Dear parents, guardians,

We are contacting you regarding our campus and car parking facilities.

Our permanent accommodation which is due to commence construction quarter 3 this year will result in our school becoming a car free campus. This was part of Dublin City Council’s conditions for our planning approval.

There are huge benefits of this for us as a school community from a sustainability and green campus perspective and we will actively encourage all staff who live close to our school to walk or cycle to our school each day.

However, at the moment, prior to construction commencing we currently have around 15 car parking spaces available on site for staff who live a significant distance from our school and for whom there is no viable public transport option to help them get in to school each day. Such staff travel into our school each morning from Kildare, Wicklow, North County Dublin and Meath.

The current and future success of our school depends on the recruitment and retention of high-quality staff who believe in our school ethos, our vision for learning and are committed to providing an outstanding second level education to all of our students. To date, we have been fortunate in attracting a superb Deputy Principal and amazing subject teachers and SNAs. As has been well documented in national media over the past number of months, there is currently a significant shortage of second level teachers in Dublin across a wide range of subject areas and we do not want the lack of parking facilities onsite to be an impediment to talented and dynamic teachers who want to teach in our school but for whom public transport options are simply not available.

While we hope that public transport options to Harold’s Cross will improve over the years to come, we urgently need your support and help in the short to medium term.

If you know of any individual, local business, community group or organisation who may have a car parking space or spaces available for members of our staff to use during school hours, we would greatly appreciate if you could forward contact details to office@hcetss.ie. We are eager to identify any such spaces and we have scope to form partnerships with organisations who would like to avail of our sports hall, gym, meeting rooms and conference facilities which will all be delivered as part of our permanent accommodation. We will also explore remuneration options for such individuals or organisations if this would help to secure such spaces.

We would greatly appreciate any help that you can provide.

Kind regards,

Pádraig Conaty                                              

Principal                                                           

First Year Parent Teacher Meeting

Date: 19th January 2023

Time: 4:15pm to 6:45pm

Format: In person at the school

Dear Parent/Guardian/Carer,

As you will be aware, our first-year parent teacher meetings are taking place at the school on Thursday the 19th of January from 4.15pm to 6.45pm. To schedule these appointments, our school will be using the PTM Organiser website.

In our experience, with a year group of this size, the scheduling of appointments ensures significantly less waiting time for parents during the meetings. With many of our teachers teaching 72 students in this year group, scheduling will also help to present realistic options for both teachers and parents in terms of how many meetings can take place. The scheduling of appointments will help to limit the amount of time in which you, the parent, will need to spend at the school site on the evening.

Please follow the steps below to book in your appointment slots for the teachers with whom you wish to meet.

Step 1: Visit the PTMORG website by clicking on the link below

ptmorg.com/parentlogin.php?School=68365A

Step 2: Once you click on this link, you will find that you need to make two entries to continue. The first entry involves the school role number which is 68365A. This should already be prepopulated in the box which says ‘school roll number’.

Step 3:You will also need to input the unique Student ID of your child which can be found on your VSware account. To locate this, you should log into VSware, on the dashboard click on Personal Info and click on School to find the VSware student ID.

Step 4: You can now return to ptmorg.com and log in by inputting the Student ID.

Step 5:Once you login to ptmorg.com, you will be able to choose your preferred appointments. You should enter your preferences by using the up or down arrow in the box to the right of the teacher/subject and by numbering your preferences with‘1’ being the highest preference. If you do not wish to meet a teacher please enter ‘0’ in the box. The system aims to provide you with as many of your higher preference meetings as possible.  Please ensure you hit the continue processing button at the bottom of the page. A notice will then appear at the top of the page telling you that your preferences have been saved. Please do not put the number ‘1’ beside every teacher as this will then result in the system generating meetings on a random basis.

Step 6: Please now logout.

When the programme closes you will be given as many of your top preferences as possible. If you do not get to meet a teacher that you really wish to speak to, please feel free to email the teacher in question and request a call back. It is important to note that many of the teachers at the school have 25 meeting slots but teach over 70 students and this is the reason why it is not possible for you to meet all of your child’s teachers in one evening. Follow up calls can be made on a later date and at a suitable time for all.

Each meeting with a teacher will last a maximum of 6 minutes. This will be the case even if the teacher has your child for more than 1 subject. The bell at the school will sound every 6 minutes.

The window for inputting your choices will close at 8am on Tuesday the 16th of January after which requests cannot be processed. If you do not make your preferences before this time, you will not be scheduled to meet any of your child’s teachers on the evening in question.

The schedule for appointments for each parent will be available to view on Wednesday the 18th of January at 10am. You will be able to view your schedule and the teachers you will be meeting by logging back into the PTMORG website after this time.

We look forward to seeing you at the meetings.

Kind Regards,

Pádraig Conaty, Principal

Mick Heffernan, Deputy Principal

Dear parents/guardians, 

All after school clubs are cancelled today due to 1st years Parent Teacher meeting.

Kind regards, 

School Office

Dear parents/guardians, 

Your parent/teacher meeting schedule is now available to view by logging back into www.ptmorg.com

We look forward to seeing you on Thursday.

Kind regards, School Office

Dear parents, guardians,

We have just received notification from Irish Water informing us that we may need to close our school tomorrow, 18th January and possibly Thursday 19th and Friday 20th January due to mains rehabilitation works taking place in Mount Drummond Avenue, Dublin 6. The works are scheduled to commence tomorrow morning at 8.00am.

Irish Water cannot say at this point how many households, businesses or schools in our local area will be affected. Our understanding is that the scale of the works involved can only be determined once they access the main pipeline tomorrow morning.

We are asking that all students come to school tomorrow as normal and if we get an update from Irish Water throughout the day regarding our supply being disconnected, we will inform you immediately of any school closure. In the event of a school closure, all students will receive resources and school-work to complete via schoolwise.

We apologise in advance for the potential inconvenience caused.

All students have been informed this afternoon of the situation.

You can check www.water.ie for updates on these works. Reference Numbers for updates are DCC00057795 and DCC000057796.

Thank you for your continued support.

Pádraig Conaty                               

Principal      

Mick Heffernan

Deputy Principal

Dear parents/guardians, 

After school football session with Ger is cancelled today as the pitch is frozen.

Kind regrads, School Office

Dear parents/guardians, 

football training is cancelled today 09/12/22 as the pitch is unplayable.

Kind regards, Deirdre

Dear parents/guardians,

On January 6th 2023, Tomi Reichental, a Holocaust survivor, will speak to our third-year students via zoom. It is optional to attend this talk. We would ask that, if possible, all those attending could donate €3 via the app.  The donations will be transferred to Holocaust Education Ireland.

Kind regards, School Office

Reminder - today is the deadline to buy your tickets to our Harold's Cross ETSS first ever talent show via the app. 'For One Night Only' will take place on Wednesday, 14th December in the Assumption Junior National School, Walkinstown. Doors open at 7pm, following by our first performance at 7:30pm. 

Reminder: School will be closed on Monday 5th December as per the school calendar.