Dear Parents/Guardians

A reminder, as per our calendar, classes finish at 3:25pm this Thursday 16th January to facilitate the 5th year Parent/Teacher meeting

Dear parents/ guardian, 

As the temperatures are back to normal, students are expected to be in FULL UNIFORM returning to school tomorrow. Please can students also remove any excess jewellery and face piercing to comply with school rules. Thank you for your co-operation and ensuring we uphold the very high standard of uniform at the Holy Family Secondary School. If students are missing any school uniform items, please see Ms Kissane.

Please see attached for full uniform requirements as per the HFSS School Uniform policy and Journal.

Thanks to the wonderful generosity of our school community, today we raised over €1000 for Esme's charity. Thanks also to the TYs (pictured) for their fantastic bakesale contributions.

Dear Parents(s)/Guardian(s)

There will be no school for students next Monday, 13th January as all HFSS teachers will be engaged in professional development training for the Junior Cycle, and in some subject disciplines for the Senior Cycle (Leaving Certificate).There will be some changes for the Leaving Certificate programme that will start with the current Transition Years (they start their Senior Cycle this August in 5th year) We will continue to communicate updates and share information with you about these changes.

The Minister for Education has announced a vision for the redevelopment of Senior Cycle education in Ireland. Full details of the latest update are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/45b09-senior-cycle-redevelopment-what-does-this-mean-for-me/

This page provides parents and guardians with information on some of the key changes to Senior Cycle. It also provides links to webpages/websites where you can find further detail on the changes. 

Over the coming years, the curriculum (called subject specifications) in every subject students study at Senior Cycle will be changing. The first set of revised subjects will be introduced in our school in the 2025/26 school year. These are Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Business.

Dear Parents/Guardians & Students,

We’re excited to share an update on the amazing work being done by the Yellow Flag Programme Diversity Committee here at HFSS! 

As part of this update, we invite you to watch a short video featuring 6th-year student Aisling Irhue, 3rd-year student Sandhiya Kasiviswanathan, and 1st-year student Hope Thwala. In the video, they talk about:

• Introduction and background: Their reasons for joining the committee.
• Achievements so far: The great progress made, including regular Diversity Committee Meetings with representatives from all year groups, distributing Yellow Flag badges to committee members, and using our Notice Board to highlight and celebrate the diversity in HFSS.
• Future steps: Exciting upcoming plans, such as completing step 3 of the programme, the Intercultural Review (with surveys for students and parents coming in the new year), and organising our much-loved Festival of Flavours, which we’ll share more details about very soon.

Click below to watch the video and hear directly from our students!

https://youtu.be/LyC_1JevNg4

Our wonderful school therapy puppy, Esme, has fast become a much loved member of our school community. Esme's placement in our school has been made possible by the charity- My Canine Companion. This Friday (10th January), we are having our first fundraiser for the charity with a non-uniform day and a bake sale.

https://www.mycaninecompanion.ie/mcc-school-therapy-dog-programme

Dear Parent/Guardian,

This week, Jan 7th to 10th, is our second Study Skills Week in school. Students will be given opportunities to think about developing study habits which will be of benefit to them. We encourage you to discuss this with your daughter and share any tips you may have from your own experience. The video linked below was shared with all students this week and may also provide some additional information which can support the development of good study habits.

https://youtu.be/jfREWvtd_DM?si=dhwYQqWvO3FL-dc1

Retrieval practice is the strategy of recalling facts, concepts, or events from memory in order to enhance learning. The act of retrieving something from your memory actually strengthens the connections holding it there, making it more likely that you’ll be able to recall it in the future. 

The retrieval practice is all about bringing information to mind from your memory so to use retrieval practice you have to close your book and put your notes away then you can try to sketch or write out as much of the information as you can remember.

Once you've written everything out or drawn everything that you can you can open the book and check to make sure that you got everything right see what you need to work on more.