Paradise Place ETNS Newsletter

On Friday, we had a special assembly to mark Greg's retirement. He has been a teacher for 40 years and a teacher in our school for more than 30 years. The assembly started in style with a protest led by 4th Class, who interrupted proceedings with a specially-written rap to celebrate Greg's many achievements, including his passion for activism and social justice which he has shared with all of the children. Merlyn shared a poem that Greg's 3rd Class wrote for him, and then Nadine, Chair of our Student Council spoke on behalf of all of the children. You can listen to her speech in the video below.

We presented Greg with a special gift of some of art-work designed especially for him and Eadaoin spoke on behalf of the entire school community to thank Greg for all of his hard work and dedication to the school and the teaching profession over so many years. We finished with a special version of 'Power in Me' dedicated to Greg. It was a lovely celebration of his wonderful career. We will miss him hugely but send him off to his retirement with our very best wishes for lots of rest and relaxation after 40 years of service. Congratulations Greg!

For 2nd Class up, we're excited to invite you to our Sports Day this Monday 23rd June, starting from 10:15 AM on the astroturf pitch in Grangegorman. Join us for a day of fun activities and cheer on the students as they take part in a variety of sporting events. We’d love to see you there!

The younger children will have their own day based at school and we will post lots of photos for you on Seesaw.

Tuesday

We'd like to invite parents/carers from Junior Infants (Claire and Carla), 1st/2nd and 2nd Class (Molly and Neasa), 4th Class (Sean), 5th Class (Shauna), and Dance Club

Wednesday

We'd like to invite parents/carers from Senior Infants (Sile), 1st Class (Alannah), Lorna's Class, 3rd Class (Ali and Greg), 4th Class (Andy), 6th Class (James) and Dance Club

6th Class Graduation will take place at 1.00 p.m. All parents/carers and siblings are invited to join us for a very special celebration of our oldest children as they take their next step onto secondary school.

This year, our Sustainability Team has been making great progress working on the Sustainable Development Goal "Responsible Consumption and Production."

Throughout the spring, the team has been busy growing a variety of vegetables and fruits in the school garden, including peas, carrots, strawberries, potatoes and rhubarb. They also set up a wormery, turning food waste into compost to help the plants grow. This week, the team were delighted to harvest their first crops and celebrated their hard work with a homemade rhubarb crumble!

We are delighted to have received a Gold Award from the Curious Minds Awards - a programme we have been involved in for over 15 years now. It recognises the school's efforts in STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.

Last week, at the national award ceremony, some videos recorded in our school were shared as part of the ceremony. One of our teachers, Catherine, spoke about the positive impact our STEM teaching has on children's learning, and Sile's Senior Infants and Greg's 3rd Class demonstrated two experiments. The videos are super - take a look at our confident children in action!

On 9th June, the Board of Management met for their final meeting of the year. They met the Student Council (and their parents) who shared their 'three stars and a wish' for the school this year. The children spoke really positively about their learning and the support they get from all of the adults at school. They like that everyone is made to feel welcome here and speak their home language. They appreciate the positive impact the Playleaders have had on playtimes this year. They asked the Board to look at ways to upgrade the Hall - especially the floor, and the Board reassured the children that they are working to secure funding for this.

The Board then met Derek who spoke about his role as Assistant Principal 1 in the school, leading Inclusion and co-leading literacy. The Board ratified our new 'Bí Cineálta' Anti-Bullying Policy and the Admissions Notice for 2026-2027. They approved the Summer Programme which will involve over 100 children in the first two weeks of July.

The Board sent their thanks to all of the staff for their wonderful work this year and thanked all of the leadership team members and the children on our children's teams who've come to speak to them at their meetings this year. It has really helped their understanding of the school and how it works.

Bohemians Football Club invited the children from 6th Class to a schools football tournament in TU Dublin last Monday. Both teams did a great job but special mention to the girls team who got through to the final (after a nail-bitingly tense set of penalties in the semi-final!) and were the runners-up of all the school there on the day. Well done girls!

3rd, 4th and 5th Classes had some in-class workshops this week from the 'Quavers to Quadratics' team. The workshops are designed to support children to make links between music and science. The children will all be going to the National Concert Hall next week for the second part of the workshop.

Neasa's 2nd Class had a great visit to the Botanic Gardens with a brilliant workshop all about planting on Tuesday.

6th Class had a brilliant day at Burrow Beach on Wednesday, soaking up their last few days together and relaxing after a year of hard work! We are so proud of them.

We were delighted to welcome two members from the autism charity AsIAm for a workshop on neurodiversity for 5th and 6th Class last Friday. The charity do brilliant work advocating for autistic children and families and their school workshops are a helpful way to support all children in their understanding of autism and particularly for neurotypical children to support their neurodivergent friends by being kind and respectful of one another's differences.

Summer Stars is a free national reading programme for children that takes place in all public libraries in Ireland and online each summer. Children need to be motivated and supported to pick up a book and dive into the story that is waiting to unfold and everyone is encouraged to take part.

Each child is encouraged to read 8 books over the summer months. When the children sign up they receive a bag containing a seeded bookmark which they can plant, an activity book and stickers. At the end of the summer each child is invited to attend an award ceremony in Central Library in the ILAC Centre to collect a certificate of completion. There will also be a raffle for some prizes!

Our aim is for every child to have attendance of 95%+.

Well done to all of the classes who are close to our 95% target:

Greg's 3rd Class - 93.8%, Neasa's 2nd Class - 93.3%, Lorna's Class - 93.3%

23rd June - Sports Day

24th and 25th - End of Year Performances - 1.00 p.m

26th June - 6th Class Graduation - 1.00 p.m

27th June - School closes at 12 noon

St Brendan's GAA Club have some spaces available on their summer camp on 14th-18th July - please chat to Rosalia if you are interested and she can share the details with you.

Did you know we're on Instagram now? Follow us on @ppetns

Email: office@ppetns.ie
Website: www.ppetns.ie
Location: Paradise Place, Phibsborough, Dublin 7, Ireland
Phone: +353 1 8300 841