November 2025

Dear Parents/Guardians,

As we come to the close of a busy and rewarding November, I want to take a moment to reflect on all that we have achieved over the past few weeks. It has been a month filled with learning and celebration and I could not be prouder of our students, staff, and families for the energy and dedication you bring to our school each day.

November is often a turning point in the school year—students have settled into their routines and classrooms are thriving with rich learning experiences. This month has been no exception. From classroom projects, Science Week, Peace Proms preparation, visiting coaches and sporting activities to name a few, our students continue to impress us with their creativity, curiosity, and hard work.

A sincere thank-you goes out to our school staff, whose commitment and dedication shines through in everything they do, helping to create the warm, positive environment that defines St. Anne’s NS.

I would also like to extend heartfelt appreciation to our families. We know how busy family life can be, and we are genuinely grateful for the time and care you invest in helping our boys and girls to succeed. This was evident in the conversations that happened during parent-teacher meetings last week. The strength of our school community truly rests on the strong relationships between home and school, and this month has been a wonderful reminder of that.

As we look ahead to December, I encourage everyone to continue supporting one another and celebrating the small moments of progress and joy. In collaboration with our PSG, we’ve lots of fun activities planned for December and we know another action-packed month ahead awaits us.

Kind regards,

Dominic Tyrrell

Our school email address is office@stannesardclough.ie.

The school office telephone number is: 01-6273367.

We are incredibly proud to announce that our school has been awarded the Cumann na mBunscol Large School of the Year award for 2025. This prestigious honour recognises our school’s ongoing commitment to promoting Gaelic games and fostering a spirit of teamwork and sportsmanship among our students. It was presented to our school at the Cumann na mBunscol AGM on Tuesday 25th November.

Throughout the year, our pupils have shown remarkable dedication - training hard, supporting one another, and representing our school with pride at every event. This award also reflects the tremendous work of our school staff, whose enthusiasm and guidance help make sport such a positive part of school life here in St. Annes. We extend a heartfelt thank-you to everyone involved for their support of sport in St. Annes. We thank our parents for the support and encouragement of our teams and the boys and girls for always representing St. Anne’s so proudly and positively. This achievement belongs to our entire school community, and we look forward to building on this success in the years ahead.

Here’s just a little snapshot of the successes that we experienced in Cumann na mBunscol competitions during 2025:

· Senior Boys Football - Winners

· Senior Girls Football - Winners

· Senior Boys Hurling - Winners

· Senior Camogie – Semi-finalists

· U10 Football - Runners-up

· U11 Boys Football - Winners

· U11 Boys Hurling - Winners

· U11 Girls Football - Group stages

· U11 Camogie – Semi-finalists

· Scór na bPáistí - School of the Year

· Overall – Large School of the Year

The Department of Education and Youth are inviting you to take part in the Primary School Survey. This is your opportunity to help shape the future of primary school provision in our area. The short online survey asks for your views on:

• Whether your school should be co-educational or single-sex.
• Whether your school should operate under a denominational or multi-denominational patron.
• Whether your school should provide education primarily through the English language or Irish language.

Survey details: Complete online at: gov.ie/primaryschoolsurvey

Your response is confidential and anonymous, and every voice matters. Please take a few minutes to complete the survey and encourage others to do the same.

Huge congratulations to our boys and girls who proudly represented our school at the Kildare Badminton Championships in Leixlip on Wednesday, 26th November. Both boys’ teams played exceptionally well, achieving excellent results by finishing in 3rd and 4th place—a fantastic achievement in a very competitive field. They should be very proud of themselves!

Our super girls’ team were victorious on the day, delivering outstanding performances throughout the competition to remain unbeaten. They were delighted to come away from the event as Kildare Champions. They now go forward to represent our school at the Leinster Championships at the end of January, and we wish them the very best of luck.

A sincere thank-you to Mrs. Knightly for her dedication and commitment in coaching the teams, and to the parents who travelled to support and encourage the boys and girls on the day. We are incredibly proud of all our players for their effort, sportsmanship, and school spirit.

We are delighted to let parents know that our school, St. Anne’s, will be taking part in the Food Dudes healthy eating programme from 1st–5th December. This exciting initiative is designed to encourage children to enjoy fruit and vegetables as part of a healthy, balanced diet. It builds on the programme that we ran in our school last year.

Throughout the week, pupils will take part in fun, engaging activities, tastings, and lessons that promote positive food choices in a motivating and age-appropriate way. We look forward to seeing our students develop healthy habits that will benefit them for life.

We appreciate your support in encouraging healthy lunches during this week and beyond as we work together to promote wellbeing in our school community. Further information can be found on the attached letter.

On Thursday, our 3rd and 4th class pupils enjoyed a fantastic visit from the Heritage in Schools scheme with guest speaker Vincent Butler. Vincent spoke to the children all about fossils and brought the topic to life through a range of fun, hands-on and interactive activities.

The boys and girls were fully engaged as they learned about ancient creatures, examined replica fossils, and asked lots of great questions. It was a highly educational experience and, most importantly, great fun for everyone involved! Thanks to Sinéad in the Office for organising this for our boys and girls and to Vincent for making it such a memorable event for the children.

We would like to give a warm welcome to our new student council reps from 6th class. They were elected through a by-election held at the end of October. Well done for putting yourselves forward and we look forward to working together this year. The other classes have retained their reps from last year as we run a two-year cycle for the student council in our school.

We want to take a moment to share some highlights of the wonderful activities organized by St. Anne’s Student Council this month for science week, led by the pupils from the council. We did a daily broadcast over the intercom to the whole school to announce a science quiz question in the mornings and set up a science discovery room with Ms. Dunne for all the classes in the school to visit.

We are very proud of our Student Council in St. Anne’s. They are dedicated to making the voices of the pupils in St. Anne’s heard.

A super bunch of future leaders.

Missing from photo - Daniel Blake

Many thanks to everyone who attended their child's parent-teacher meeting last week. It's a great opportunity to meet with your child's teacher and to discuss your child's learning. Parent-teacher meetings for junior and senior infants will take place after Christmas.

At our monthly assemblies we will be presenting the Spirit of St. Anne's award to one child from each of our classes. This award links in nicely with our 'Bí Cineálta (Be Kind)' policy where we are praising our children for showing kindness, compassion and care to themselves and to others around them. The November winners of the Spirit of St. Anne's award are:

Our boys and girls are making a huge effort to improve their handwriting and presentation of their work. Each month we will be awarding the 'Handwriter of the Month' certificate to one boy or girl in each class. This award is for children who are trying their best, at their level, to improve their handwriting and presentation skills. The winners for November are:

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.

Our school was buzzing with curiosity and excitement as we celebrated Science Week! All of our classes engaged in hands-on experiments, interactive challenges, and thought-provoking explorations that encouraged them to ask questions, think creatively, and discover the world around them.

From classroom investigations to whole-school activities, Science Week highlighted the joy of learning and the importance of scientific thinking in our everyday lives. A big thank-you to Ms. Dunne and the Student Council for planning engaging activities for all of our classes and for the daily challenge that they shared on the intercom. Science Week was a great success, and we look forward to continuing to nurture a love of science throughout the year!

We are delighted to announce that we have completed the procurement process for the Hot School Meals scheme for primary schools. After a long and competitive process, we have selected The Lunchbag as the company that will provide lunches to our school. The next stage of the process involves setting our school up on the Lunchbag's system and the creation of access codes for all of our families. We will also have to agree specific logistics for the roll-out of the scheme in our school, whilst also completing the funding process with the Department. These systems take time to establish as we need to ensure that we are set-up for success from the outset. We endeavour to launch our Hot School Meals after the Christmas break and we will share more information on this closer to the time.

Each November, our school takes time to mark “In November, We Remember” as a special opportunity to think about and pray for loved ones who are no longer with us. November is traditionally a month of remembrance, when we reflect quietly and with gratitude on those who have been part of our lives and are always in our hearts. Special thanks to Ms. Cassells and her class for looking after our November Sacred Space.

Our PSG have been busy working in the background supporting the work that is happening in our school. Please see below some updates from the team in relation to upcoming events:

Christmas Charity​

It's nearly that time of year again where St Anne's children and parents donate to a very worthy cause for Christmas. This year, instead of our annual shoebox appeal, we will be making up a hamper from each class to donate to charity "Help the Hidden Homeless". Each child will get to pick one item from a list to donate towards a hamper. All details will be given by class teacher on December 1st. Many thanks in advance for your support. ​

Christmas Fun Day​

We have a great day for the children planned on 17th December – some fun Christmas games, face-painting, treats and a visit from Santa!​

Christmas Trees​

There's still just about time to order a beautiful real Christmas tree through the PSG. Orders need to be placed through Dee 0874109048 by end of 28th November. ​

Christmas Cards​

The fabulous cards the children designed/coloured have been ordered and children should receive them very soon. Our thanks to all parents for their support in purchasing these special cards.​

Fundraising​

We continue to work towards two areas of all-weather surfacing in the playgrounds as well as wider support to team buses, confirmation and communion parties etc. Lots more to come on this in the new year!

Junior infants have been busy learning all about penguins, doing lots of fun Aistear activities and also preparing for their upcoming Christmas show and school assemblies. They are also making super progress with their phonics and numbers in class.

We have been very lucky to have Ms. Jacob (student teacher) working with our class this month. She has done so many interesting, fun and active-learning lessons with us. We especially enjoyed learning about Heat while making rice krispie buns, exploring shapes in the yard during a 2D shape hunt and testing out materials to make Welly Boots for Billy the teddy! We had a special celebration for her last day with us- a pyjama party!!

Ms. Malone's class were very busy during the month of November. They have been working hard to prepare for their Christmas show and also for our November assembly. The boys and girls have been learning all about the Post Office in Aistear this month. They even wrote letters and got to walk to the post box to send them to their loved ones. Keep an eye on your letterbox at home... there could be something special coming your way!

First class have been very busy this month! They enjoyed experimenting with static electricity, opaque and transparent objects and magnetism. They also created some wonderful artwork including stained glass windows and clay hedgehogs.

Written by Adam Wall, Bella O’Shaughnessy and Liam O’Reilly

In November, we said goodbye to Ms, Lancaster. She was our student teacher, and she gave us a PJ Party and rice Krispie cakes, popcorn and hot chocolate. It was so fun! We did Science Week and we did an ice experiment and saw how quickly it melted. Now, we are doing athletics, hurdles, running and javelin for PE. And we did a réamhaisnéis na hAimsire as Gaeilge to show the weather on the greenscreen and that was SO FUN!

Click on the images below for some lovely videos.

Second Class had great fun this month as it was Science Week. They enjoyed lots of exciting experiments and hands-on activities, including building towers from spaghetti and marshmallows, making a rain cloud using shaving foam and food colouring, and exploring how mould grew on bread after being exposed to different surfaces around the school. The class loved getting involved, asking questions, and discovering new ideas through each activity.

Third class read the Irish myth ‘The Salmon of Knowledge’. We worked in groups to make a ‘freeze frame’ of our favourite part of the story.

Ms Hassett’s superstars have had a very busy month of learning and fun! For science week we enjoyed science stations such as exploring whether oil and water would mix, exploring the effect of soap when added to milk and food colouring, creating a chemical reaction with baking soda and vinegar and we also enjoyed taking part in a DIY lava lamp activity. Everyone was very patient and did a fantastic job at taking their turn at each station. We have enjoyed messy play by making our own playdoh and also used shaving foam to practise our letters and numbers. We have been on many 2D and 3D shape hunts around the school as well as sound and sight word hunts. We created a magical winter art display with mittens, robins and snowflakes. We also explored the story of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and enjoyed painting all of the food that he ate. We have really enjoyed music with Leo from Music Generation this month and have been working on singing to familiar songs and imitating short simple beats on our percussion instruments. The boys and girls have been fantastic this month and we made cookies as a treat! Everyone did a super job at helping in this activity – they were delicious!

November was very busy for 3rd class. We started learning multiplication, designing parachutes in Science, writing our own procedures and celebrated all our hard work with a pyjama party. We created amazing designs for parachutes to stop an egg from cracking. We investigated it, and only two of our designs successfully kept the egg safe! It was great fun watching the eggs crack! We followed a procedure to make rice Krispie buns. We enjoyed playing lots of drama games. Vincent Butler came for a Heritage Visit and gave a brilliant and interesting talk about Life on the Edge and Sea and Seashore. We had the best time!

Another busy month in Room 11. Check out some of the photos of what we got up to during the month of November. The class have also been very busy practising their Peace Proms songs in preparation for December's rehearsal.

This month 4th Class made parachutes and had lots of fun testing these. We enjoyed making maps of our school and learning about the differences and similarities between Co. Kerry and Co. Kildare. We are working hard to learn lots of new songs for the Peace Proms also.

Click on the image to see one of our parachutes in action!

Ms. McCarthy's 5th Class

Room 14 have been working hard on their Gaeilge during the month of November and they put together this little video to share some upcoming weather forecasts for the area!

Click on the image to start the video.

Mr O’Leary’s fifth class created their own puppets using various materials in an art lesson. They then scripted dramas and used their characters to put on a puppet show for the rest of the class in drama class. In the next while we will be combining all the new puppets and hopefully creating a puppet show that we can show to some junior classes.

Ms Cassells sixth class have been using the theme of the Vikings in their learning for November. They explored the Viking sea routes, learned about the Battle of Clontarf, are in the process of making Viking longboats and sketched them for Visual Art. They also got to play tag rugby which was very enjoyable.

This month, we learned about “The Heart”. We represented the heart artistically to get a sense of its structure. We read, and watched a video, to understand how the circulatory system works in our body.

We also learned that different substances in our kitchen are acidic and alkaline. We tested these with a home-made cabbage water PH indicator and ranked the substances from most acidic to alkaline.

In Art, we created “Trash-bag” and “Polystyrene” Prints to create abstract and representational art pieces.

We were lucky enough to have three rugby sessions with a Rugby Coach from Barnhall. The children really enjoyed the different activities that JP organised.

Please remember that there will be no school for the boys and girls next Wednesday 3rd December. This is to facilitate whole staff training in the updated Child Protection Procedures.

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.

• Monday 1st to Friday 5th December - Food Dudes Week
• Wednesday December 3rd - School closed for children (staff training - Child Protection)
• Friday 12th December - Infants Christmas performance (school hall)
• Tuesday 16th December - Carol Service (on webcam in Church) - full uniform please
• Wednesday 17th December - PSG Christmas fun day (Christmas attire encouraged)
• Friday 19th December - Half Day for Christmas Holidays (Christmas attire encouraged)