maths as important and useful to their everyday lives.
Training for the new Mathematics curriculum is starting this year. On Wednesday last, 18th October in Waterford Teachers Centre, James Casey and I attended a training day for school leaders in relation to the Mathematic Curriculum. This training day was run by Oide
(formerly known as the PDST.) In the coming months someone from Oide will come to the school to introduce the teachers to the new Mathematic Curriculum. Oide will assign a date to us and we will need to close the school for the children on this date.
Maths
Maths Week Ireland took place from 15th to 21st October. Bricks 4 Kidz came into the school on Thursday 19th and Friday 20th October where every class had an hour lego lesson with them on one of the days. The majority of children seemed to really enjoy it. Thanks to Mr Casey for organising Bricks 4 Kidz and for organising Maths Week in the school. Other extra mathematical based activities took place in many of the classrooms and there were Maths trails around the school as well during Maths week. A number of classes also used Maths apps on the ipads.
Breda Feeney as IT co-ordinator introduced Khan Academy and Mathsletics as two maths apps for the classes to use on a regular basis. Juniors to First Class use Khan Academy each week which is free while 2nd Class to 6th Class use Mathsletics on a weekly basis. We agreed to pay for the Mathsletics subscriptions for all those students after the free 30 day trial had ended. There was a lot of work in setting these apps and getting the teachers up to speed on them. Well done to Ms Feeney on getting through so much in a short space of time.
Station Teaching
A number of classes are currently using station teaching in Literacy or Numeracy when the SET teacher is timetabled to work with their class.
Summer Stars
Well done to the pupils from Bunscoil Gleann Sidheáin who participated in the Summer Stars reading programme in Lismore and Dungarvan Libraries (unfortunately Cappoquin Library is still closed.) Sheila Curtin has sent in the certificates and medals to the school and we will present the children with their medals and certificates at Assembly this Friday before the mid-term break. Sheila also sent in a couple of lovely new books for every Junior Infant in the school.
SPHE- Barnardos Online Safety Talk
Mary Lonergan on behalf of Barnardos delivered an online safety workshop in person to 3rd to 6th Class students on Monday 16th October. Ideally I would have like this workshop in February when we focus on online safety however I booked them in at IPPN last year and the 16th October was the date they had for us. It was only €50 for the school which is a lot cheaper than other speakers on this important subject.
Music
Peace Proms
Mrs Veale is setting up our school choir again this year and it is made up of pupils from 4th, 5th and 6th classes. The choir will be participating in Peace Proms again this school year.
The Choir will also perform at Santa At the Strand in Lismore on Thursday evening 30th November.
SESE (Social Enviromental & Scientific Education)
Seachtain na hEolaíochta
Science Week Ireland is from 12th to 19th November. There will be plenty of science activities during the week and we will be encouraging the children to carry out their own investigations and experiments as well.
NEPS Teresa Thornton has visited the school on a number of occasions during September and October and is due back again after mid-term. We have five 6th Class pupils in Le Chéile 2.
PE, Sport and Extracurricular
GAA
Gaelic Football for all classes took place on Thursday 12th and Thursday 19th October with Conor Prendergast. Congratulations to Alyssa Ferguson on winning both the Division 2 under 12 Ladies Football Championship Plate and the under 13 Championship Plate with St Oliver’s and likewise congratulations to Bonnie Mclaughlin on winning the Division 5 under 12 Ladies Football Championship Cup with Shamrocks in September. Bonnie was also a member of the Cappoquin Camogie under 14 panel who won the Under 14 C County Championship in September. Well done to Mark Coughlan and Eoghan O’ Gorman who were on the Cappoquin/Naomh Bríd panel who won the under 13 County Divison 3 Plate in September. A number of our past pupils were also involved.
Cuman Na mBunscol
The Cuman na mBunscol Primary games Gaelic football competitions started back in September. Our boys’ team were in a group with Ballymacarbry and Lismore schools. The blitz took place on Thursday 5th October in very wet conditions. The boys lost both games but played very well in the two games. The boys are in a Shield Final against Garranbane and it has been postponed a few times due to the poor weather. Likewise, the girls are due to play Garranbane in a Shield semi-final but it too was postponed with the boys’ match. Both games will take place after the mid-term.
Football/Soccer
Student coaches from Dungarvan College are currently in on Wednesdays to do blocks of coaching with the children. In October the coaches started with soccer which will run for 5 weeks and then they will coach volleyball in November and December.
Gymnastics
DK Sports have just completed a six week block of gymnastics with all the classes.
Cycle Right
5th Class participated in the Cycle Cycle Right program with Donal Jacob and Ollie every Tuesday morning for four weeks.
Show Jumping
Well done to 6th Class pupil Raven Joyce who competed at two Interschools Showjumping events in October.
Athletics
A number of our students are members of Finisk Valley Athletic Club based in Ballinameela and indeed some of these students have performed really well recently in county and provincial competitions.
A number of them also competed in the primary school cross country took place in St Augustine’s on Friday 6th October.
-Alyssa Ferguson ran in the 6th class race and came home in 11th place.
– Roisin Glasheen ran in the 3rd class race and came home in 2nd place.
– Aoife Glasheen ran in the 2nd class race.
Active Schools
Fundamental movement skills for October is running for the Junior Infants and striking with the hand or dribbling for Senior Infants to 6th Class.
Active Schools
Ms Lyons and the Active School Committee organised a European Sports Day in the school on Friday 29th September.
IT
Thanks to Susan Amy Scanlan for looking after the school’s Facebook pages and thanks to Maireád Veale for looking after the school twitter account. Breda Feeney is working on a Digital Learning Plan following on from the work started by Kevin last year.
The committee members of the Parents Association/Council held a meeting in the school on Thursday evening 19th October. The Parents Association are looking at doing the following in December – Christmas Table Quiz, Family Fun Event/Santa and they will contact Kellehers about the usual Super Valu Raffle. They will be adding new members to the committee from Junior Infants in the coming weeks.
Blackwater Community School had an Open Night for 6th Class pupils and their families on Thursday 5th October.
Photographs
Billy Whyte took school photographs of the pupils on Monday 2nd October
Halloween Dress Up will take place in the school this Friday 27th of October.
Child Protection Oversight Report.
Child Protection Oversight Report was presented.
Health & Safety Report
The report was presented.
Maintenance – Caretaker
Jamie Corcoran also appointed school caretaker following interviews during the summer.
New School Books
Mary Casey worked on this over the summer and it seems to be working well.
Work around perimeter of the Field
Huge amount of work done over the summer
Uniform Review Committee
Uniform Review Committee sent out a questionnaire re same. Results to be looked at.
Parents Association
These are all possible fundraisers. Billy to contact Tom Kelleher re raffle. They have two new parent members from Junior Infants this year
New BOM 2023 – 2027
Fr Keogh organising it on behalf of the Bishop at the moment,
I.T.
Susan-Amy Scanlan looking after Facebook page and Mairead Veale looks after Twitter.
Breda Feeney has completed a huge amount of work in the short space of time she has taken on the post. Many thanks to her.
Finance
The Treasurer presented the financial report.
Plans and Policies
Máire Kearney and Eilish Curran had a draft SPHE policy. Martin wants to make some changes; he feels RSE etc. needs to be done every year. Possibility of the new board looking at it.
Martin to get feedback from teachers.
Well-being Policy – Survey
Votes of sympathy
Kevin McCarthy as outgoing Chairperson thanked all the current Board members for their work over the past four years and wished the school well going forward. This concluded the meeting.
A Board meeting took place in the school on Thursday 8th June at 7pm
The meeting was opened by Chairperson Kevin McCarthy.
Minutes of the previous meeting were proposed and seconded.
Correspondence
No correspondence.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included the details of enrolment, staffing, curriculum, The Summer Provision Programme, ethos, extracurricular and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
Principal’s Report
We finished up for the second term on Friday 31st March with an in-service day for the staff. All the children and staff returned to school following the Easter break on Monday 17thApril.
We had a very busy but enjoyable third term in Bunscoil Gleann Sidheáin and have two weeks left to the end of the school year.
Enrolment
At our last Board meeting we had come down to 192 pupils on Aladdin, but over the last month a number a number of new pupils started in the school. A new girl started in 5th class, another girl in Junior Infants, a boy in Senior Infants and a girl in second class bringing our number on Aladdin up to 196. It is not certain that all those 4 children will stay in the school but hopefully they will still be with us come September/October. We have 28 children finishing their primary education here this year which is a big number, 24 of those are in the mainstream 6th class and 4 children are in Le Chéile 2.
Our Open Day for the incoming Junior Infants took place yesterday, Wednesday 7th June (thanks to Leonie O’ Brien for organising it.) We received 26 enrolment forms for Junior Infants and it looks like 23 of those families showed up yesterday. We expect somewhere between 24 or 25 Junior Infants will start in late August. There will be 4 new enrolments in Le Chéile. A family of two children just let me know last week that they are moving school in September. Our current estimate of our enrolment for September is 191.
Staffing
Work Placement/Volunteering
Curriculum
Standardised Testing
Most of the children in the mainstream classes completed standardised tests in numeracy, literacy and spelling in late May and early June. The senior classes also completed a standardised test in Gaeilge this year. The results of the tests were added in to the report cards, which will be released to parents on Aladdin next week.
PLC
We had in-service days on Friday 31st March and Friday 2nd June. In terms of the PLC the staff engaged in the following 3 areas: Teaching of Gaeilge in English medium schools, disciplinary literacy and the transfer of skills. We also looked at the framework for the proposed new curriculum. A new Maths curriculum is being introduced from this coming September.
Library Visits
Unfortunately, the library in Cappoquin closed for renovations recently so classes will have to wait until September to resume their visits.
Literacy & Maths Stations Thanks to Christine Coffey for all her help with the Junior Infants Literacy stations.
Music
As part of the Opera Festival activities Music Generation came in and did 4 music lessons with our 3rd class pupils in May. This was then followed by a 3rd class Discover Opera class visit to Lismore Castle Gardens with Blackwater Valley Opera & Music Generation Waterford on Thursday June 1st from 09:30 – 11:15
Opera
Some students from 4th, 5th and 6th classes along with Mrs Veale, Ms Barry, Ms Waide and Ms Houlihan attended the Lismore Opera on Monday evening 29th May. It was a late night for all involved but the feedback I received on it was positive overall.
Food Dudes
The Health Eating Initiative Food Dudes returned to the school for a week from Monday 29th May to Thursday 1st June. To be honest it wasn’t the best time of year for it and it wasn’t as well organised as previous years.
Summer Provision
Summer Provision will run in the school from Monday 26th June until Friday 21st July.
Ethos
First Holy Communion and Confirmation
First Holy Communion took place on Saturday 6th May. Fr Keogh celebrated the Mass. Well done to all the boys and girls in second class who made their First Communion. Thanks to Mrs Curran for preparing them so well and thanks to Mr Casey for all his help. The Parents Association organised teas/coffees and refreshments for the Communion families in the hall afterwards.
In preparation for Confirmation the 6th Class pupils had a retreat with the Holy Family Mission on Friday 19th May. The feedback from the class afterwards was very positive about the day. Two Confirmation ceremonies took place on Wednesday 31st May and Bishop Cullinan confirmed the boys and girls in 6th Class. The first ceremony was at 10 a.m. for three children and the second ceremony took place at 11 a.m. Again thank you very much to Mrs Veale for all her work in preparing the class. Thank you very much to Bishop Cullinan and to Fr Keogh, especially for accommodating our request for two ceremonies.
Fr Arthure
Fr Arthure’s Anniversary Mass took place on Thursday 27th April. Some of the classes attended from the school.
There will be Graduation Mass for 6th Class on Friday week, 16th June in the school and an end of year school Mass for infants to 5th Class on Wednesday 21st June with Fr Keogh.
School Tours
The 1st & 2nd class school tour to Leahy’s Open Farm was on Wednesday 7th June and the two infant classes are going on their tour to Ardmore Farm tomorrow. Le Chéile will have their school tour to Suir Valley next week while the remaining classes will have theirs during the last week of the school year. There are 2 classes left to go on their tours.
( 5th Class are going to Zipit in Cork and 6th Class are going to Dunmore East.)
Sport
Hurling
All the classes had hurling every week during the term. Thanks to our five coaches from Cappoquin/Affane GAA Club, James Lacey, Conor Prendergast, Fintan Murray, Patrick Morrissey (Snoopy) and Stephen Organ. Thanks also to Tricia McCarthy and Lauren Reddy from Cappoquin Camogie Club as they who also helped out when we were short a coach.
Cuman Na mBunscol
In the hurling, the mini 7s were played in Tallow and Cappoquin participated in the boys and girls competitions. It was ran off as a group this year and this was a much better format than straight knock out.
Then in the 15 a side the boys lost out to Lismore, Scoil Na Leanai and Ballymacarbry in the group. The best performance was against Ballymacarbry. A few weeks later the boys enjoyed a good victory over Garranbane in the shield semi-final. The final was played in Abbeyside on Thursday 25th May and there was great support for the team there. The boys lost out to Ballymacarbry in the final after a good performance especially in the first half. The girls camogie team qualified for the Roinn A proper semi-final and lost after a good performance to Scoil Garbhan. Congratulations to our 6th Class pupil, Hollie Cahill who played with Waterford Primary Games team in camogie at half-time of the Waterford v Cork Munster SHC game.
3rd Class students recently took part in 2 blitzes organised by Déise Og, one gaelic football and one hurling blitz. The Gaelic Football blitz took place in Ardmore, while the hurling blitz took place in Dungarvan.
There was a 2nd Class camogie blitz in Lismore on Monday 29th May. Thanks to Tricia McCarthy for helping Mrs Curran and Lauren Reddy on the day.
Soccer
Brideview United in Tallow organised a very enjoyable soccer blitz for 5th and 6th class boys and girls. A number of schools from West Waterford and East Cork participated. We entered two teams and both teams got on well reaching the semi-final stages and both teams were a bit unlucky not to reach the final. They ended up playing each other in the 3rd/4th placed match.
Bike Week
Bike week took place in May and Leonie O’ Brien borrowed balance bikes for the infant classes in the school and they were a great hit.
Swimming
4th Class, 6th Class and Le Chéile 1 and Le Chéile 2 completed a five week block of swimming lessons in the Aura Leisure Centre Youghal during March and for one week after Easter in April.
Athletics
Today, Tuesday 8th June we had an athletics day in the school. The children really enjoyed the day. Thanks to Ms Lyons and her Active School’s Committee for organising the day.
Sports Day and Active Schools Week
Active Schools Week and Sports Day (Wednesday 14th June) will take place next week. Thanks to Ms Lyons and the Active Schools Committee for organising Active Schools Week.
A huge thank you to the Parents Association of the school who are covering the following costs during Sports Day and Active Schools Week, two bouncy castles, ice-cream van visit and zumba.
Thanks again to our local soccer club Cappoquin Railway Football Club for making their facilities available to us throughout the year.
For active schools we were also focusing on the fundamental skill of skipping and hopping during June.
Visits to the School
Garda John O’Dwyer visited the school on Friday 26th May. He spoke to junior classes in the hall first and then spoke to the senior classes afterwards. John spoke about the many different aspects to the role of being a garda. The children asked many interesting questions during the two talks.
Child Protection Oversight Report.
Child Protection Oversight Report was presented.
Health & Safety Report
The report was presented.
New Text Book Scheme
.
Amber Flag
Retirement
Mary Flynn retiring. She began in 2007. Martin complemented Mary on her great work over the years. On Tuesday June 13th we will celebrate Mary’s retirement.
Work around the perimeter of the field
The Board gave approval to go ahead with it.
Finance
The Treasurer presented a current financial update. ICT grant not coming in the 2022/2023 school year.
I.S.M. Report
End of Year reports from members of the ISM (In School Management) were read out by the Principal.
AP2– Post Advertised this week and interview to be held in August 2023.
I.T. – Digital Learning
Kevin organised the following
The ipads we bought need to be used in the most effective way to assist teaching & learning. The Board offered to pay for any ICT course.
The Draft needs to be returned with any suggestion before end of this school year.
Votes of sympathy:
Family of Josephine Fennessy on her passing. .
Deirdre Buckley- on the passing of hermother in law – Mary Buckley.
Sympathies to any of our school community that lost any family members during the school year.
This concluded the meeting.
A Board meeting took place in the school on Wednesday 15th March at 7:30pm
The meeting was opened by Chairperson Kevin McCarthy.
Minutes of the previous meeting were proposed and seconded.
Correspondence
No correspondence.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included the details of enrolment, staffing, curriculum, The Summer Provision Programme, ethos, extracurricular and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
Principal’s Report
February and March
Enrolment
Since our last meeting a family with three children in the school left the school as they moved to Waterford city, they also had a child due to start Junior Infants in September. However, two other children have since enrolled (which would mean we now have 192 children currently attending the school. We have 24 enrolment forms returned in to the office for the incoming Junior Infants for the 2023-2024 school year. We have two definite enrolments for Le Chéile for next year.
The staffing schedule for the 2023-2024 school year came out at the end of January. As expected our enrolment number of 193 last September is fine to retain the 8 mainstream class teachers last, the retention number dropped from 194 to 189.
Staffing
Teaching Practice
Work Placement
Curriculum
Gaeilge Subject Inspection
The final Gaeilge curriculum evaluation report was sent to the school in February. A staff meeting was held on Tuesday 28th February to review the report and look at implementing the recommendations from the report into our teaching and learning of Gaeilge.
Seachtain Na Gaeilge
Seachtain Na Gaeilge is currently running in the school, we started it on Monday 6th March and the staff and students are making a great effort to promote Gaeilge and Irish culture over these past couple of weeks. Thanks to Máire Kearney for organising Seachtain Na Gaeilge and thanks to Mary Casey for teaching Irish dancing to all classes. Paired comhrá between different classes took place on a number of occasions in March. We had a Lá Glas, a ceilí and an Irish assembly today. 3rd to 6th classes will also have a tráth na gcéist tomorrow afternoon.
PLC – Primary Language Curriculum
During this school year the Department of Education have instructed schools that we are to use 3 half days to working on the primary language curriculum as a whole staff. To try to be as least disruptive to parents as possible, Cappoquin will have a half day in-service on the PLC for the staff on Friday 31st March meaning there will be no school for children on this date and Easter holidays will begin for the children on Thursday evening 30th March. Then we will combine two half days to have a full day staff in-service on Friday 28th April/2nd May.
Literacy & Maths Stations Literacy and Maths Stations continue to take place across a number of different classes in the school with SET teachers going in to support classroom teachers for these. Thanks to Christine Coffey who is currently coming in once a week to assist 4th Class stations. Christine is going to come in 4 days a week after Easter to help Junior Infants with Literacy Lift Off.
Library Visits
A number of classes also had recent visits to the library in Cappoquin.
World Book Day
World Book Day took place on Friday 3rd of March and a large number of the children dressed up as their favourite book characters and brought in their favourite books.
Music
Our school choir (comprising of children from 4th to 6th class) performed at Peace Proms in SETU arena Waterford on Saturday night March 4th. It was a brilliant night of performance and the Cappoquin choir were excellent. The choir members seemed to really enjoy the night. A huge thanks Mrs Veale for all her preparation of the choir and thanks to Ms Barry and Ms Houlihan for helping with the rehearsals. Thanks to all three teachers for giving up their Saturday evening to go the Peace Proms with the choir.
SESE (Social Enviromental & Scientific Education)
Credit Union Quiz
Well done to our two school teams who entered into the Credit Union quiz which took place in Dungarvan on Monday 30th January. Both teams performed well with the under 13 team coming 2nd on the night, only 1 pt behind the first placed team.
Safer Internet Day
Safer Internet Day was on Tuesday 7th February and the teachers did a number of online safety lessons around this time.
SPHE
The 6th Class pupils had an RSE talk with Susan Abrook on Wednesday 8th February.
DEIS- Hot Lunches
The hot lunches started on Monday 30th January. All seems to be going well with them. Sharleen Kerrigan was hired by Fresh Today as the food operative.
Ethos
St Brigid’s Day
Junior Infants to second class pupils and their teachers attended Mass on St. Brigid’s Day Wednesday 1st February, while 3rd to 6th Class pupils attended Mass on Friday 3rd February for the feast of St Blaise. All classes attended Mass on Ash Wednesday, 22nd February. Thanks to Mr Casey for liaising with Fr Keogh and organising the different jobs for the Masses.
Confirmation will take place in Cappoquin on Wednesday 31st May. In preparation the 6th Class had an enrolment ceremony in the church with Fr Keogh on Wednesday morning 8th March.
First Holy Communion will take place on Saturday 6th May. First Confession
Our First Confession tbc. There will be an enrolment ceremony for 2nd Class on Thursday morning 16th March at 10a.m.
Sport
Gaelic Games
Thanks to Cappoquin/Affane GAA Club for providing coaching in the school. CP, Snoopy and Stephen Organ are coaching hurling since mid-term and will continue on every Thursday up until Easter.
Cuman Na mBunscol
We participated in the hurling and camogie mini 7s in Tallow on Tuesday March 7th. They changed the format to a blitz this year and it worked well. Both teams played four matches against Ballyduff Upper, Knockanore, Lismore and Tallow. Our boys team won 1 game, drew 1 and lost 2. Our girls team won 2 and lost 2.
3rd and 4th Class Hurling and Camogie Blitz
Some of our 3rd and 4th class pupils participated in a hurling and camogie blitz in Lismore on Friday 10th February. CP helped Ms Lyons with the boys team and Patricia McCarthy helped Ms Barry with the girls team. The 15 a side competitions for our senior classes will start up soon.
Soccer and FAI 5 a side
The FAI primary schools 5 a side took place in Cappoquin on Wednesday 1st of March. We entered 2 boys teams and 2 girls teams. All 4 teams acquitted themselves well.
Again thank you to the soccer club for continued access to the astro pitch.
Athletics
Mark Ferguson from Finisk Valley AC finished up coaching athletics at the start of February. Thanks very much to Mark for giving up his free time and volunteering to coach the children.
Badminton
On Friday 10th February 2 boys teams and 1 girls team participated in the schools Munster Badminton Competition in UL Sports Arena on Friday 10th February. Our boys A team reached the Munster Final and lost to Ennis NS. Our 2nd boys team won 2 and lost 2 in their group. Our girls team were narrowly defeated in a playoff at the quarter-final stage. The girls had won all their group games. The boys A team and girls team qualified for the All Ireland series which took place on Wednesday1st of March in Dublin. The girls again reached the quarter-final stage and the boys reached the semi-finals. It was a great achievement, well done to all the players and their club mentors. Thanks to Bridget Murray and Blackwater Badminton Club who organise everything on behalf of the school for the badminton competitions. Thanks to Bridget and to Darragh Wilkinson for attending both the Munster and All Ireland competitions.
Swimming
4th Class, 6th Class and Le Chéile 1 and Le Chéile 2 have started a block of 5 weeks swimming lessons in the Aura Leisure Centre Youghal during March and for one week after Easter in April.
The Parents Association/Council ran a very enjoyable and successful quiz on Friday 3rd March. Thanks to the Parents Association for organising the quiz and thanks to Kevin McCarthy for being the quizmaster.
Cake Sale Fundraiser- Following the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, 6th Class and Mrs Veale organised a cake sale fundraiser in the school. The Cake Sale in aid of the Earthquake Victims in Turkey and Syria raised an amazing €987.07. Thanks so much to all of the families for supporting it and thanks to Mrs Veale and 6th Class for organising it. The money is going to GOAL’s work with the Earthquake victims.
Child Protection Oversight Report.
Child Protection Oversight Report was presented.
Health & Safety Report
The report was presented.
Gaeilge Curriculum Evaluation
Recommendations from DES will be implemented.
School Uniform/Tracksuit
Martin is to go back to parents and feels that all parents need to be surveyed. A committee of five to six to be created making up of three parents and two staff. They will be looking at all options – tracksuit for PE, tracksuit for school or school tracksuit and uniform. Tracey Brown Garvey felt it is very important to look at wear ability of tracksuit.
Financial Report
Helen Looby presented the 2021/2022 accounts. Accounts signed off.
IT Digital learning – Plans & Policies – Start of Digital Plan
Kevin surveyed parents and staff
Information gathering
Trying to link everything now we are a DEIS school. We have a good broadband network.
We will follow the DEIS six step process.
Surveys given out after St Patrick’s Day. Each family to be given a fortnight to complete survey. Answers to be given back on an online format.
A.O.B.
Bookfair:- Tracey Brown Garvey said the code for the school needs to be put in as you are buying books.
Votes of Sympathy
Family of Eddie Fraher- on the passing of Eddie.
Máire Kearney – on the passing of her Uncle,
Next meeting will take place after Easter in May/June.
This concluded the meeting.
A Board meeting took place in the school on Thursday 26th January at 7:30pm
The meeting was opened by Chairperson Kevin McCarthy. The opening prayer was led by Fr Keogh.
Minutes of the previous meeting were proposed and seconded.
Correspondence
Letters of correspondence were read and discussed.
Included in the correspondence was a Christmas Card from Mt Melleray Abbey and a €200 donation.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included the details of enrolment, staffing, curriculum, The Summer Provision Programme, ethos, extracurricular and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
Principal’s Report
November, December & January
After the mid-term break we returned to school on Monday 7th November. We had a busy run in to the Christmas and then Christmas holidays began on Wednesday 21st December. We returned to school after Christmas on Thursday 5th January.
Enrolment
Enrolment number of 193 for 2022/2023 school year remains unchanged since last meeting.
Staffing
Congratulations to Aisling Fennell on the birth of her baby boy this week and congratulations to Susan Amy Scanlon on the birth of twin baby girls, Evie & Grace, towards the end of October.
Work Placement
Curriculum
Gaeilge Subject Inspection
A Gaeilge curriculum evaluation was carried in the school on Tuesday 6th and Wednesday 7th December. Two inspectors from the Department of Education undertook the evaluation while a 3rd inspector shadowed them. On Tuesday 6th December the inspectors met with the Principal first and carried out checks in relation to the school’s child protection and anti-bullying procedures. The inspectors then visited each of the eight mainstream classes that day. On Wednesday 7th December the inspectors met with 11 students ranging from 3rd to 6th class as a sample group to ascertain their views and thoughts on Gaeilge. Following this each mainstream teacher was then given oral feedback on the visit to their classroom individually. Finally, the inspectors met with Ms Kearney (as the GAEILGE post holder) and Mr Delaney to provide oral feedback on the visit. The inspectors praised the good work and the good practices that are happening in the school and then they made recommendations on how we can improve the teaching and learning of Gaeilge in the school. An official written report will be sent to the school soon.
We will aim to incorporate the recommendations for Gaeilge in the school.
PLC – Primary Language Curriculum
Literacy & Maths Stations Literacy and Maths Stations are taking place across a number of different classes in the school with SET teachers going in to support classroom teachers for these.
Paired Reading
Some of the classes have started up paired reading last week and all classes will participate in the coming weeks. 6th Class are paired with 2nd Class, 5th Class are paired with 1st Class, 4th Class are paired with Senior Infants and 3rd Class are paired with Junior Infants.
Library Visits
First, third and fifth classes also had recent visits to the library in Cappoquin.
World Book Day
World Book Day will take place on Thursday 2nd March and we will plan some activities in the school for that day.
Music
Mrs Veale continues to prepare the choir (comprising of children from 4th to 6th class) for the Peace Proms, which takes place in WIT on March 4th. Thanks to Ms Barry and Ms Houlihan who are also helping Mrs Veale with choir.
The choir also performed at Santa at the Strand in Lismore on the evening of Thursday 1st
December. Junior and Senior Infant classes combined to perform their Nativity play on Friday 16th December in the school hall. There was a lovely atmosphere that morning and it was great to have parents back in the school for something like this. I thought the parents really enjoyed it and thanks to Ms O’ Brien and Ms Roche for preparing the children for the performance. Then on Monday 19th December 1st to 6th class children sang Christmas carols in the church. The singing sounded so nice in the church and again thanks to all the class teachers for preparing their classes.
SESE (Social Enviromental & Scientific Education)
Seachtain na hEolaíochta
Science Week Ireland took place from 13th to 20th November. There pupils and teachers were very active carrying out science experiments and investigations during the week. The school also purchased STEM boxes from Lismore Heritage Centre for the class teachers to use.
Art – Credit Union
The children participated in the Credit Union Art competition.
Credit Union Quiz
The school have 2 teams entered into the Credit Union quiz which takes place in Dungarvan next Monday. There is an under 11 and an under 13 team.
Safer Internet Day
Safer Internet Day will be on Tuesday 7th February.
Parent Teacher Meetings
Parent Teacher meetings took place in the school on Tuesday 22nd November and Wednesday 23rd November.
Ethos
Thanks to Mary Flynn, Mary Casey and James Casey for putting up the crib and the Advent Wreaths as well as the Christmas tree and other decorations in preparation for Christmas.
1st to 6th Class children attended Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th. Then all classes attended Mass on Friday 6th January for the Feast of the Epiphany.
Catholic Schools Week is on this week, running from Sunday 22nd to Sunday 29th January. Yesterday, Wednesday 25th January, was Grandparents Day. Our sacramental classes of 2nd and 6th attended Mass at 10 am and there were a good number of grandparents. As is tradition the school also invited in the grandparents of the 5th Class children to come to visit their grandchildren at school. We had a great turnout of grandparents. Firstly, the grandparents went to Ms Houlihan’s classroom where the children presented projects in groups that they had prepared on the ipads. There was then a question and answer session where the grandparents and a short discussion comparing life in school years ago and today. Afterwards all the grandparents and the children went down to hall for some refreshments. Thanks to all the grandparents for coming in, thanks to Mary Flynn with help from Eilish Fenton for preparing the hall and serving the teas/coffees. A big thank you also to Ms Houlihan for all her work in preparing the class and for guiding the children on their projects.
St Brigid’s Day
St. Brigid’s is next Wednesday 1st February.
Confirmation will take place in Cappoquin on Wednesday 31st May.
First Confession
Our First Confession tbc
First Holy Communion will take place on Saturday 6th May
Sport
Gaelic Games
A huge thank you to Cappoquin Camogie Club who for donating a vast amount of equipment to the school on 24th November. The equipment included indoor hurleys, sliotars, cones, hula hoops, soft balls, reaction balls etc. While mentioning the camogie club congratulations to Lorraine Bray on winning an All Star for 2022, Lorraine was also a nominee for player of the year.
Thanks to Cappoquin/Affane GAA Club for helping with coaching in the school. Gavin Whelan came to the school on a few occasions during the first term. From mid-February two coaches from Cappoquin/Affane will come in once a week for 5 to 6 weeks. They will then provide more help after Easter.
Cuman Na mBunscol
Our Cuman na mBunscol Gaelic Football Roinn A gaelic football finals were originally postponed in late October and they then took place in Balinameela on a bitterly cold Saturday morning 19th November. The boys’ final took place first and Cappoquin defeated Garranbane, Cappoquin led for the majority of the match and put in a very good display. The boys really felt the cold. It was very slightly warmer for the girls final and after a titanic tussle Cappoquin emerged victorious over Ballymacarbry. This was a very close game and Ballymacarbry were in the lead close to the end but the Cappoquin girls showed incredible determination and spirit throughout the game and deservedly got a winning goal near the end of the game. This was a great achievement by our girls team.
We also participated in the mini 7s in Lismore on November 8th. Our boys team were knocked by Ballyduff Upper. Our girls team defeated Ballyduff Upper and were very unlucky to lose to Lismore in the final game that day.
The hurling na mBunscol hurling competitions will start up in March.
Soccer and Futsal
Futsal in the Yard in Cappoquin Primary School
FAI coach Gary Power came to the school on Wednesday 23rd November and coached the Futsal programme to our 3rd and 4th class children. We have also entered teams in the FAI primary schools 5 a side which will take place in the spring.
Again thank you to the soccer club for continued access to the astro pitch.
Athletics
Mark Ferguson from Finisk Valley AC is coaching athletics to the children every Monday on a voluntary basis. Thanks very much to Mark for this.
Tennis Shelley Mernin from Dungarvan Tennis Club is coaching tennis on a weekly basis to all classes for six weeks every Tuesday.
Swimming
4th Class, 6th Class and Le Chéile 1 and Le Chéile 2 will have a block of 5 weeks swimming lessons in the Aura Leisure Centre Youghal during March and for one week after Easter in April. 4th and 6th class pupils will go on Tuesdays starting on March 7th , while Le Chéile classes will go on Thursdays starting on March 9th. Unfortunately the cost of hiring buses is extremely high these days.
Active Schools
For active schools we are focusing on the fundamental skill of side stepping during January.
The Parents Association/Council organised the rota for Kellehers Christmas raffle. Thanks also to Tom Kelleher and Supervalu for sponsoring the €500 shopping voucher and congratulations to the winner Ellen Corrigan from Modeligo who bought the winning ticket for her son Ollie Barron. It was a very successful fundraiser and €3500 was raised. A lot of time was given by a number of people to sell the tickets in Kellehers. Thanks to all who supported it.
The Parents Association also showed great initiative in organising 2 discos on Saturday 10th December. The afternoon disco was for younger children and Santa visited them as well. Then in the evening there was a disco for 5th and 6th class children. Both events were extremely well organised and the feedback from our 5th and 6th class boys and girls who attended was very positive. The Parents Association would have liked more attendees especially for the second disco so that it could have been a more profitable event. Even though there wasn’t much money made on the discos I thought it was great to see something different tried and the children who did go enjoyed it.
Fire brigade Fundraiser
Unfortunately, due to bad weather and dangerous road conditions Cappoquin Fire brigade had to cancel their annual fundraiser in December.
Health & Safety Report
The report was presented.
I.T
I.T Consultant came and updated the ubiquity system (means of spreading wifi around the school) and it is working very well.
Finance
2021/2022 accounts are with the accountant. Current Financial report was presented by the Treasurer.
Plans & Policies
Admissions Policy updated. We were directed by the Department to make the changes.
Votes of Sympathy
Jamie Corcoran – on the passing of his aunt, Mary Dunbar.
Cathy Halley – on the passing of her Grandmother.
James Casey – Wife’s cousin
Janice Barry –– on the passing of her Mother-in-law, Phil Barry.
This concluded the meeting.
A Board meeting took place in the school on Tuesday 25th October at 7:30pm
The meeting was opened by Chairperson Kevin McCarthy where he welcomed Fr Keogh to the BoM. The opening prayer was led by Fr Keogh.
Minutes of the previous meeting were proposed and seconded.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included the details of enrolment, staffing, curriculum, The Summer Provision Programme, ethos, extracurricular and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
Principal’s Report
All the children returned to school on Tuesday 30th August.
Enrolment
We have an enrolment of 193 pupils for the 2022/23 school year. There are eighteen new pupils in Junior Infants. We also have one new pupil in First Class, two new pupils in 3rd Class, one new pupil in 4th Class, one new pupil in 5th Class, one new pupil in 6th Class and one new pupil in Le Chéile 2.
Staffing
Ms Hannah Houlihan is back in the school currently covering a maternity leave in 5th Class and welcome to Ms Lisa Barry who is currently teaching 4th Class and she us covering the maternity leave there too.
Principal |
Martin Delaney |
Deputy Principal |
James Casey |
Special Education Teachers
|
James Casey Máire Kearney Aisling Fennell |
Le Chéile Class 1 Le Chéile Class 2
|
Caoimhe Ní Chuirrín Jenny Kiely |
Junior Infants |
Leonie O’Brien |
Senior Infants |
Laura Roche |
1st Class |
Caroline Price |
2nd Class |
Eilish Curran |
3rd Class |
Louise Lyons |
4th Class
|
Susan Amy Scanlan (Ms Lisa Barry) |
5th Class |
Breda Feeney (Ms Hannah Houlihan) |
6th Class |
Mairéad Veale |
Special Needs Assistants |
Olivia O’Daly, Deirdre Cahill, Therese Walsh, Mary O’Brien, Deirdre Buckley, Cathy Halley, John Twomey, Aileen Buckley and Jamie Corcoran. |
Bus Escorts |
5 |
School Secretary |
Mary Casey |
School Maintenance |
Mary Flynn, Lois Crotty & Janice Barry |
Maintenance
Mary Flynn painted two classrooms during the summer months.
Ethos
We wish Fr Gear and Fr Denmead well as they move on to new parishes. A very warm welcome to our new Parish Priest, Fr Keogh.
On Friday 14th October Fr Keogh celebrated an Opening Year Mass with the whole school Thanks to Mr Casey and Fr Keogh for organising the Mass and thanks to all the boys and girls who read or carried gifts for it.
Curriculum
DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) School Plan On Friday 30th September Mr Delaney attended a DEIS training day for Principals run by the PDST in Kilkenny Education Centre. It was very informative and there is a lot of work for a DEIS School Plan. The DEIS plan will incorporate our SSE (School Self Evaluation) and SIP (School Improvement Plan.) There are six themes DEIS THEMES: DEIS themes are curricular areas or aspects of school life which are set down by the Department as being critical for improving educational outcomes in schools.
Literacy Lift Off
Literacy Lift Off is taking place in First Class on a daily basis for a six-week period. Literacy Lift Off is an intervention that gives children lots of opportunities to read books at their own level of competency and gradually lift the complexity of what they can do in both reading and writing. During Literacy Lift Off we increase the number of adults in the classroom to work with the children in smaller groups especially in relation to reading.
Station Teaching
A number of classes are currently using station teaching in Literacy or Numeracy when the SET teacher is timetabled to work with their class.
Summer Stars
Well done to the pupils from Bunscoil Gleann who participated in the Summer Stars reading programme in Cappoquin and Dungarvan Libraries. Sheilia Curtin is sending in the certificates to the school tomorrow and we will present the children with their medals and certificates at Assembly on Friday before the mid-term break.
Library Visit
On Wednesday 12th October First Class had a very enjoyable visit to the ‘Trunk of Tricks’ show in the Cappoquin library. During this school year we intend that each class will have a month visiting the library regularly.
First Class also planted holly trees for National Tree Day.
Third Class are participating in the Picker Pals initiative.
Maths
Maths Week Ireland took place from 15th to 23rd October. Bricks 4 Kidz came into the school on Tuesday 18th October and on Friday 21st October where every class had an hour lego lesson with them on one of the days. The majority of children seemed to really enjoy it. Thanks to Mrs Curran for organising Bricks 4 Kidz. Other extra mathematical based activities took place in many of the classrooms and there were Maths trails around the school as well during Maths week. A number of classes also used Maths apps on the ipads.
Music
Peace Proms
Our school choir is up and running this year and is made up of pupils from 4th, 5th and 6th classes. Thanks to Mrs Veale for setting up and looking after the school choir and thanks to Ms Barry and Ms Houlihan for assisting Mrs Veale. The choir will have a rehearsal in WIT arena on Wednesday 16th November and then the date for the show itself is Saturday 4th March 2023.
The Choir will also perform at Santa At the Strand in Lismore on Thursday evening 1st December at 6.30 p.m.
Carol Service
First to Sixth classes hope to have a carol service in the church on Wednesday evening 14th December and the infant classes will have a Nativity performance in the school on Friday morning 16th December.
SESE (Social Enviromental & Scientific Education)
Science Week Ireland is from 13th to 20th November. There will be plenty of science activities during the week and we will be encouraging the children to carry out their own investigations and experiments as well.
PE, Sport and Extracurricular
GAA
During a number of Thursdays during September and October we’ve had Gaelic Football and fundamental movement coaching with Gavin Whelan assisted by Stephen Organ (who is on placement on Thursdays as part of his third level course.)
Congratulations to Violet Dineen and Alyssa Ferguson on winning the Division 3 under 12 Ladies Football Championship with St Olivers and likewise congratulations to Bonnie Mclaughlin on winning the Division 5 under 12 Ladies Football Championship with Shamrocks in September.
Cuman Na mBunscol
The Cuman na mBunscol Primary games gaelic football competitions started back in September. Our boys’ team were in a group with Ballymacarbry and Lismore schools. While our girls’ team were in a group with Ballymacarbry, Lismore and Scoil Na Leanai. Despite some very good performances by both the boys and girls we lost our matches against those schools in our blitz held in Cappoquin on Tuesday 27th September. We were then in the Roinn A Shield section. The boys team defeated St Joseph’s National School Dungarvan in the shield semi-final and qualified for the shield final against Garranbane NS. The girls defeated Garranbane National School in the Shield semi-final and are through to play Ballymacarbry again in the Shield Final. Both finals were originally due to be played in Dungarvan on Saturday last, 22nd October, however both games are now postponed until after mid-term.
Cycle Right
5th Class participated in the Cycle Cycle Right program with Donal Jacob and Ollie every Thursday morning for four weeks.
Athletics
A number of our students are members of Finisk Valley Athletic Club based in Ballinameela and indeed some of these students have performed really well recently in county and provincial competitions. There were numerous open days etc where medals were won but the main one was the Munster B’s in Templemore.
At the Munster B’s in Templemore in July
U10 Boys 500m – Gold– Daithí Ferguson
U11 Girls Long Jump – Bronze- Chloe Landers
U11 Girls Sprint- Bronze- Lily Quann
U11 Girls Turbo Javelin- Bronze- Lily Quann
U12 Girls Shot put- Gold- Alyssa Ferguson
Jake and Rory Quann also competed and excelled with personal bests in the U9 long jump and turbo javelin.
Active Schools
Fundamental movement skills for October is running for the Junior Infants and striking with the hand or dribbling for Senior Infants to 6th Class.
PE EQUPMENT
Thanks to Louise Lyons who is ordering some extra PE equipment for the school
DEIS FOOD
School Lunches – Fresh Today have been delivering cold lunches to the school during the first term and overall the feedback from families seems positive. It was hoped that we would be moving to hot lunches at the start of November, however this has been delayed and it will probably be December at the earliest before we have the hot lunches. Parents login to the Fresh Today website and order the lunch for the week.
IT
Wifi speed- broadband –hasn’t been great at on numerous occasions during the first term. Mr Delaney was given a date of the week of 17th October as the date when the upgrades carried out last spring by Viatel would kick in. Viatel are still waiting on the NBI to sign off on all the paper work between themselves and the NBI & PDST. We should have download speeds of 100 mbs coming into the office when it does kick in. An IT consultant has also being hired for a few days work to improve and upgrade the ubiquiti system in the school (this is what is used to spread the wifi throughout the school building.) This IT Consultant is due back in over the mid-term to install new ubiquiti devices and to provide us with the capacity to have more IP addresses to cater for a greater need for them now with the new IPADs.
In October 68 new Ipads along with 68 protective cases and 35 keyboards arrived in the school. We ordered the devices through Wriggle Connect, a company which was recommended for buying ipads for schools. Wriggle Connect also provide online training for the teachers as part of the package and they pre-installed a number of educational apps. The cost of all the order from Wriggle was almost €35,000. This money is the combined budget we had/have from ICT grants and the Parents Association fundraising during the spring and early summer. Thanks so much to the Parents Association for the fundraising. Thank you to everyone who supported either the idonate fundraiser or donated through the letter to businesses. A special mention of gratitude to Billy Garvey, Chairperson of the PA, who spearheaded the whole fundraising project and to Mags Ormonde for setting up the Idonate page. A number of other parents also volunteered their time selling tickets and a huge thank you to all of those parents too.
We had a delivery of headphones for the pupils today.
Thanks to Ms Hannah Houlihan for looking after the school’s Facebook pages and thanks to Maireád Veale for looking after the school twitter account.
The Parents Association intend to hold a meeting the first week back after the mid-term. Chairperson of the PA, Billy Garvey is going to link in with Tom Kelleher in relation to the traditional Christmas Raffle.
Blackwater Community School had an Open Night for 6th Class pupils and their families last night, Monday 24th October.
Photographs
Billy Whyte took school photographs of the Junior Infants and their siblings recently.
Thanks to Mary McGrath for taking also took photos of the Junior Infants at the start of the school year.
Halloween Dress Up will take place in the school this Friday 28th of October.
Summer School Programme: 11 pupils participated. Very positive feedback
Health and Safety
Finance
Financial Report was presented by Treasurer
Policies
Critical Incident Policy updated.
Updated Risk Assessments Anti Bullying Policy: Policy was reviewed and was ratified.
Votes of sympathy Votes of sympathy were passed to the families of John Cahill, Joan O’ Brien, Patrick Kearney, James Buckley, Amanda Condon, Charlie Barry, Bernadette Fives and to all those in the school community who lost loved ones over recent months.
Agreed Report Board of Management Meeting – 15th June 2022
A Board meeting took place in the school on Wednesday 15th June at 7:30pm
The meeting was opened by Chairperson Kevin McCarthy.
Minutes of the previous meeting were proposed and seconded.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included the details of enrolment, staffing, curriculum, The Summer Provision Programme, ethos, extracurricular and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
Return to School for Term 3
We finished up for the second term on Friday 8th April and the children and staff returned to school following the Easter break on Monday 25thApril. We had a very busy but enjoyable third term in Bunscoil Gleann Sidheáin. All the children and teachers worked hard throughout much of the term. It wasn’t all work especially as we reached the end of May and headed into June.
Enrolment
Our current enrolment on Aladdin is 199 pupils. Our Open Day for the incoming Junior Infants took place today, Wednesday 15th June. We received 20 enrolment forms for Junior Infants. This is a smaller number than normal and could possibly put the school under pressure to retain 8 mainstream classes for the 2023-2024 school year.
Staffing
Curriculum
Standardised Testing
Almost every child in the mainstream classes completed standardised tests in numeracy, literacy and spelling in late May and early June. The results of the tests were added in to the report cards, which were released to parents on Aladdin yesterday, Tuesday 14th June.
Stay Safe
All teachers were requested to ensure that the Stay Safe programme was taught to all our classes as part of the SPHE curriculum and as part of our Child Protection policy.
CLASS Hours
We employed two teachers for a combined total of 16 hours per week for just over 10 weeks during March, April and May under the Department of Education’s CLASS (Covid Learning And Support Scheme) scheme. This scheme was put in place to help school mitigate the adverse impacts of Covid-19 on pupil/student learning loss and wellbeing arising from the periods of school closures in 2020 and 2021. These teachers worked with children who had missed significant time in school due to being in isolation because of Covid. For example, some children have missed complete topics in Maths and usually, one or two sessions with a teacher helped them catch them up on what they missed. The teachers in SET and the class teachers identified children who could do with that bit of extra support to help them catch up. Thanks to Tracy Hogan and Elaine Smith who were the two teachers and there was very positive feedback from a number of parents about CLASS hours.
World Book Day
World Book Day took place in the school on Thursday 3rd March where many of our students came in with one of their favourite books and dressed up as a character from that book.
Food Dudes
The Health Eating Initiative Food Dudes returned to the school for a week from Monday 28th February to Friday 4th March. Thanks to Ms Kearney for overseeing the program on behalf of the school.
Seachtain Na Gaeilge
S NA G agus Lá Glas- Seachtain Na Gaeilge took place for the first 2 weeks of March up to Wednesday 16th.
World Autism Day
World Autism Day was Saturday 2nd April, to mark this day in the school we had a non-uniform day on Thursday 7th April. The children wore brightly coloured clothes to celebrate diversity. There was no collecting of money with all the other fundraising going on.
An Taisce Spring Clean- Some 6th Class students participated in An Taisce Spring Clean on Thursday 7th April. The students did a litter collection on the school grounds and just outside the school as well.
Summer Provision
Our students in Le Chéile have summer provision in the school for the month of July and the first week of August.
Ethos
First Holy Communion and Confirmation
First Holy Communion took place on Sunday 15th May. Fr Denmead celebrated the Mass and we welcomed back Fr Gear who was also in attendance. Well done to all the boys and girls in Second Class who made their First Communion. Thanks to Mrs Curran for preparing them so well and thanks to Mr Casey for all his help. The Parents Association organised teas/coffees and refreshments for the Communion families in the hall afterwards.
In preparation for Confirmation the 6th Class pupils had a retreat with the Holy Family Mission on Friday 20th May. The feedback from the class afterwards was very positive about the day. Confirmation took place on Wednesday 1st June and Bishop Cullinan confirmed the boys and girls in 6th Class. Again thank you very much to Mrs Veale for all her work in preparing the class.
Fr Arthure
Fr Arthure’s Anniversary Mass took place on Wednesday 27th April. 2nd and 5th classes attended from the school.
There will be an end of year school Mass on Monday 20th June with Fr Gear.
School Tours
Thankfully school tours have resumed as normal this year. There are two classes left to go on their tours. 5th Class are going to Zipit in Cork tomorrow and 6th Class are going to Dunmore East on Friday.
Sport – Hurling
All the classes had hurling every week during the term. Thanks to our five coaches, James Lacey, Shane Coughlan, Conor Prendergast, Fintan Murray and Patrick Morrissey, from Cappoquin/Affane GAA Club. Barry Dunne came to the school to coach hurling on Thursday 2nd June and is returning again tomorrow on Thursday 16th June.
Cuman Na mBunscol
The Cuman na mBunscol Primary games gaelic football and hurling competitions resumed this year after a two year break due to Covid. Gaelic Football started in March. Our boys and girls teams were both in a group with Ballymacarbry and Lismore schools. We lost to those schools in our blitz held in Cappoquin. We were then in the Roinn A Shield section. The boys team defeated Garranbane National School in the shield semi-final and then went on to win the shield final after a tough battle with St. Joseph’s in Dungarvan on Saturday 2nd April. The boys were delighted with their win. The girls defeated Abbeyside National School in the Shield semi-final after another great battle played in extremely wet conditions. The girls went on to play Scoil Garbhán in the final in Dungarvan on Saturday 2nd April. The girls put in a great effort but Scoil Garbhán were the better team on the day. The boys and girls also competed in the West Waterford mini7s Gaelic Football competition which took place in Tallow on Tuesday 5th April. The boys were knocked out by Lismore and the girls narrowly lost out to Tallow.
In the hurling, the mini 7s were played in Lismore and Cappoquin lost out to Lismore in the semi-final after a close battle. The boys were knocked out by Ballyduff Upper. Then in the 15 a side the boys lost out to Lismore and Ballymacarbry in the group but had very good victories over St Joseph’s in the shield semi-final and Garranbane in the shield final. The final was played in Abbeyside on Thursday 26th May and there was great support for the team there. The girls camogie team qualified for the Roinn A proper semi-final and lost after extra-time to Scoil Garbhan. This was a terrific battle and it was very disappointing for the girls that they lost. The camogie team were an extremely talented group with a really good mixture of strong 6th and 5th Class players supplemented by a few from 4th Class. The girls should have won the semi-final in normal time and they were talented enough to win it out. It wasn’t to be for them this year. Congratulations to two of our 6th Class girls, Caoimhe Coughlan and Robyn McLaughlin, who played with Waterford Primary Games teams in camogie.
3rd Class students recently took part in 2 blitzes organised by Déise Og, one gaelic football and one hurling blitz. Both blitzes took place in Clashmore. Congratulations to past pupil and current Waterford Camogie captain Lorraine Bray who was named GPA PWC player of the month for May.
Soccer
We organised a very enjoyable soccer blitz for the 4th, 5th and 6th class boys and girls just before Easter. It was played on the astro.
Gymnastics
There were gymnastics classes for all students which started on Friday 11th March with DK Sports. The lessons ran for 4 Fridays – 11th March, 25th March, 1st April and 8th April. Friday 8th April was a half day leading up to the Easter holidays so one of the gymnastics coaches came back on Tuesday 26th April to take the 4 classes who missed out on Friday 8th April.
Swimming
Swimming lessons for 4th Class took place in the Aura Swimming Pool in Youghal for 6 weeks during February and March.
Badminton
Badminton – well done to the eight students from 5th and 6th classes who competed so well in the National Schools Badminton competition in Dublin on March 2nd, one team reached the semi-final stages. Thanks to Blackwater Badminton Club for entering the school and organising everything for the competition.
Rowing
6th Class participated in a rowing programme for 4 weeks during May. This was organised by Cappoquin Rowing Club and Waterford Sports Partnership.
Sports Day and Active Schools Week
Active Schools Week took place from Tuesday 7th June to Friday 10th. Thanks to Ms Lyons and 6th Class pupils for organising the timetable for Active Schools Week. There was a wide range of activities throughout the week and every class had Zumba in the hall and tennis on the astro pitch on Tuesday 7th June. Sports Day took place on Wednesday 8th June, we were lucky with the weather as there were a few showers that morning but it cleared then for the rest of the day. It was a terrific day of activities. There were bouncy castles and everyone was thrilled to hear the sound of the ice-cream van coming into the school. A huge thank you to our local soccer club Cappoquin Railway Football Club for making their facilities so regularly during the year.
Athletics
Yesterday, Tuesday 14th June we had an athletics day in the school. The children really enjoyed the morning.
For active schools we were also focusing on the fundamental skill of hitting and striking a ball/object during June.
Visits to 6th Class
Mrs Veale organised some visitors to come and talk to the 6th Class during the last term. Waterford hurler Iarlaith Daly visited and Irish international soccer player (&past pupil) Jason Molumby also visited. Unfortunately, Lorraine Bray was not in a position to visit due to work. A few months ago Shane Coughlan also visited the class to talk about life in the army.
6th Class Students visited Blackwater Community School on Monday 30th May.
Fundraising
Our big IT fundraiser started in March with using the Idonate platform. The Idonate fundraiser recently finished and a huge thank you to all of the families who supported it. A number of the Parents Association also collected for it outside Kellehers for a few days which really helped to supplement the Idonate Fundraiser. A huge thank you to PA Chairperson Billy Garvey for leading the fundraiser and to Mags Ormond for setting up the idonate page. Thanks also to the parents who gave up their valuable time to collect outside Super Valu. Another side of the IT fundraising was the support from local businesses. A letter was given out to a local companies and businesses requesting for financial support for IT in the school. Billy Garvey and Kevin McCarthy put in a lot of work calling to the businesses and companies and they got a great response. A huge thank you to those businesses who supported us.
IT
Wifi speed- broadband hasn’t been great lately again. A company called Viatel came to the school two days over the past two months to work on the infrastructure to improve our broadband. Viatel were sub contracted to do work in the school on behalf of the NBI and PDST. Thanks to Susan Amy Scanlan and Hannah Houlihan for looking after the school’s Facebook pages and thanks to Maireád Veale for looking after the school twitter account.
Child protection – Principals Oversight Report
This report was presented by the Principal
Health and Safety
Finance
Financial Report was presented by Treasurer
Policies
Child Safe Guarding: It was decided to put the review date on the top of each policy going forward. The New updated Child Safeguarding was ratified
Anti Bullying Policy: Policy was reviewed and was ratified.
Votes of sympathy were expressed to the family of Lena O’ Brien on her passing.
Agreed Report Board of Management Meeting – 10th February 2022
A Board meeting took place in the school on Wednesday 10th February 2022 at 7:30pm
The Chairperson, Kevin McCarthy, opened the meeting.
Minutes of the previous meeting were read, proposed and seconded.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented.
Enrolment
It included details of enrolment three new pupils started in Cappoquin on Monday 17th January. Our current enrolment on Aladdin is 199 pupils. However, our official enrolment with the Department of Education for the 21/22 year is 196 as that is the number we had on September 30th last.
Covid 19 and Attendance
During our first two weeks back at school is January there were often days where we had close to a quarter of our student population absent. Just as our attendance numbers seemed to be returning to normal during the last week of January and early days of February we have had a spike in Covid cases amongst our student population in recent days. In terms of staff, we were down more staff than usual in early January but thankfully we were able to get enough sub cover most of these days to manage.
Curriculum – Literacy Lift Off-Literacy Lift Off is now taking place in Senior Infants on a daily basis for a six-week period. Literacy Lift Off is an intervention that gives children lots of opportunities to read books at their own level of competency and gradually lift the complexity of what they can do in both reading and writing. During Literacy Lift Off we increase the number of adults in the classroom to work with the children in smaller groups especially in relation to reading. Thanks to Mrs Price for organising Literacy Lift Off.
World Book Day
World Book Day will take place on Thursday 3rd March and we will plan some activities in the school for that day.
Music
Mrs Veale is still hoping that Peace Proms can take place this year but we still haven’t brought the choir group comprising of children from 4th 5th and 6th classes together yet due to Covid restrictions.
SESE (Social Enviromental & Scientific Education)
Sixth Class pupils were asked to choose famous buildings from around the world and make a 3-D model of it at home using materials that they would find around the house. The children brought their completed models into school and they were fantastic. The models were displayed in the hall on Friday 4th February and the other classes in the school took turns to go in and view the models.
SPHE: Safer Internet Day
Safer Internet Day was on Tuesday 8th February. Many of the classes in the school did work based on safer use of the internet. A note was sent to parents to encourage them to talk to their children about what they do online.
Food Dudes
Food Dudes will return for a week at the end of February/start of March to encourage children to maintain their healthy eating habits and to encourage them to try new types of fruits and vegetables. Thanks to Ms Kearney for co-ordinating food dudes this year.
Ethos
Catholic Schools Week took place from Sunday 23rd to Sunday 30th January. Normally the school invite in the grandparents of the 5th Class children to come to visit their grandchildren at school. While we couldn’t do that this year due to Covid regulations, all the 5th class children did projects on their grandparents, which they presented to the rest of the class. Fr Gear also came in to celebrate Mass with 5th Class on Wednesday 26th January. Mr Casey organised the reading of prayers and reflections on a daily basis over the intercom for all the classes.
St Brigid’s Day The children made St. Brigid’s crosses on Tuesday1st February.
Confirmation will take place in Cappoquin on Wednesday 1st June
First Holy Communion will take place on Sunday 15th May time tbc.
PE and Sport
Gaelic Games
We are still waiting on guidance from Cuman na mBunscol as to whether the primary schools GAA competitions can proceed or not this spring/summer. Meanwhile coaching continues in the school.
Soccer
The school will enter the FAI Spar 5 a sides again this year. However, the competition will be run differently this year because of Covid. It will mostly be an in school event.
Swimming
4th Class are attending swimming lessons in the Aura Leisure Centre Youghal every Thursday morning for 6 weeks. Their first lesson was on Thursday January 27th.
Rinka Fitness
Rinka Fitness came into the school to do a one-day taster session with all the classes on Thursday 13th January. Rinka were exploring the option of establishing fitness classes one-day week after school in the Community Centre.
Active Schools
For active schools we are focusing on the fundamental skill of kicking a ball during February.
Thanks members of the Parents Association/Council for organising the rota for Kellehers Christmas raffle. Thanks also to Tom Kelleher and Supervalu for sponsoring the €500 shopping voucher and congratulations to the winner, Tom Morrissey. It was a successful fundraiser and €3000 was raised towards the school funds.
Fire brigade Fundraiser
Thanks to Cappoquin Fire Brigade who donated €1000 from their fundraiser.
Clothes Collection Fundraiser
€480 was raised.
Child protection – Principals Oversight Report
This report was presented by the Principal
Health & Safety
Health & Report from James Casey was presented by the Principal.
IT
Broadband is still a source of frustration in the school despite improvements with our Wifi speeds. The average broadband speed coming into the school office as of 1st February 2022 is download 28.2 mbps and upload 5 mbps. The download speed is double what it was and upload is over 5 times faster albeit coming from an extremely low base.
Still we should now proceed with fundraising and purchasing new IT devices for the classes. Kevin, Billy Garvey and I are signing off on a fundraiser letter that will be sent to prospective sponsors and most of the contents of this letter would be used for a Go Fund Me page.
Financial Report
Financial Report was presented by Treasurer
Plans & Policies
The Anti-Bullying Policy is at present at the review stage.
Date for next Meeing
The date for the next meeting was left open.
Agreed Report Board of Management Meeting – 9th December 2021
A Board meeting took place via zoom on Thursday 9th December 2021 at 7:30pm
The meeting was opened by Chairperson Kevin McCarthy.
Minutes of the previous meeting were proposed and seconded.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included the details of enrolment, staffing, Covid 19, curriculum, ethos, extracurricular and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
We returned to school from the mid-term break on Monday 1st November.
Enrolment
3 new pupils started in Cappoquin on Tuesday 2nd November, Umar Ashraf enrolled in Junior Infants, Aishah Ashraf in Senior Infants and Ahsaan Ashraf in First Class.
Staffing
Following interviews Ms Hannah Houlihan has been appointed to cover the 5th Class maternity leave.
Covid 19
We have had a number of Covid cases amongst our school population in recent weeks. New guidelines came into effect last Monday week where parents are entitled to apply for free antigen tests should their child be in the same pod as a positive case. Guidelines on wearing masks for 3rd to 6th Class pupils came into effect on Tuesday 30th November. Compliance in Cappoquin Primary School to date has been excellent.
A deep clean of the school was carried out on the weekend of 26th to 28th November.
Storm Barra
The school was closed on Tuesday 7th December and Wednesday 8th December due to Storm Barra.
Curriculum
PLC – Primary Language Curriculum
On Monday 15th November there was no school for the children as the teaching staff had in-service training on the primary language curriculum. For the first hour and a half the staff engaged in an online webinar. Then Elizabeth O’Brien from the PDST (Professional Development Service for Teachers) came into the school for the rest of the day to work with the staff on the primary language curriculum, with a particular focus on the writing genres in English.
Literacy Lift Off
Literacy Lift Off is now taking place in Second Class on a daily basis for a six-week period. Literacy Lift Off is an intervention that gives children lots of opportunities to read books at their own level of competency and gradually lift the complexity of what they can do in both reading and writing. During Literacy Lift Off we increase the number of adults in the classroom to work with the children in smaller groups especially in relation to reading. Thanks to Mrs Price for organising Literacy Lift Off.
Music
Mrs Veale has set up a choir group comprising of children from 4th to 6th class for the Peace Proms. Obviously we have not brought the choir group together as of yet because we are not allowed to mix the class groupings. It will more than likely depend on the Covid numbers in early 2022 as to whether the Peace Proms will proceed or not.
SESE (Social Enviromental & Scientific Education)
Heritage in School specialist Elaine Garde will visit the school again on Tuesday 14th December for a Heritage in Schools lesson. This time Elaine will work the pupils from Junior Infants to second class
Sustainable Use of Water
On Friday 12th November, an officer from Irish water Catherine Seale met with Kevin McCarthy at Cappoquin/Affane GAA Club. That morning Catherine did a walk and talk at the GAA grounds with two of our classes, 5th and 6th class, the talk focused on sustainable use of water.
History
For the past few years Ireland has been commemorating the centenary of a number of hugely significant events from our history. The centenary of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty was on Tuesday 7th December. Recently 6th class pupils have been working on projects based key events from early 20th century Ireland.
Science Week Ireland took place from 7th to 14th November. There pupils and teachers were very active carrying out science experiments and investigations during the week.
Art – Cappoquin Library
Cappoquin Library are currently a coluring competition for the pupils in our school.
Ethos
On Monday 1st November 4th class pupils, Mrs Scanlan, Mr Casey and Mr Delaney all attended Mass for All Saints Day in Cappoquin. Later in November Mr Casey organised a prayer service over the intercom to remember all our deceased relatives and friends. Well done to the 6th class pupils who read out so well over the intercom. 6th Class pupils along with Mrs Veale and Mr Casey attended First Friday Mass on Friday 3rd December. Thanks to Mary Casey, James Casey and some of the 6th class pupils for putting up the crib and the Advent Wreaths as well as the Christmas tree and other decorations in preparation for Christmas.
Sport
Gaelic Games
Thanks to Cappoquin/Affane GAA Club for enabling the school to set up gaelic games coaching for all classes on a weekly basis. John Twomey coaches each class in the school once a week and the club help to provide cover for John while he is coaching. During November and December John is coaching Gaelic Football. John will coach hurling from February onwards.
Thanks also to Cappoquin Camogie Club who are currently in the process of sourcing equipment for the school such as indoor hurleys and sliotars. While mentioning the camogie club congratulations to Patricia McCarthy who received an award virtually from the Federation of Irish Sport Volunteers in Sport Awards ceremony last night, Wednesday 8th December, in recognition for her years of dedicated volunteer work with Cappoquin Camogie Club.
In 1998, upon realising there was no sports club for her daughter to join, Tricia McCarthy, with her friend Gina McGrath, set up Cappoquin Camogie Club. Since then, Tricia has been an influential force behind the club’s success.
Soccer-Futsal
Futsal in the Yard in Cappoquin Primary School. As mentioned previously a number of FAI coaches came to the school in September and coached the Futsal programme to our 3rd and 4th class children. Then in November Michael Looby and another coach came back to take the 2 classes for a follow up session. Michael also presented new futsals to the school. The teachers will continue with the program in January. Also a huge thank you to the soccer club for giving the school so much access to the astro pitch.
Tennis Shelley Mernin from Dungarvan Tennis Club is coaching tennis on a weekly basis to all classes for six weeks. We postponed today’s lessons to tomorrow due to the wet weather. The feedback from the children to date is very positive about the tennis. Again it is brilliant to have the use of Cappoquin Railway Football club’s astro pitch for the tennis.
Cycle Right
The pupils in 5th class are currently participating in the Cycle Right program with Donal Jacob and Ollie every Wednesday morning for four weeks.
Active Schools
For active schools we are focusing on the fundamental skill of dodging during December.
Clothes Collection Fundraiser
We hosted a clothes collection on Monday 8th November. 1200 kg of clothes were collected. We should be paid for this in December.
Child protection – Principals Oversight Report
This report was presented by the Principal
Health and Safety
Sonny Landers checked on the school following Storm Barra to ensure that there was no physical damage anywhere.
Substitute Teacher Appointment: Ms Hannah Houlihan was ratified as the teacher appointed to cover the 5th Class maternity position from January to the end of the school year.
IT
It was agreed at the last BoM meeting that Martin could explore other options for providing broadband to the school and if necessary pay a private company for the next year or 2 while we wait for the NBI to come to Cappoquin. Imagine engineers came in November and installed their system to connect up to the PDST Cisco router in the school. The engineers told Martin that there is a download speed of over 50 Mbps download speed coming into the Imagine box, however, the current Cisco box can’t cater for this speed and that there is only 18 Mbps download speed coming through to the school from the Cisco box. He told me to get back in contact with PDST that they are providing new boxes with greater capacity. There hasn’t been any significant improvement to the wifi in the school as of yet, hopefully the new Cisco box will change that scenario and possibly by January that there will be good enough broadband in the school to cater for our proposed IT purchases.
Mrs Scanlan and Ms Houlihan are currently in the process of setting up a school facebook page. Mary Casey is sending out permission slips through Aladdin to the parents to allow photos of their children be put up on the new Facebook page. The Facebook page will be used a promoter of Fundraising in 2022.
Fundraising and Parents Association
Tom Kelleher has agreed to allow the school to run the Super Valu raffle again this Christmas. The Parents Association are organising a rota of ticket sellers, traditionally they sold from inside the shop but obviously with Covid we will need to sell tickets from outside. We will avoid Saturday week 18th December as the Fire Brigrade are having their traditional fundraiser on that date. The school will actually be one of the beneficiaries from the Fire Brigrade fundraiser as well.
The 6th Class are organising a small mini-sale of work in the school next Wednesday 15th December.
Finance
Financial Report was presented by Treasurer
Plans and Policies
The Code of Behaviour was ratified and adopted. Some discussion took place on the Anti-Bullying policy and further work is needed on this policy before the next BoM meeting.
Votes of sympathy Vote to Sympathy was passed to family of Marie Morrissey following her recent passing.
Agreed Report Board of Management Meeting – Thursday 14th October 2021
A Board meeting took place in the school on Thursday 14th October 2021 at 7:30pm
The meeting was opened by Chairperson Kevin McCarthy. Fr Gear led the opening prayer for the meeting.
Minutes of the previous meeting were read, proposed and seconded.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included the details of enrolment, staffing, school maintenance, curriculum, ethos, extracurricular and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
The staff officially returned to school on Wednesday 25th August. All the children returned to school on Thursday 26th August.
Enrolment
We have an enrolment of 196 pupils for the 2021/22 school year. There are twenty-five new students in Junior Infants, one of these Junior Infants joined us from another school in mid-September. We also have one new student in Second Class and one new student in Fourth Class.
Staffing
We welcome back Ms Laura Roche to Senior Infants following her maternity leave. Ms Hannah Houlihan was teaching with us for most of last year and is currently back in BGS covering for Ms Aisling Fennell.
Principal | Martin Delaney |
Deputy Principal | James Casey |
Special Education Teachers
| James Casey Caroline Price Aisling Fennell (Hannah Houlihan – covering for first term)
|
Le Chéile Class 1 Le Chéile Class 2
| Caoimhe Ní Chuirrín Louise Lyons |
Junior Infants | Leonie O’Brien |
Senior Infants | Laura Roche |
1st Class | Máire Kearney |
2nd Class | Eilish Curran |
3rd Class | Jenny Kiely |
4th Class
| Susan Amy Scanlan |
5th Class | Mary Cora Roche |
6th Class | Mairéad Veale |
Special Needs Assistants | Olivia O’Daly, Deirdre Cahill, Therese Walsh, Mary O’Brien, Deirdre Buckley, Cathy Halley, John Twomey, Aileen Buckley, Jamie Corcoran and Jacinta Casey. |
Bus Escorts | 5 |
School Secretary | Mary Casey |
School Maintenance | Mary Flynn, Lois Crotty & Janice Barry |
Welcome to Jamie Corcoran who is working as an SNA in Le Chéile 2, Jamie had subbed numerous days in the school over the last couple of years. Welcome also to Jacinta Casey, who is covering for Deirdre Cahill.
Maintenance
Mary Flynn painted the staffroom and the main entrance inside the school along with 2 classrooms during the summer months. We send get well wishes to Mary who was in hospital recently.
Ethos
Two Confirmation ceremonies for our former 6th Class pupils were celebrated in St. Mary’s Church Cappoquin on Friday 27th August. Thank you to Fr Gear for celebrating the ceremonies and thanks to Mrs Veale for preparing the class during the last school year for Confirmation. Mr Casey was also very much involved throughout the year organising Masses and a retreat for the class. Well done to all the children and best wishes to them as they begin the next stage of their education journey at post primary level.
First Holy Communion finally took place for our now 3rd Class pupils in St. Mary’s Church Cappoquin on Saturday 4th September. Due to Covid restrictions the class were split in half and we had two Masses on the day. The first one took place at 10 a.m. and the second one took place at 11.15 am. The children were superb on the day and well done to all of them. Thank you to Fr Gear and Fr Butler for co-celebrating the Masses. Thanks to Mrs Curran and Mary Guiry for preparing the class during the last year for First Holy Communion. Mr Casey also accompanied the class on a number of occasions for their practice sessions in the church.
As we were unable to have an Opening Year Mass with the whole school, Fr Gear came to the school on Wednesday 29th September to celebrate Mass with 5th Class. Thanks to Mr Casey and Fr Gear for organising the Mass.
Curriculum
PLC – Primary Language Curriculum
The new PLC (Primary Language Curriculum) for English agus Gaeilge continues to be implemented in our school and in schools throughout the country. The Department of Education had paused its engagement with schools on the PLC over much of the last 18 months due to Covid. However, towards the end of the summer term the Department began to re-engage with schools remotely in relation to the PLC. Now for the 2021/2022 school year the Department through the PDST are providing support and in-service to teachers in order to continue to implement the curriculum. Part of this support requires half day closures for schools during this and the next school year. Rather than using two half days before Christmas we will combine the webinar training and in-service PDST support to close the school to the pupils for a full day on Monday November 15th. So there will be no school for the pupils on this date. Apologies in advance for any inconveniences that this causes to parents. I know this is not ideal following on from the past 18 months of Covid 19.
Literacy Lift Off
Literacy Lift Off is taking place in First Class on a daily basis for a six-week period. Literacy Lift Off is an intervention that gives children lots of opportunities to read books at their own level of competency and gradually lift the complexity of what they can do in both reading and writing. During Literacy Lift Off we increase the number of adults in the classroom to work with the children in smaller groups especially in relation to reading. When Literacy Lift Off is finished in First Class we will start it with Second Class in November. Thanks to Mrs Price for organising Literacy Lift Off and thank you to Ms Christine Collender for helping out.
Author
Irish Author Dave Rudden held an online zoom call with 4th, 5th and 6th Classes on Tuesday 5th October to talk about his books and about being an author. Many of the students said that they found Dave to be engaging and funny. Thanks to Waterford Libraries for organising the talk with Dave.
Summer Stars
Well done to the pupils from Bunscoil Gleann who participated in the Summer Stars reading programme in Cappoquin and Dungarvan Libraries. Sheilia Curtin sent the certificates to the school recently and we will present the children with their medals and certificates before the mid-term break.
Maths
Maths Week Ireland will take place from 16th to 24th October.
Music
Three musicians from the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival come to play for 6th Class in the hall in September. There was a violin player, a viola player and a cello player. It was really cool to see instruments that all looked the same but with one bigger than the other and the different sounds that they made individually. The musicians demonstrated how to change the mood of a piece of music by changing just one note, this was very impressive. All three musicians were really funny and talented and the 6th class pupils truly enjoyed the session.
Mrs Veale is also looking into the details of the Peace Proms for 2021-2022 school year so we hope to have the school choir back up and running after the mid-term all going well and if restrictions allow.
SESE (Social Enviromental & Scientific Education)
Elaine Garde visited the school on Monday 11th October for a Heritage in Schools lesson with 3rd and 5th class pupils. Elaine returned on Thursday 14th October to do the same lesson with 4th and 6th classes. Elaine focused on the Celtic year, ogham stones and the bio-diversity in our environment.
Science Week Ireland is from 7th to 14th November. There will be plenty of science activities during the week and we will be encouraging the children to carry out their own investigations and experiments as well. As part of Science Week Mrs Curran has also booked Lismore Heritage Mobile Science to do workshops with all the classes in the school on Wednesday November 10th. Cost is €4 per child, Mary Casey will send the notice out on Aladdin to collect the €4 along with €10 for tennis.
PE, Sport and Extracurricular
Futsal
Futsal in the Yard in Cappoquin Primary School
A new initiative for primary schools called Futsal in the yard is being set up by the FAI. Some of the coaching videos for the programme were recorded here on our school yard with our 3rd and 4th classes. A number of FAI coaches came to the school in September and coached the programme to our 3rd and 4th class children.
GAA
Gaelic Football Tuesday 12th and Tuesday 19th October with Barry Dunne for half the classes on the yard and CP & Snoopy take the four senior classes classes on the field. Congratulations to Robyn and Bonnie Mclaughlin on winning the under 12 Ladies Football Championship with Shamrocks in September. Well done to our current pupils from 5th and 6th class who were on the Affane under 13 panel that reached the under 13 County Final recently. Affane lost the final but it was a great achievement to get there. Billy Buckley, Paul Coughlan, Kevin Hennessy, Micheál O Gorman, Donnchadh Stapleton, Conor Whelan and Jay Sheehan were all members of the panel. A number of our past pupils were also involved.
Tennis Shelley Mernin from Dungarvan Tennis Club will be coming into the school for 6 weeks of tennis coaching for all classes on Thursdays after the mid-term. Cost will be €10 per child for the 6 weeks. Shelley will start on Thursday 4th November.
Bike Week
National Bike Week ran from September 12th to 18th this year. To celebrate this in the school the Junior and Senior Infants had the loan of 13 balance bikes for two weeks. The children in both classes had great fun and got plenty of exercise using the bikes regularly over the two weeks.
Swimming
We have not booked any swimming lessons for any class this year due to Covid 19.
Active Schools
Fundamental movement skills for October is running for the Junior Infants and striking with the hand or dribbling for Senior Infants to 6th Class.
Movement breaks throughout the day.
The committee members of the Parents Association/Council held a meeting with Mr Delaney in the school on Tuesday 5th October. Fundraising ideas and upcoming events were amongst the issues discussed, which we will come to later in the meeting. It was also agreed that going forward 3 to 4 years is long enough to serve on the committee. We will be adding new members to the committee from Junior and Senior Infants in the coming weeks.
Damage to School Property & Trespassing
Unfortunately, there was damage done to our school roof in September when teenagers climbed up on the roof and broke some slates. The damage cost the school almost €300. The teenagers were caught on CCTV and the Gardaí have spoken to the teenagers involved and to their parents. Thanks to our neighbours who called the Gardaí that evening. During the summer and through September there have been teenagers and some children trespassing on the school grounds after school. We request that parents ensure that the children do not trespass on the school grounds nor use the school as a short cut. We ask parents who live near the school to continue to phone the Gardaí if they see people on the school grounds illegally. Please be especially vigilant during the mid-term break.
Photographs
Billy Whyte took school photographs on Wednesday 15th September.
Thanks to Mary McGrath for taking photos at the First Holy Communion and Confirmation ceremonies. Mary also took photos of the Junior Infants at the start of the school year.
Clothes Collection Fundraiser
We will host a clothes collection on Monday 8th November. Please see the following details. Cash for Clobber from Cookstown Textile Recyclers.
Child protection – Principals Oversight Report
This report was presented by the Principal
Health and Safety
Staff training on managing diabetes type 1 training took place after school on Wednesday 15th September. All the staff will have First Aid and Defibrillator training after school on Monday 8th November.
Appeal
School formally received clarification for the year and all posts to remain the same.
IT
Martin is anxious to purchase the following: –
Martin phoned NBI in relation to Broadband and he was told June 2023 the school had a date for fibre rollout.
Finance
Financial Report was presented by Martin
A.O.B.
No Sale of Work
Vote of Sympathy
Vote to Sympathy was passed to the family of Patrick (Patsy)
O’Brien following his recent passing.
.
Agreed Report Board of Management Meeting – 7th July 2021
A Board meeting took place in the school on Wednesday 7th July 2021 at 7:30pm
The meeting was opened by Chairperson Kevin McCarthy. Fr Gear led the opening prayer for the meeting.
Minutes of the previous meeting were read, proposed and seconded.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included the details of enrolment, staffing, curriculum, The Summer Provision Programme, ethos, extracurricular and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
Return to School for Term 3
All the children and staff returned to school following the Easter break on Monday 12th April. We welcomed one new pupil to the school on that day, Arthur Meyer started in 4th class.
We had a very busy but enjoyable third term in Bunscoil Gleann Sidheáin. Thankfully there was no home schooling during the term. All the children and teachers worked hard throughout April, May and June. It wasn’t all work especially as we reached the end of May and headed into June.
Enrolment
On March 24th, the day of our last Board meeting we had just received the staffing schedule for 2021/2022 school year and the retention number for 8 mainstream class teachers is 196(down from a 200 retention figure a year ago.) As stated that evening our enrolment as of 30th September 2020 was 3 short as we had 193 pupils on POD. During April we worked hard on filling in an appeal form and we actually sent two forms in to the Department in the end. Our main appeal was based on 3 new pupils enrolling in the school during March and April. Thankfully and to the great relief of all involved in the school the appeal was successful but there is a provision in that. We must have a minimum of 196 pupils on our roll by September 30th 2021, otherwise the post will be rescinded in October and we’ll have to split classes.
Staffing
Ms Emma O Neill subbed in 5th Class for the last term and got on great. A huge thank you to Ms Hannah Houlihan for all her hard work as a teacher in the school during the year. Ms Houlihan covered Ms Laura Roche’s maternity leave in Senior Infants from December to the summer holidays. Hannah is also working in our summer provision programme for the children in Le Chéile during July. Ms Lisa Collins was in for Aisling Fennell this year in the SET cluster roll and congratulations to Lisa on recently securing a permanent teaching position in Cariglea NS. We wish Lisa well with her appointment and are grateful to her for all she brought to Cappoquin this year.
Thanks to Jamie Corcoran who subbed as SNA for the last term, Jamie was mostly with 5th class but he also covered days in Le Chéile 2. Jamie is also working as an SNA with Le Chéile 2 for summer provision.
We wish Mary Guiry well on her retirement after 17 years in Cappoquin. On Thursday 17th June James Casey made a presentation to Mary on behalf of the staff and I made a presentation to Mary on behalf of the BoM.
Curriculum
Standardised Testing
Almost every child in the mainstream classes completed standardised tests in numeracy, literacy and spelling in late May and early June. The results of the tests were added in to the report cards, which were released to parents on Aladdin in June.
PLC
Any in-service and training for the Primary Language Curriculum was paused during the current school year. However, it is the intention of the Department of Education to have further training and support for the Language Curriculum available to schools during the 2021-2022 school year. From this end Elizabeth O’Brien from the PDST contacted the school with a view to starting back up the sustained support programme which had originally begun with Bríd during 2019/2020 school year. In June Elizabeth held 2 zoom calls with the teaching staff. Elizabeth will come back to us at the start of the school year with further support through zoom calls and visits to the school (Covid permitting.)
Summer Provision
Our students in Le Chéile have summer provision in the school for the month of July.
Ethos
Fr Arthure
Fr Arthure who played such a prominent and leading role in the foundation and establishment of Bunscoil Gleann Sidheáin passed away in April. Fr Arthure was very much involved in school life here up until recent times and only retired as a member of the BoM in the past year. Obviously members of the school community were anxious that the school could play some part in Fr Arthure’s funeral, which was obviously more difficult with Covid restrictions. Kevin McCarthy and James Casey, on behalf of the school, attended the rosary in the funeral home on Wednesday evening 28th April. Many past and previous staff members along with many families from the school lined the streets in Cappoquin to pay their respects for the removal on Thursday 29th April. Then on Friday 30th April Fr Arthure’s funeral cortege stopped outside the school gates and the children from 1st to 6th classes sang ‘I have a dream’ accompanied by the piano played by our former Principal, Mrs Bríd Duggan. Fr Arthure’s had previously stated that it was his wish that he would the school choir to sing this song at his funeral. Fr Arthure’s niece, Audrey Arthure, later contacted us to thank the school for this and she even organised cakes and buns from Barron’s for every pupil and staff member.
First Holy Communion and Confirmation
In preparation for Confirmation the 6th Class pupils had a retreat with the Holy Family Mission on Tuesday 18th May. The feedback from the class afterwards was very positive about the day. Well done to our second class pupils who made their First Confession on Tuesday evening 1st June with Fr Gear and Fr Butler. The boys and girls were terrific. Thanks to Mrs Curran and Mary Guiry for all their work in preparing the children for First Confession. Confirmation was due to take place on Friday 9th July and First Holy Communion was due to take place on Saturday 10th July. To the disappointment of all concerned they are now postponed until the autumn.
Extracurricular
School Tours
Unfortunately, the traditional school tour wasn’t possible for most classes. However, both 4th and 5th classes enjoyed historical walking tours of Cappoquin with Kevin McCarthy on separate days. After their tours each class had a picnic in the GAA field. 5th Class had their tour on Thursday 3rd June and 4th Class had theirs on Tuesday 15th June. Thanks to Kevin for guiding both of those tours. 6th Class went on the Greenway on Friday 11th June, they started off in Durrow and finished in Clonea. Thanks to Ms Veale for organising the tour and to Mrs Price for accompanying the class with Ms Veale on the day.
Sport – Hurling
All the classes had hurling every week during the term. Thanks to our four fantastic coaches, James Lacey, Shane Coughlan, Conor Prendergast and Patrick Morrissey, from Cappoquin/Affane GAA Club. We finished with class blitzes on the last day of hurling, which was on Thursday 17th June. Thanks very much to Barnados who along with GAA provided us with 4 free places at the upcoming Cúl Camp in Cappoquin.
Soccer
Many of the senior classes also got to go to the astro pitch in the soccer club on a few occasions during June to play soccer in their class grouping.
Sports Day and Active Schools Week
Active Schools Week took place from Tuesday 8th June to Friday 11th. Thanks to Ms Lyons and 6th Class pupils for organising the timetable for Active Schools Week. There was a wide range of activities throughout the week and every class had Zumba in the hall on Tuesday 8th June. Sports Day was originally pencilled in for Wednesday 9th June, however due to the weather it was postponed to Monday 14th June and it was a terrific day in every sense as we were blessed with the weather. There were bouncy castles and everyone was thrilled to hear the sound of the ice-cream van coming into the school. Our Active Schools Flag was recently renewed and Irish international soccer player Jason Molumby was on hand on Friday 18th June to present the flag to Ms Lyons. Thanks to Ms Louise Lyons and her Active Schools teams for all their great work in ensuring the flag was renewed. A huge thank you to our local soccer club Cappoquin Railway Football Club for making their facilities so regularly during the last term. For active schools we were also focusing on the fundamental skill of hitting and striking a ball/object during June.
Fundraising
Cappoquin Camoigie Club also presented the school with a cheque for €1,576.56 in April following their fundraiser. Thanks so much to the club for including us in their fundraiser.
IT
Our new website went live on Monday 12th April.
Wifi speed- broadband – fibre. BoM members were informed at the last meeting that PDST (Professional Development Service for Teachers,) told the Principal that an upgrade to our wifi was put out to mini- tender and the expectation that the tender would be awarded to a company and that work would take place after Easter. Then the PDST told me that there was a change to the plan and that all the wifi upgrades for schools was now to be covered by NBI (National Broadband Ireland.) I requested that the PDST put pressure on NBI to get our upgrade sorted asap as this was dragging on way too long. I also contacted NBI and I was told that they are prioritising schools, however, they could not yet give me a definitive date but the person on the phone told me that sometime in the autumn. My experience to date would leave me sceptical about an upgrade by the autumn. I will continue to apply pressure both on NBI and PDST.
Child protection – Principals Oversight Report
This report was presented by the Principal
Health and Safety
Finance
Financial Report was presented by Treasurer
Votes of sympathy were expressed to the family of Fr Arthure on his passing in April and to the family of the late Vincent Begley, his daughter Phadrea is a member of our Parents Association.
Agreed Report Board of Management Meeting – 24th March 2021
A Board meeting took place via Zoom on Wednesday 24th March 2021 at 7:30pm
The meeting was opened by Chairperson Kevin McCarthy. Martin Delaney led the opening prayer for the meeting.
Minutes of the previous meeting were read, proposed and seconded.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included the details of the staggered return to school in line with the latest Covid 19 restrictions. The report also included details of staffing, enrolment, curriculum, IT, ethos, extracurricular and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
See some of the following details from the report.
Return to School
The majority of pupils in Le Chéile 1 and Le Chéile 2 returned to school on Monday 22nd February. It was very quiet around the school that week. Then the following Monday, 1st March pupils from Junior Infants to second Class returned to school along with their teachers. Finally, on Monday March 15th pupils from third to sixth class returned to school. It is great to have all the pupils back in school and obviously we all hope that schools can remain open for all the pupils for the rest of the year. In general, the teachers have focused on just getting the children settled back to school and creating a good routine with them again. We agreed as a staff that there shouldn’t be a lot of homework as the children settled back into school.
On Thursday 4th March we celebrated World Book Day with the junior classes. We kept it low key this year as the children had only returned to school the previous Monday. For Seachtain Na Gaeilge we had a Lá Glas on Tuesday 16th March. The children wore something green in and each class paraded around Slí na Sláinte in front of the rest of the school. We have also introduced a Gaeilgeoir na Seachtaine every Friday to encourage pupils to speak more Irish around the school.
As the junior classes returned to school on March 1st WLR did a few different pieces on the return to school here in Cappoquin. They played some of our children and their parents talking about returning to school after the closure on their news bulletins that morning. They also had a news article along with photos and a video of some of the pupils in the school yard on their website.
To celebrate National Tree Week (21st to 27th March) each class went on an outing to Glenshelane. Junior Infants to second class went to the woods on Tuesday 23rd March, then earlier today (Wednesday 24th March,) 3rd to 6th class and the two Le Chéile classes went to Glenshelane. Every class had a picnic there too. The feedback from the children and teachers was very positive. Thanks to Mark Mason Financial Services for sponsoring costs associated with hiring the bus for the outings.
On Friday 26th March we will announce the winners of our photo competition entitled ‘Nature’ which was run during February when the children were learning from home. There will be two overall winners, one junior and one senior, who will both receive a €20 voucher for Easons. One winner from each class will be given an Easter Egg. Thanks to the Cappoquin St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee for sponsoring the prizes.
We welcomed two new pupils to the school on Tuesday 16th March, Alicia Stokes started in 5th class and Rico Stokes started in 4th class.
Ethos
James Casey suggested that we ask some of the 6th class pupils to read out prayers and reflections over the intercom on the day of the holidays as a means or marking Easter.
Active Schools
For active schools we are focusing on the fundamental skill of jumping during March.
Fundraising
Cappoquin Camoigie Club are running a fundraiser over the Easter holidays and they are kindly donating half of the proceeds to the school. The club feel that there are a lot of connections between families in the school and the club. The fundraiser is called ‘Run, Walk, Skate to 1998.’ They are aiming to clock up 1998 km over 4 days.
The camogie club also applied to the Sports Capital Grant Programme for funds for sports equipment. They also included the school in that application. The club haven’t heard back yet if they were successful in their application. Thanks to the club and to Elaine McCarthy for including the school in that application.
Cappoquin Affane GAA Club recently donated €500 to the school, proceeds from a quiz they ran in 2020. Thank you to the GAA club for that donation.
Moss – Cleaning the roof of the school
During the last week of February there was very heavy rain and water was leaking in through the ceiling in the hall and in the PE equipment room. We believe that the moss on the roof and in between the slates was the cause of the leaks. Dave Mason and his team spent three days cleaning the roof and clearing the moss. Thanks to the soccer club for allowing us to use the astro pitch for break times for the junior classes on those days of Thursday 4th and Friday 5th March.
IT
Website – We are going to let the new website go live on Monday 12th April.
Wifi speed- broadband – fibre. I had applied to Imagine for their free Broadband initiative for rural schools. They got back to me to say that Cappoquin wasn’t covered in their schools initiative. I had better news from the PDST (Professional Development Service for Teachers,) so an upgrade to our wifi was put out to mini-tender and that is where it is at presently. The PDST would expect that once the tender is awarded, the upgrade should happen reasonably quickly after that. The wifi was really poor again when we returned to school especially in the Le Chéile section of the building. Keith Dransfield came in and he improved the situation.
Child protection – Principals Oversight Report
This report was presented by the Principal
Health and Safety
Covid 19●Mary Flynn and Mary Casey monitor PPE supplies and resources for Covid 19 and Mary Casey orders when necessary. We had to buy extra masks for return in February/March as more staff were to wear the medical grade masks.
Enrolment
A detailed discussion took place on enrolment in the school and the staffing schedule for 2021/2022 school year as a result of our enrolment figures for 2020/2021 school year. We were only three pupils short of retaining 8 classes across mainstream. An appeal will be made to the Department of Education to see if the school can retain the 8 classroom teachers in the mainstream setting. Efforts will be made to contact local representatives about the possibility of new families moving to our catchment area and about potential future enrolments for the school.
Finance
Financial Report was presented by Treasurer
Policies.
The ASD Admissions Enrolment Policy was approved.
A vote of sympathy was expressed to the family of Mike Bennett on his recent passing.
Agreed Report Board of Management Meeting – 10th February 2021
A Board meeting took place via Zoom on Wednesday 10th February 2021 at 7:30pm
The Chairperson, Kevin McCarthy, opened the meeting by welcoming everybody with a special welcome to Fr. Gear. Fr. Gear replaces Fr Arthure as a patron nominee on the Board following Fr Arthure’s recent retirement. Fr.Gear led the opening prayer for the meeting.
Minutes of the previous meeting were read, proposed and seconded.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included details of Covid 19 guidelines from the government and Department of Education. The report also included details on remote learning. See below for further information from the report. During the Christmas holidays it was first announced that there would be a three-day extension to the holiday period and schools would reopen on Monday January 11th. Then on January 6th it was announced that schools would remain closed for mainstream pupils until February 1st and that remote learning would take place. It was also announced that date the Special schools and special classes would re-open on January 11th along with leaving cert classes in post primary schools. However, a day later on January 7th this decision was reversed and an announcement was made that all schools for all pupils would remain closed and education would take place via remote earning for all pupils. On January 7th a staff meeting via zoom was held with all the teachers. We made plans and arrangements for our remote teaching to start the following week. The teachers went into the school individually at different times between 7th and 9th January to organise books, resources and the children’s’ boxes. The teachers were going to teach remotely using the online platform Google Classroom and they agreed to copy everything onto Aladdin Connect for parents as a back-up. We decided to use Aladdin Connect as well as a back-up to Google. Every family should have been guaranteed to receive the lessons from the teachers that way. Contact was made with parents to collect the boxes belonging to the children on Sunday 10th January. Thanks to a number of SNAs who came into the school to help with this on the day. Overall, the collection went well. On January 14th the government announced a phased return for children in special schools and a return to school for those in special classes in primary schools and children with significant additional needs in mainstream primary classes, beginning on Thursday 21 January. Then again on 19th of January this decision was reversed. Also on morning of January 19th we had another staff meeting via zoom. We planned for that expected opening on 21st January and we reviewed our online learning. Some of the classes were going to trial using zoom once a week to check in on the children. After a few weeks every class trialled at least one zoom check in call with their class before our next staff meeting which was on Friday 5th February. It was agreed at that meeting that all classes would have one live video call check in with their class every week except the week of the mid-term. On February 1st the government informed that special classes in mainstream will re-open on Monday 22nd February.
Child protection – Principals Oversight Report
This report was presented by the Principal
Health & Safety
An email was forwarded to all the BOM members prior to the meeting in relation to the final report from the Department Inspectorate on supporting the safe provision of schooling (Covid 19 Inspection.) In terms of Health & Safety there is no new report following on from the previous meeting as we were only physically in the school for four days since the last BOM meeting.
James Casey is going into the school on Thursday 3rd February to meet someone from Guardian Fire Service who will check and service our fire alarm system. A number of different staff members have been in to check on the school building since Christmas.
Retirement Gift for Fr Arthure
The Chairperson purchased the gifts for Fr. Arthure’s retirement in Clonmel Garden Centre. Fr. Arthure’s wish was to plant a tree in his honour on the school grounds. A Mountain Ash was purchased to plant in the school as a memory to all ther service given by Fr Arthure to the school.
Enrolment
Enrolment Forms were sent out to the pre-school and a discussion about school enrolment was held.
Re-opening Le Chéile (22nd February)
The return to school of Le Chéile on Monday February 22nd was discussed as was the Supplementary Home Tuition Programme announced by the government recently. Preparations are being made for the re-opening of Le Chéile on February 22nd and risk assessment will be reviewed to ensure the school is compliant with the latest Covid 19 guidelines.
Irish Water
The Principal is corresponding with Irish Water with the aim of ascertaining the possible cause/s for the school’s large water bill from last year.
IT –Remote teaching & Online Learning – Devices- Wifi
There was a discussion on remote teaching and home school learning. A small number of devices were lent out to families who requested them.
Financial Report
Financial Report was presented by Treasurer
Congratulations were extended to Ms. Laura Roche on the birth of baby Alex last week.
A vote of sympathy was expressed to the family of Tom Burke on his recent passing.
Conclusion
The Chairperson thanked all in the school community (parents and staff) for all their patience during this current time.
Agreed Report Board of Management Meeting – 16th December 2020
A Board meeting took place via Zoom on Wednesday 16th December 2020 at 7:30p.m. The meeting was opened by Chairperson Kevin McCarthy.
Minutes of the previous meeting were read, proposed and seconded.
Correspondence
A thank you letter from Bríd Duggan to the Board was acknowledged. She thanked the Board most sincerely for their beautiful gifts to her to mark her retirement. Bríd also thanked the Board for their support for the last year since the current BoM was in situ.
A Christmas Card and donation of €200 from Mount Melleray to the school was acknowledged by the Board.
Principals Report
Principals Report was presented. It included details of staffing, curriculum, IT, ethos, extracurricular, sport and fundraising. See some of the following details from the report.
Drama– Ms Roche and 5th Class were busy over the last few weeks rehearsing and practising for a play. Towards the end of last week and all this week the class are performing the play each day and inviting a different class in to watch it. The 5th class are really enjoying themselves and so are the classes who have gone to the hall to watch the performance.
Art – Credit Union Competition-Five pupils from the school won prizes for the Lismore & Cappoquin Credit Union Art Competition. Well done to our 5 winners!
Ethos– Fr Gear held a Mass to remember all our deceased relatives and friends in Affane on Friday 20th November which Brigid Murray recorded live and James Casey gave every class link to zoom to watch the mass. Fr Gear celebrated Mass with 6th Class in the school hall on Tuesday 8th December to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Thanks to Mary Flynn and James Casey for putting up the crib and the Advent Wreaths in preparation for Christmas.
Extracurricular- Blue and White Days – There was great colour and excitement in the school in the lead up to the All Ireland Hurling Final. Firstly Ms Veale organised the 6th class to draw their own portraits as fans and Taylor Murray (Waterford GAA pro) displayed the portraits in the stands in Páirc Ui Chaoimh on Saturday 21st November for Waterford’s All Ireland quarter-final against Clare. Then in preparation for the All Ireland semi-final we had a Blue and White Day on Friday 27th November. We had a second Blue and White Day on Friday 11th December before the All Ireland Final. €220.45 was collected for Club Déise. The school was also chosen as one of the schools by Centra Ireland to have portraits of fans in the stand for the All Ireland Final. This time every class were involved and they all produced 100 great and colourful portraits. Thanks to Mary Flynn for putting all the putting up and thanks to Jacinta Uniacke for donating the lovely blue Santa for the final.
Sport – Barry Dunne GDA for Waterford GAA came to the school on Tuesday 8th December and on Tuesday 15th December. On both days Barry coached gaelic football skills and fundamental movement skills with six different classes. Thanks to the soccer club for allowing us to use the astro for break times for some of the classes on those days.
Active Schools- For active schools we are focusing on the fundamental skill of dodging during December.
Fundraising-The Sale of Work wasn’t possible with Covid restrictions and Tom Kelleher said he would prefer not to proceed with the Super Valu raffle this Christmas either because of Covid restrictions. He is willing to look at it again possibly at Easter or another time. Laura O Rourke offered to sing online and to raise funds for the school through Go Fund Me and we accepted that offer. The staff and pupils are going to wear Christmas jumpers to school this Friday (18th December) and we will make a contribution to St Vincent de Paul in Cappoquin.
Child protection – Principals Oversight Report
This report was presented by the Principal
Health & Safety / Risk Assessments
Weekly battery checks of the defibrillator are being carried out
Monthly checks on break glass units, fire extinguishers, emergency lighting are being carried out
Fire extinguishers were serviced in October
First Aid supplies have been restocked
Mary Flynn and Mary Casey monitor PPE supplies and resources for Covid 19 and Mary Casey orders when necessary.
IT
The Principal informed the meeting that the school are in the process of hiring designers to create a new website.
In terms of Wifi speed and broadband the Principal is disappointed with the service currently in the school. Keith Dransfield has been in the school a few times to try help with some of the wifi blackspots and Keith along with another IT specialist will come back into the school at some stage in the new year to ensure our Ubiquity system is working properly. However, before they come in for that job we need to get much better broadband speed into the school. We currently get our broadband through PDST Technology and this is how most schools get their broadband but our wifi isn’t near fast enough for a school of our size. Our download speed coming into system is 14.4 mbps and upload is 0.6 Mbps which would be fine for an individual house but not for a whole school.
Finance
Financial Report was presented by Treasurer
Policies
The Child Protection Child Safeguarding Statement & Risk Assessment were updated as Martin Delaney replaces Bríd Duggan as the DLP.
Health & Safety Policy was approved.
Congratulations
Congratulations were extended to Aisling Fennell on the birth of her baby girl, Ella.