I have been told that some parents believe that our new school will be in Lucan village. This is not true. No site has yet been identified. Our only assurance from the Department of Education is that it will be in Lucan. This does not necessarily mean Lucan village and in fact it would be most unlikely in my opinion that the new site would be in the village.

The Department have lists of address of our children and hopefully will come up with a site that will be more easily accessible to our families. The Department and South Dublin County Council are currently in negotiations about this. As I previously explained in an earlier newsletter we are not included in this part of the negotiations due to the commercial sensitivity of land purchase.

I am delighted to let you know that the school has purchased 8 new Interactive Smart whiteboards for your children’s classrooms. 4^th class and 5^th/6^th classes had already access to whiteboards in their classrooms but there were 8 classes who did not. All Esker classes now have this most up to date, state of the art technology at their fingertips. With one push of a button the teacher is control of a multi-media environment and has the facility to open up the world and bring it into the classroom. The class teachers and pupils are very excited about this new purchase. The cost of these 8 whiteboards was €20,000.

There are very few primary schools in Ireland that have access to Smart interactive whiteboards in every classroom. In fact, most schools would have a token one or two for the whole school. As a staff we would like to thank our Board for their work in accessing the funding and researching the project to make us one of the “Smartest” schools in the country. The teaching and learning in the classroom will be greatly enhanced by these purchases and your children will as a result have greater familiarity and confidence using Information Technology. These whiteboards will of course come with us when we move to our new school.

Please check out our May newsletter.

School trips have begun, our extra curricular activities are up and running and we have been entered in to the Inter-school Athletics and Field Competitions in June 2010 (Cumann na mBunscoil). What a busy time we are having!

Please be aware that school security arrangements have changed (see newsletter). It is very important that parents and children help us to make for an even safer school environment.

Swimming classes have begun for participating children (from second  to sixth class)  in Clondalkin Leisure Centre, on Wednesday mornings.  Special thanks are due to Catherine and Siobhán for their help in organising this.  Unfortunately, there are a small number of children who were turned down due to lack of places. These children will be first on the waiting list and guaranteed a place in swimming classes next year. Children in first class will not be swimming next term but will be included in the new school year.

We have been told by the Department of Education and Science that Esker Educate Together will be in its own building by September 2011. This is great news and the most positive indication yet that we will have our own site and own building in the next couple of years. Unfortunately, the Department is not in a position to tell us yet where exactly the new site will be as this information is commercially sensitive. We are assured that the site is in Lucan. As soon as I have further information I will let you know but be reassured that we as a Board of Management and our patron body Educate Together are constantly lobbying for our own school building and are most excited by the prospect about having our own school here in Lucan.

The last few weeks have been very busy in Esker ETNS. Seachtain na Gaeilge and World Book Day were very successful. Between Adamstown Castle ETNS and Esker ETNS, we raised over €1000 towards books for the class and school libraries. You can see more details on the newsletter page.

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) will be held on Thursday, 24 March at 11am. This is your opportunity to have a say and make a difference in your child’s school. The PTA have organised a ‘Bring and Buy’ toy and cake sale this Friday (26 March) from 10-12.30. Please show your support for this event. Please don’t forget that school finishes at 12.10 pm on Friday, and re-opens on Monday, 12 April 2010 at 9.10am.