Dear Parents,
Just one more request with regard to costumes next Friday – please, no clowns, creepy or otherwise! Some of the younger children are genuinely frightened of clowns in all guises.
Secondly, we had a discussion at our teachers’ meeting on the topic of homework. Thank you all for your support of your children and the school in this area.
Two things to bear in mind:
(1) all children from 1st class up are getting the chance to learn an instrument, to read music and to take part in a music group. It’s a fantastic opportunity for them, however it will only be successful for your child if s/he practises for 5 – 10 minutes every day, in addition to their regular school homework. Please do encourage this – it can be hard if your child isn’t making swift progress but slow, steady practice of even one tune really pays dividends. Some children try to pick out pop tunes etc on their instrument and this is also a great thing to encourage as it helps them to invest in their music studies. I heard a great rendition of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Memory” from a 2nd Class recorder student yesterday!
(2) Several of the teachers are setting homework “projects” to be completed over a longer time-frame. Believe it or not, these are intended to be fun! However while the key idea is to put children in charge of their own learning and help them learn the skills associated with producing a sustained piece of work, some parental guidance / input is (probably) required and is (probably) best done by a parent rather than a creche – at the weekend if necessary. A few tips:
Most of the project work that has come in has been very good, so thanks again for all your help.
We’d love to see a few more parent volunteers to help out with hearing reading. Even if you can only spare half an hour per week that would be three or four children getting some special attention. Unfortunately though we can only set this up if you are garda vetted. Hopefully more parents will get the good news soon – so far we have 31 mums and 18 dads vetted, thanks a million. Let me know if you are interested, and of course we are aware that many of you work full-time and cannot make this commitment.
Finally, this is a link to a great article from the Irish Times education page the other day. It sums up a lot of what we are trying to do in maths class. If the link doesn’t work (sorry, not very techie!) just google “Joe Humphreys so you think you’re bad at maths” and you should get it.
http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/so-you-think-you-re-bad-at-maths-think-again-1.2823862
Kind Regards,
April Cronin.
St. Catherine’s National School, Donore Avenue, Dublin 8
Tel: 01 4542679