October 2026

Dear Parents/Guardians,

As we've reached the end of October, I want to take a moment to thank you for your continued support and partnership throughout the first half of the term. It’s been a busy and productive month filled with learning, creativity, and community spirit.

Our students have worked so hard and shown great enthusiasm in everything they do — from classroom projects to Halloween preparations — and that’s a testament to the encouragement they receive at home and in school. We had a great month in terms of sporting achievements and the boys and girls should be very proud of their accomplishments.

As we look ahead to November, we encourage our boys and girls to continue embracing every opportunity to learn, participate and challenge themselves. Thank you once again for your ongoing support, which plays such an important role in making our school community such a positive and special place. We look forward to another busy and enjoyable month ahead.

Warm regards,

Dominic Tyrrell

Click on this image to access Our School Information Booklet, which was shared with families at the beginning of the school year.

Enrolment for Junior Infants 2027-2028 is now open. The application window closes on 13th November 2026. Please share this information around the locality, especially for families that may not have children already in our school.

As previously promised, the videos from Ms. Dunne's literacy presentation will be shared over the coming days. Special thanks to Ms. Dunne for all her work in promoting literacy development across St. Annes.

We are delighted that the Mason Bumble Bee has decided to lay her precious eggs in the Bee Nursery in St. Anne’s. The Mason Bumble Bee is a very important part of our life, as they help to pollinate so many plants and crops for the farmers. They help to grow wheat, corn, barley and oats that we use in bread, porridge and breakfast cereals.

The Mason Bee is a solitary bee and that doesn't live in a hive. So, her baby eggs need to be minded over the winter in our Bee Nursery. The mother bee leaves enough food for the baby bee to eat when they hatch. The bees will hatch when the weather warms up after spring.

St. Anne’s are creating a pollinator patch of flowers just outside the Bee Nursery, so the baby bees can have some more food when they are born so they can fly all around Ardclough.

Special thanks to Oliver Kelly for providing the flu vaccines for our pupils before the midterm break. He will return to the school over the coming days to adminsiter the nasal vaccination for registered 6th class pupils and any other registered pupils that missed school on the 23rd October.

October was an incredible month for our school in the Cumann na mBunscol competitions, with our boys and girls representing the school with great pride, determination and sportsmanship. We are absolutely delighted to celebrate the fantastic achievements of all our teams!

Our Boys' Football Team produced a brilliant performance to win their final against Straffan in a great game of football. Our Boys' Hurling Team followed suit, overcoming Rathmore in a fantastic final, with a super second-half performance securing the victory. There was further success for our Girls' Camogie Team, who were outstanding in their final against Kilcock, delivering a superb performance to bring home another title.

In what was a truly memorable afternoon, our hurling and camogie teams managed to win their respective finals within just 15 minutes of each other! The excitement and celebrations that followed were fantastic and it was wonderful to see so much joy and school spirit on display.

Our Girls' Football Team also deserve enormous credit for their efforts in a thrilling final against Ballymany. Despite coming up just one point short, the girls showed tremendous spirit, determination and teamwork throughout. They can be extremely proud of their performance and the way they represented our school.

These achievements are a reflection of the hard work, commitment and dedication shown by all our players. We would like to sincerely thank every boy and girl who represented the school and for their excellent sportsmanship and positive attitude. A huge thank you also goes to our school staff for their time, dedication and care in looking after the teams throughout the competitions and to our parents for their continued support, encouragement and enthusiasm. Your support makes such a difference.

Well done to all our players and coaches! You have given our school community so many reasons to be proud and made October a month to remember. We look forward to seeing what the future holds for our talented young footballers, hurlers and camogie players!

Thank you to all parents/guardians who have paid their school fees using the Aladdin ePayments payment facility. The school expenses cover your child’s pupil accident insurance, art and craft supplies, digital licences and photocopying costs in school. We appreciate that the return to school increases the financial burden on parents and if you have any difficulty, please contact our Principal, Dominic Tyrrell for support.

Each month, one pupil from every class is honoured with our Creativity Award — celebrating those who shine in the arts! Whether through music, drama or visual art, these pupils show imagination, passion and a true love for creative expression. Congratulations to this month’s winners for inspiring us all with their artistic talent and enthusiasm! Keep creating and sharing your wonderful ideas with the world.

Gach mí, bronnaimid an teastas 'Gaeilgeoir na Míosa' ar bhuachaill nó ar chailín amháin i ngach rang. Bronntar an gradam seo ar an dalta a dhéanann iarracht mhór an Ghaeilge a úsáid i rith an lae ar scoil. Bímid i gcónaí ag iarraidh ár bpáistí a spreagadh chun an Ghaeilge a úsáid ar scoil agus sa bhaile. Maith sibh, a bhuaiteoirí.

Click on this image to access a fantastic new online Irish language hub for parents. Irish for Parents aims to support parents to help their children to learn and use Irish at home. It was developed by Gaeloideachas with support from an Foras na Gaeilge. We encourage parents to make great use of this resource at home.

We would love to see your child in school every day to ensure that they reach their full potential. We understand however, that there may be occasions when your child may be absent for valid reasons. For these days, please provide a reason for your child’s absence. We are legally obligated to report all absences over 20 days to TUSLA, so it is important that we record all absence reasons on our roll system. Please do this using the Aladdin Connect App. Please contact the school if there is something you need to discuss in relation to your child's attendance. To help you to keep track of your child's absences you will receive a notification through Aladdin Connect if your child misses 10, 15 & 20 days of school. If you have any queries or need to update your home contact details, please feel free to do so on Aladdin. Please read below our Anseo Attendance Information leaflet, which clearly highlights the impact of poor school attendance and punctuality.

It has been a busy month for Ms. Doyle's Junior Infants!

Maths: Our classroom was filled with lots of games and songs to help us learn our new numbers 1-5. We are getting really good at spotting our numbers around the school, writing them using the correct formation and counting sets. Our favourite songs about 5 are '5 little speckled frogs' and '5 Little Pumpkins sitting on a Gate', which we sang for our October assembly! We did a super job 😊

Literacy: 'Room on the Broom' and 'The Jolly Witch' were our focus books this month, but we also enjoy lots of books about Autumn and Halloween, including Stick Man, The Leaf Thief and The Oak Tree. We learned the rhyme 'Incy Wincy Spider' and even made up our own version using rhyming words. It went like this:

The Incy Wincy spider climbed up a cat

The very fluffy cat was alseep on a mat

The cat woke up slowly, and licked his paws clean

And Incy Wincy spider knew it was time to scream!

Gaeilge: We played lots of Gaeilge games using our new vocabulary under the theme of Halloween and have been practicing listening to and using our colours as Gaeilge.

Other: Our Integrated Play area was centered around the Fire Station and we loved dressing up as Fire Men and Women and helping our friends in need.

We are looking forward to the midterm break and can't wait to see what else Term 1 has in store for us! Happy Halloween!

It's been an Autumn and Halloween-filled month in Room 5! We loved exploring in the Autumn area and trying on different dress-ups in the Haunted House. We also have been working very hard on our Early Maths and Literacy skills- we're so excited to get started on our letter sounds after mid-term!

Check out what Room 4 got up to for the month of October.

Check out all the great learning that happened during the month of October in Room 1.​

Check out the happenings from Room 10 during the month of October.

Mr. Behan's class have had a wonderful October. Take a look at some of the memories they made this month.

Have a look at what's been going on in Mr. Hutchinson's room. The boys are having a great time settling in to life in St. Anne's NS.

In October, Mr O'Leary's class were learning about our ancestors. Early in the month the children began to find out about the lives of their parents, grandparents and great grandparents, looking at where they grew up and what they worked at. When we had collected

Meanwhile in art classes, we created trees with branches which could be adapted to create our very own family trees. Finally, when the trees were ready and the children had all their information, they were able to begin sticking the facts about their ancestors onto the tree, completing some beautiful family trees.

On the final day of the term, we all got dressed up for a day of fun!

It has been a very busy month in 5th Class! We have been busy taking part in lots of matches and enjoying some great sporting experiences.

We have also started our swimming lessons and French with Ms. McCarthy, which everyone has been enjoying.

In STEM (science and engineering), the children put on their thinking caps and designed and built their very own windmills. They then put their creations to the test to see how well they worked!

In Geography, we have been learning all about the rivers of Ireland. To bring our learning to life, we took a walk down to our local canal, where we had the opportunity to see some of what we have been learning about up close.

Well done to everyone in 5th Class for all their hard work, enthusiasm and teamwork this month!

In October, the 6th class children were involved in many activities ranging from debating to swimming. Some participated in important school matches while others led readings at the school's opening mass. The Hallowe'en theme dominated towards the end of the month with the children performing "Thriller" at the monthly assembly dressed in their Hallowe'en costumes. The month ended with a trip to Explorium where the children saw science in action. See how they got on in the pictures below!

Ardclough GAA Club and St. Anne's NS collaborate on a weekly lotto draw to raise funds for both organisations. The draw takes place every Friday evening, just after 8pm . Long and short term ticket options are available. Paper tickets can be purchased in the clubhouse and tickets are also available online at this link https://ardcloughgaa.clubzap.com/draws

Thank you to everyone who supports the draw and to our PSG members who support the Club Committee to run the draw each week. Best of luck to everyone in the draw.

• Thursday 5th November 2026 - Staff Training new curriculum (language awareness) - school closed
• Monday 9th to Wednesday 11th November - Book Fair
• Monday 7th December 2026 - Staff Training - new curriculum (school closed)
• Tuesday 1st June 2027 - Staff Training - new curriculum (school closed)