Senior School Parents' Association Newsletter

St. Conleth's College Senior School Parents’ Association Newsletter Monthly Summary of Activities | March 2013

Contents Welcome . Welcome Hello and welcome to the first edition . School News Roundup of the St Conleth’s Senior School o Debating Parents’ Association (SSPA) Newsletter. o Rugby The aim of this newsletter is to provide o University Entrance you with some information about the o School ePortal work of the SSPA committee and to o Mock Exams provide you with updates on school o School Self Eval (SSE) events that we hope are interesting and o Young Scientists informative. . Proposed Government We know from experience that notes in schoolbags don’t always Cuts - “We need your arrive home and while texting a parent may be the fastest help” communication solution this can be expensive and also limits the . French theatre amount of information you can give in a text. . Cheese and Wine Event . New SSPA chairperson Also, please feel free to contact your class rep if you have any . Update Equipment / issues/ideas that you think should be discussed at any Parent Awards Association Committee meeting or if you have any ideas for . Parents Lunches improving communication between parents, thoughts on . Uganda Fund possible workshops, courses, ‘get togethers’ etc. We need your . Lost Property / Book input to make the SSPA work. Sale . Bereavements School News Roundup • Debating: A St Conleths past pupil Liam Brophy, class of 2010, has won the prestigious Irish Times Debate held this Your Parents’ year in Queens University Belfast. Association Runner-up was Brian O'Beirne, St. Conleth's Class of 2005, and current If you need to contact lecturer of Law at TCD. More>> anyone on the SSPA the details are available Also, well done to 5th year students here>> Matthew Collins and Christopher Costigan Alternatively just reply to who were beaten only by Eton College in the my email or leave a an inter-schools debate in Cambridge message with the school recently. secretary who will pass it Daniel Gilligan is in the final of the Mace on. debating competition.

© 2013 St. Conleth’s College Parents’ Association Our postal address: Senior School Parents’ Association, St. Conleth’s College, Clyde Road, Dublin 4, Ireland Page 1 St. Conleth's College Senior School Parents’ Association Newsletter

Dates for your dairy School News Roundup (cont’d)

Mar Past Pupils' Union . Rugby: Our JCT team beat Tullow CS to 1 Annual Dinner win the Junior League Section A Final in Friday impressive style with a 51-7 score. The Mar game was held in Greystones RFC last Tuesday. Well done lads. More on Senior 25 Apr Easter holidays, Monday 5 Sports>> Friday enjoy! . University Entrance Exhibition Awards: Apr Next SSPA Meeting Three students were awarded an 15 Monday Exhibition Award from Trinity College Dublin and two students were awarded Also see Senior Calendar>> Exhibition Award from University College Dublin. A great result for the students of St Conleth’s College. . School Reports ePortal: a new facility for Useful Links parents and students of 1st and 5th year to access school reports was successfully “Supporting Teens rolled out just before Christmas. This Emotional Wellbeing”, talk facility is now being extended to include given by Val Mullally at the 3rd and 6th years. More on the ePortal>> SSPA AGM Oct 2012 here>> . Junior and Leaving Certificate Mock exams are now completed. We hope that The School text messaging the mock exams were a good practice run service here>> for all the students and we wish them all the best for the exams in June. St Conleths Past Pupils . School Self Evaluation: A SSE (School Self Union, here>> Evaluation) is a six step evaluation and is completed by teachers in the school. This Transition Year Student year it is focussed on literacy and blog, here>> numeracy. This replaces the WSE (Whole School Evaluation) which was last undertaken in St. Conleths College two years ago. Mr. Gallagher reports that action points from that evaluation have all been implemented. Summary information available on the WSE is here>> Full WSE report available here>> Follow @SaintConleths

Role of the SSPA School News Roundup (cont’d) “To provide a forum for the . Young Scientists Exhibition: Well interaction between pupils, done to the students from 2nd year parents and St Conleth's who participated in the event this year. College. The association Their project was based on mind-control. seeks to "inform and More school news is available on the school website >> consult parents regarding

school policy, plans and activities and to organise Proposed Government Cuts - “We need and encourage parent your help” participation in events of As you no doubt will have heard on the news recently the common interest”. government is actively drawing up plans to reduce funding to fee-paying schools such as St. Conleths College. In effect they are looking to increase the Pupil Teacher Ratio from 23 to 25 in Suggestion Box 2014 and to 27 in 2015. This could mean increased fees, a If you have any reduction in the choice and/or quality of education our children suggestions, comments or receive, or even worse as in the example of Kilkenny College queries, please let me leaving the fee-paying sector altogether. know. Two weeks ago a meeting was organised Also feedback on our first to bring together the Parents’ edition of this newsletter is Associations of Fee-Paying schools with especially welcome. the objective of co-ordinating a campaign to lobby against these plans. The SSPA committee attended this meeting and has decided to support this initiative and we are asking all parents in the school for their support. • Our plan is that we are asking all parents, grandparents, past pupils, etc. to write to your local TDs to campaign about the cuts. • We will provide you with a sample letter and compile a list of links to names/emails and addresses of TDs. • You will receive an e-mail with this information in the next few days. • We would ask you to send at least one e-mail/letter as this campaign depends on numbers. Feedback from other Parents’ Association groups indicate that they are receiving good support from parents. Please look out for this communication which will be sent via e-mail in the next few days and please do support this important campaign. If you have any question, just send me an e-mail.

French Theatre Following a request from the French teachers for assistance to fund students to attend the French theatre on 15th March, a €3 per student donation was approved by Parents’ Association.

Thank You: On behalf of all Cheese and Wine Event parents, the SSPA would Due to the success of last year’s event, it has like to sincerely thank the been suggested that should be repeated again teaching and other staff in this year, possibly late April – details will be the school for their available soon. commitment and hard work during the year in New Parents’ Association chairperson helping our sons and Paul Allen was elected chairperson of the SSPA and we would daughters realise their like to thank our former chairperson Des McCarthy for ensuring a potential. smooth handover. Also, we would like to acknowledge all the work done by the members of the committee that have recently completed their term including Grainne Browne, Joan Harrington and Yvette Cripwell. A big thank you to both Des and Yvette for all of their work as Chairperson and Secretary respectively of the Parents Association for the past few years." A full list of the 2012/13 committee can be found here>>

Update Equipment / Awards The SSPA are looking to buy or update some equipment in the school which would benefit the students. Options include updating some of the school awards or school equipment.

Parent Lunches The committee are looking at how to make these more effective and better attended. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Uganda Fund The Christmas Tree sale was held on 8th December and organised Help us make this by the TY reps on the SSPA newsletter better committee with the assistance of As this is our first TY students and parents. The day newsletter., we’d love to was a good success and €3,500 hear from you about how was raised for the school’s to make it better – please Uganda Fund. let us know what you’d like The organising committee would like to thank all of the parents to hear about in future and others who came along to support the sale and the school for editions or if there is providing the facilities. something related to the Read about the Uganda fund>> school that you would like to publicise. Lost Property / Book Sale The committee are looking at proposals to hold a sale of unclaimed lost property and of second-hand school books towards the end of the year. More details to follow. “Please remember to label your sons/daughters items. (or better still get them to do it themselves!)”

Bereavements The SSPA would like to extent their condolences to the Hennessy family on the death of Patrick, father to Oliver in 5th year. Also the committee held a minutes silence in remembrance of Andrew Clarke, a former student of the school. Mr. Gallagher noted that that students can draw down on the Counselling Services provided by the school if required. Contact Mr. Gallagher for details.