September Newsletter

glounaguillagh
Sep 22
6 min read

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Welcome/Staffing:

Welcome back to the children of Glounaguillagh National School. We extend a very special welcome to our 15 new Junior Infants. The children are settling in very well to life here at Glounaguillagh. At present, our total enrolment is 137 students.

We welcome back Ms. Caitríona McCarthy who will cover the remainder of Ms. Tyther’s Maternity Leave.

Class	Teacher	Boys	Girls	Total
Junior Infants	Mrs. Doyle	5	10	15
Senior Infants	Ms. Quirke	8	9	17
1st Class	Mrs. Fleming	11	6	17
2nd Class	Mrs. Fleming	5	4	9
2nd Class	Ms. O'Sullivan	6	4	10
3rd Class	Ms. O'Sullivan	9	6	15
4th Class	Mrs. Galvin	5	13	18
5th Class	Mrs. Galvin	7	4	11
5th Class	Ms. O'Shea	6	9	15
6th Class	Ms. O'Shea	7	3	10
	69	68	137

Support Staff for 2025/2026: Sinéad Pigott and Norma Tyther (Caitríona McCarthy)

Dates for your Diary:

Please find attached a school calendar for the year 2025/2026. We will keep you updated should there be any further changes.

Reminder: as notified previously, the school will be closed to children on Friday 24th October for the Presidential Election. We will also be closed on Wednesday 25th February and Tuesday 19th May as all staff members will be attending a training session off-site on these days.

Contacting the School:

If you have a query, the office may be contacted via telephone 0669769402 or by email office@glounaguillaghns.ie.

Jean’s hours are as follows:

Monday 9am -2.30pm
Tuesday 9am - 2pm
Wednesday 9am - 2pm
Friday 9am - 12noon

A reminder that the office is not manned outside of Jean’s hours. You can leave a voicemail or email us with your query and we will respond as soon as possible.

The school will continue to use the Aladdin Connect App to send whole-school notifications to inform parents of any important information/events.

If you have changed your mobile number recently, please contact the office to update your number. We may, on occasion, need to contact you via phone-call during the day. Therefore, it is vital that we have up-to-date mobile numbers and emergency contact numbers.

We will continue to send a monthly email update via Aladdin. If you need to change your email address for any reason, please email the school office.

We ask that all visitors to the school make an appointment prior to their arrival. Please respect this.

The School office is now located at the side of the school. A bell is located at the right-hand side of the door for attention. Entry to the school during school hours will be through this door only.

Uniforms:

Please ensure that children wear the agreed uniform i.e., navy and white. Leggings are not appropriate for school. Ensure that jumpers are clearly labelled otherwise it is impossible to determine ownership. PE for Junior and Senior Infants will be on a Thursday. PE day for the remainder of the school will be on a Friday. On PE day, pupils wear their plain navy tracksuit and runners. As the weather is unpredictable, please ensure your child brings a waterproof jacket (with a hood) to school each day.

We have an ever-growing box of lost and found, particularly jumpers. If you would like to come and take any please do so as it’s a pity to see them sitting there.

Absences:

While certain absences are unavoidable, such as when a child is sick, it is important to remember that the school must inform the statutory Educational Welfare Services of the Child and Family Agency if your child has missed 20 days or more in the school year. Prior to or following an absence, please use the Aladdin app to submit an attendance note.

Lunches and Allergies:

We remind parents that fizzy drinks, chocolate, bars, buns, chocolate spread, biscuits, sweets, lollipops, crisps and chewing gum are not permitted in lunchboxes. Due to allergies, we ask that nuts or products containing nuts are not included in lunchboxes either. Furthermore, we ask that eggs are not included in lunches in Mrs. Fleming’s Class.

Books & Costs:

As with previous years, the Government will continue to fund schoolbooks for all children, and we ask that pupils take good care of these as they remain school property. However, while this scheme was announced with much fanfare, the grant provided to schools has not kept pace with rising costs, and in fact, the allocation to schools has been reduced since the scheme began. At the same time, the cost of books, photocopying, art and craft supplies, and other essential resources has risen considerably. Grants to schools have remained at the same level for many years, leaving schools to make up the shortfall. For this reason, we must increase the annual contribution to €45 per child this year. This covers pupil insurance, art & craft materials, photocopying & communications, and online subscriptions to learning platforms. While we do our best to keep costs as low as possible, we cannot meet all our bills without this increase. With the upcoming budget, it may be timely for parents to contact local TDs to highlight the need for school grants to reflect today’s real costs. Payment links will be sent via Aladdin, or money may be brought in sealed in an envelope with your child’s name on it.

Hot Meals:

The tender documents due to be published before the end of the last school year were delayed and only published late August. We have started the tender process with a view to introduce the hot meals after Christmas. We will keep you updated as we go along.

Play Therapist:

We are delighted to let you know that a trainee play therapist will be based in our school one day a week throughout this school year as part of her professional training. Play therapy is a recognised approach that uses play to help children explore emotions, build confidence, and develop positive ways of coping with challenges. The therapist will work individually with a small number of children during the year. This is a wonderful opportunity for our school community, as it allows us to provide additional support to pupils in a creative and child-centred way, at no extra cost to families. If you feel this may benefit your child, please let us know. As the therapist is in training, there are clear guidelines she must follow when selecting children, and not all pupils will be eligible to take part. Teachers will also have an input into the referral process, and parents will of course be contacted for consent before any child is included. All sessions will take place in a safe and supportive environment, and the content of sessions will remain confidential. We look forward to seeing the benefits this will bring to the children who take part, and to the overall wellbeing of our school.

Parking:

The safety of the children around drop-off and pick up times is always on our minds. We would ask parents to be please be mindful on approach to the school and to park responsibly when dropping your children to, and collecting from, school. Please do not park behind the staff cars. Pull in to the car-parking spaces properly or use the other side of the road to park. Finally, we ask parents not to stop their cars in the immediate vicinity of the gates and allow children to hop out of cars. There are a number of cars who continue to do this in the morning, we ask you to please be more considerate. If your child is dropped to school by another family member, please pass this information on and ask them to behave responsibly in the area surrounding the school.

Arriving to School:

The school opens to receive pupils at 8:40am. No responsibility is accepted for pupils arriving before that time. Supervision is provided from 8:40am. Classes commence each day at 8.50am. On wet mornings, we would suggest that children remain in their car with an adult until the school opens to accept children at 8:40am.

For any families walking and cycling to and from school, please remember to wear hi-visibility vests.

Sport, Music & Art:

Football will get up-and-running next week with our school team partaking in the 6/7 Teacher Cumann na mBunscol competition on Thursday in Cromane.
We are delighted to have PJ Reidy back with us to coach football this year. We are still recruiting help for our football teams this year. If you are interested in helping out, please let us know.
Lily Morris, from Killorglin Rugby Club, will visit the school over the coming weeks to provide a non-contact introduction to rugby.
Seán Treacy will continue to visit weekly for the coming year. He will work with 4th, 5th & 6th classes for music and song-singing as well as whole school sessions around Christmas time.
Music Generation Kerry – 3rd & 4th Classes will be working with Caroline Regan of Music Generation Kerry again this year. Caroline will be teaching the children how to play the ukulele as well as other fun music lessons.