I would like to take the opportunity to wish everyone a very happy and safe midterm break! Well done to all the students and staff members on a great start to the year. Today was a lovely way to celebrate all we have achieved so far. Thank you to our Student Council under Ms. Magner's guidance who arranged a very special dress up day with our Trick or Treat for Temple Street.

Well done also to the children who received a shout out today for following the PJP Golden rules and treating their classmates with kindness and respect. We look forward to seeing what the second part of this first term brings! There are exciting times ahead with sacramental preparation beginning for second and sixth class, third classes swimming, GAA for fourth classes and STEM lessons for fifth classes to name but a few things!

We are delighted to announce that our Parent Teacher Meetings will take place at the school on Tuesday 22nd and Thursday 24th of November. These face-to-face meetings will take place between the hours of 14: 10 and 17:00 (approximately) on both days. The school will be using Aladdin Connect as the online platform to assign parents to these meetings. Please see the planned dates for the PTM online scheduling below.

• Notification sent to parent(s) about the PTM online scheduling. Newsletter October 28th
• Scheduler released to families with 3 siblings (in the school) 7 November
• Scheduler released to families with 2 siblings 8 November
• Scheduler released to remainder of the school 9 November
• Last date for changes 15 November

Please make sure that you have access to your Aladdin Connect before these release dates above.

We ask that you email the teacher(s) directly if you are unavailable or need to request a phone call instead.

We are looking forward to welcoming and seeing everyone back on site!

Last week was Maths Week and the pupils of PJPs were busy crunching numbers and using their Maths eyes! Each class decorated their classroom doors and took part in Maths activities throughout the week.

Ms Hanly's class were very lucky to be picked as the Maths Week Lotto Winners and attended Steve Sherman's Mathemagical show hosted by Engineers Ireland.

Our Magic Maths Trip! By Casey Hayden and Robyn Ridgeway

Last Thursday Ms. Hanly’s class went to a magic maths show for maths week. It was in Engineer’s Ireland in Ballsbridge. We went through the Port Tunnel when we were on the bus. The mathemagician’s name was Steve Sherman. He was from South Africa. There were 3 other classes there, all from different schools.

First he did a trick with a rubber band. He made it go from his first two fingers to his last two fingers. Then he picked somebody to think of a number between 1 and 63. He asked if it was on 6 different cards. After the girl said “yes” or “no” he guessed the number the girl was thinking of.

Then he did a trick where he poured water into a cup. He mixed the cups around. Steve picked someone to guess which cup had water in it. The boy guessed right but no water came out. The reason why no water came out was because there was part of a baby’s nappy inside the cup what soaked up the water.

Steve did another trick with ketchup where he made a pet ketchup in a water bottle called Ketchi. He could get Ketchi to move by giving him instructions. He also showed us a trick about folding €50 10 times (its’s impossible).

We had so much fun!!

School Garden

Many thanks to Gregor who helped us to assemble our new hedgehog house.

We have harvested all our carrots and planted some special winter onions and garlic which we hope to have ready by late spring/early summer.

Ms Hayden's Maskerspace trolley

We are delighted with our new makerspace mobile trolley here in PJP!

Makerspaces are collaborative workspaces for learning, exploring, making and sharing. A makerspace provides creative, hand-on ways to encourage students to collaborate, invent, design and build their STEM projects. There has been great excitement in classes when Ms. Hayden has arrived with the trolley for STEM lessons! Here are some examples of recent STEM projects built using our new mobile makerspace:

Six Bricks

Our second and third class children have been enjoying a new initiative - the Six Bricks Programme. Ms. Hayden has been delivering this programme as part of her STEM teacher role.

Six Bricks is a hands-on tool for learning. Through short, fun activities with sets of LEGO® DUPLO® bricks. in six bright colours, children can practise their memory, movement, creativity and more.

When children are engaged and challenged in playful ways, children practise skills for learning:

• ·Language such as describing in rich detail, giving clear instructions, explaining your reasons, and telling stories, which helps you to communicate with others and express your ideas.
• Problem solving including to stay focused, and remember a task or a challenge, set goals and make plans, come up with creative ideas, and reflect on what you do and how you do it.
• Collaboration as in working together in pairs or teams, share turns and the materials you work with, learn from your peers and their ideas, and give each other roles and responsibilities.

The Six Bricks activities are short, simple exercises designed to wake up the brain and get a child moving, thinking and remembering. The activities are not intended to be a curriculum, but they do support all areas of development in the curriculum.

If you would like to try some Six Bricks activities at home, check out:

https://www.legofoundation.com/media/1070/sixbricks_ok_print.pdf

Look at some of the spooky treats and art that different students have made and decorated with Ms. O'Connor. Ms O'Connor and Mr Leahy work together to support different students who might need a little extra support for various reasons such as bereavement, anxiety, differing family circumstances, illness in the home etc... Please do not hesitate to contact your child's class teacher or Ms. Markey should you feel your child may need some short term additional support

Ms McCarthy's fifth Class enjoying the story The Haunted Lake by P.J. Lynch by firelight

By Ethan Kelly (Ms. Creavin’s Class) and Eoin Hendrick (Ms James’ Class)

The trials were on Monday in Sonesta and we played two matches, we found out who made it into the team on the Friday.

The next Thursday we had a match against Raheny in Saint Ann’s Park which we won by twelve points. We were delighted about our first win and all of the subs did really well.

The next Thursday we played Holy Family and although it wasn’t a very close game, we still had to work hard to get the win. Everyone got a chance to come on and everyone played well.

The next Thursday we were up against Bellgrove. It was our toughest game so far but we played really good and scored some really good goals – and we won by seventeen points.

Our next game was against a team from Castleknock and we scored an early goal and they didn’t really get a lot of scores so we ended up winning by a good bit, so we were through to the semi-finals.

In the semi-finals we were up against St. Mary’s School in Castleknock. The boys played really good but St. Mary’s were too strong and scored a few cheap goals. They ended up winning by 6 points. All the boys were devastated but were determined to win the Fingal League.

Our Journey to the PJP Team by Eva Healy-Dillon (Ms. McDaid’s Class) and Áine Sheerin (Ms. Millar’s Class)

We started off with trials with Ms. McDaid, Ms. James and Ms. Conneely where we did some drills and a few matches, on Wednesday. On the Friday we found out if we made the team or not. When we went to our first training, we knew we had a very strong panel. We were very excited for our first match.

We all met in the foyer and then got lifts up to the match. We were playing against Ollies and knew a few people on the team. It started off as a tight match but then we managed to get a few goals which settled the game.

Our next game was in Broomfield against Rush. It was a very tight game which ended in a draw. We were happy with the result because it was a tight match.

Our last group game was against Holy Family. We really enjoyed the game and everyone played. We wont by more than 10 points. We knew we had made it to the quarter final

Editor's Note: Well done to the Boys and Girls on a fantastic start to the year! A sincere thanks to the teachers for volunteering and encouraging our super teams!

Well done to Ms. Reddy and Ms. Longeran for making such a big effort for our Trick or Treat for Temple Street!

The Coiste na Gaeilge is now up and running and thank you to all the members of 5th class that have got involved. You can watch our weekly 'Frásaí na seachtaine' (phrase of the week) tutorial videos on our school website https://www.pjp.ie/gaelbhratach/. Members of the Coiste na Gaeilge will take turns each week to create the video.

We updated our Gaelzón board with an Oíche Shamhna theme. Every year level has been trying to add a little more Irish to their school assembly. This week 5th class performed a wonderful 'Comhrá beirte' and 4th class learned the poem 'Duilleoga Deasa'.

For any parents/guardians wanting to improve their Irish we have added some very helpful resources to our Gaelbhratach webpage

The Student Council would like to thank everyone for getting involved in their first ever fundraiser - 'Trick or Treat for Temple Street'. There was a lovely atmosphere about the place and some amazing , creative costumes.

This event ties in with our 'Rights Respecting Schools award'. Each member of the Student Council has been teamed up with a 'Buddy Class' from the junior end of the school. The council have visited their buddy classes on a few occasions to teach them all about 'Child Rights'.

They have achieved the first part of our year one programme- displaying children's rights around the school and developing awareness.

Every member of the Student Council was presented with a special badge at their recent assembly so keep an eye out for them!

Keep an eye on our progress on our school website blog https://www.pjp.ie/pjp-student-council/ or on the school twitter page.

Rehearsals are going really well. We are all very excited about going to the RDS in February. The Kids Dance Medley has been a huge hit and also the Pop Medley. Our next rehearsal date is TBC due to parent teacher meetings and staff meetings so we will let the children know after mid- term break.

All of the 5th classes did a cycling course. It started in mid September in Malahide Castle. We went to the classes and did an introductory talk with the classes for the rules of the road and how to stay safe.

Then we went to three classes in Malahide Castle, practicing on the bikes, doing hand signals, how to turn properly on the road and also navigating on the busy roads.

When they took us out on the road, we did a loop from the school around Sonesta. We did the different junctions. We practiced and we also learned what is a safe distance.

What we have learned in cycling is very important to know. We also did another talk and learned about different signs on the road and what they mean. This cycling course helps us to learn different things that are needed to be known for cycling, especially on the road.

Editor's Note: Well done to all the boys and girls especially the students who learned to cycle for the first time! Ms Bennet's class are pictured below!

On Sunday 23rd October, Denis Smirnov from Mr. Murphy’s 5th class won a gold medal in his Judo Competition in Dublin. He overcame great odds to achieve this victory, especially considering he injured his foot badly the week before. Denis had 3 fights against very worthy opponents, but he was too strong and overpowered them after some excellent action. This win for Denis who is a Blue Belt, sets him up nicely for the All-Ireland competition on December 11th. We wish Denis the very best of luck in his Judo Career!

On 22nd October the pupils from Room 17, Ms Osborne’s fourth-class ran a very successful Halloween Bake Sale and raised a whopping €700 for Crumlin Children’s Hospital.

We thank everyone who donated by buying or baking cookies, brownies, cakes and more. Many helped to make this possible.

Go Raibh Míle Maith Agat

A sincere thank you to the outgoing PA Chair Lorraine Sibley for her hard work over the last few years. A warm welcome to Deborah McCabe who takes up the roll of Chair.Thank you to all the committee members and we look forward to a great year with the PA and lots of exciting events!

Our PA Committee members are:

Deborah McCabe, Chair
Sinead Clinton, Vice Chair
Kelly Sheehan, Secretary
Gráinne Byrne, Vice Secretary
Marie Cunningham, PA Treasurer
Orla O’Donnell, Vice Treasurer
Lorraine Sibley, Committee member
Emma Byrne, Committee member
Hannah Irvine, Committee member
Liz Gilmartin, Committee member
Irene Odunsi, Committee member
Caitriona Halpin, Committee member
Sarah Hare, Committee member

The PA recently held a uniform sale and raised a total of €283. There will be another uniform sale later in the year.