Dear Parent/Guardian, 

Your son/daughter will be completing the New Group Reading Test (NGRT) on either Wednesday 13th or Friday 15th of September  (depending on their base class). This test determines your son’s/daughter’s reading age, by measuring their reading skills against the national average. The results will inform planning for all subject areas. 

Students in 1A, 1B, 1C and 1E will complete the test on Wednesday. Students in 1D and 1F will complete the test on Friday. 

Your son/daughter requires a standard set of earphones/headphones with an AUX connection  (cannot be bluetooth). If you have a set at home, please send them in with your son/daughter on the relevant day for the test. There is no need to purchase a set, there will be some spare sets available in school on the day. 

Thanks in advance for your cooperation with this. 

Kind Regards, 

Aimee Kelly 

Leader of Student Testing 

Dear parents and guardians,

I hope your son/daughter has settled back in to school well. There is a great energy in CPC and it is very much a case of so far so good!

I am writing to remind you of our expectations around uniform. All students must wear the correct CPC uniform at all times. This means the CPC jumper with crest, blue school shirt, CPC skirt or black trousers. The trousers are not leggings, jeans, tracksuit bottoms, shorts etc. Of course on warm days such as this week the jumper can be removed.

Footwear must be plain black - this means no white toe caps etc. (e.g. Converse)

The PE uniform can only be worn on the day your child has PE. If your child is in years 2-6 and is not wearing the school crested bottoms for any reason, then they must be wearing plain black tracksuit bottoms. Please ensure they do not come to school wearing any other colours.

It is very unpleaseant for us and you to have to phone you at home or at work about your child's non uniform. Please speak with your child about this.

Kind regards

J Leonard

Principal

Dear parents and guardians,

I hope that your son or daughter has settled in well to life in CPC. We have certainly been impressed with how well they are doing so far.

I wanted to remind you that the PE uniform should only be worn on the days when your child has PE. In addition I need to remind you that the PE uniform consists of the CPC 1/4 zip top, the CPC tracksuit bottoms and a pale blue polo shirt.

From Monday all 1st year students must wear the full PE uniform on their PE days including the pale blue polo shirt - these are not crested and can be purchased in multi packs at very reasonable costs in the likes of Dunnes Stores etc.

Your cooperation with this is much appreciated. Students without full uniform will be sanctioned in line with our code of behaviour.

Can I also take the opportunity to remind you that we will hold a short information meeting for 1st year parents/guardians on 19th September at 7pm as per the school calendar. Please ensure each child is represented at this meeting.

Kind regards

J Leonard

Principal

Message from the Department of Education

As part of the ongoing redevelopment of senior cycle, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) is currently updating the Transition Year Programme Statement and developing a curriculum for Senior Cycle SPHE.

A draft TY Programme Statement and SC SPHE curriculum are available for consultation. 

There are several ways to engage with the consultations, all of which are outlined in the links below. We would very much appreciate if you could share the links with your networks and encourage parents, students and teachers to participate in this important aspect of the curriculum development process.

Transition Year | NCCA (closes on October 20)

Senior Cycle Social, Personal and Health Education (SPH… (ncca.ie) (closes on November 3). 

Dear Principal,

The Laura Brennan catch up program for Human Papilloma Virus(HPV) vaccine  has expanded to offer HPV vaccine to boys/males up to and including the age of 21 years. These boys were in school when the vaccine was introduced for first years in 2019 but it was not available to boys in higher school years at the time.

Boys, currently in sixth year, who were in 2nd year in 2019 did not get access to this vaccine. They can now get it, free of charge, through this catch up program.  All other boys in the school currently and all female students  will have been offered it in first year. If they did not avail of it at the time they too can get this vaccine now.  

Laura Brennan campaigned to make this vaccine available to all as she herself battled a terminal illness caused by this virus. This virus can cause, anal, penal cancers, genital warts and throat and neck cancers  in males. In women it can cause, anal, cervical cancer and genital warts and also neck and throat cancers. The HPV 9 vaccine, in a single dose, gives protection to boys and girls against HPV.

In her memory, until December 31st, this vaccine is being made available to females up to 24 years of age  who missed out on this vaccine and now also to males until 21 years of age.

Please can you forward on this information and the above attachment to all parents of  children in your school. We, the school team will continue to visit schools to provide the HPV vaccine along with the  MenACWY and Tdap vaccines to first years.  However parents of first year children may have older children who missed out and would now like to avail of this very effective and important vaccine.

We are running clinics through the Laura Brennan catch up program, on the 25th of October 2023 in the sports Hall, Maynooth College, North Campus and it is available to non-students and students of the college and in the Old Health Centre Newbridge , Henry Street on the 1st of November. Registration is available through www.hpv.ie . It would be useful to share this information with you 4th, 5th and 6th year students who are eligible to consent for vaccines themselves from the age of 16 years.

We will be running a small number of clinics in the south of the county in November which will appear on www.hpv.ie  as they become available. This catch up program finishes in December and vaccines will only be available for first year students after this through national vaccine programs. HPV is a safe and effective vaccine.

Kind regards,

Deirdre Lane

Public Health Nurse

School Immunisation Team,

Kildare West Wicklow

We are eager to learn how young people use popular social media apps like TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter (now X), and others. Sometimes, unpleasant experiences occur on these platforms, and we want to understand them better. Through this survey, we aim to gather insights on young individuals' interactions with various social media features and any exposure to mean or hurtful content. We will not ask young individuals to share any personal experiences, instead, we are are  only interested in knowing if someone encountered such content through specific social media features (like, stories, comments, reels). 

It was lovely to hear that CPC students Jenny Dowling and Eleanor Steed were part of the cast who performed so brilliantly to three full houses recently as part of the Culture Night celebrations. Well done to all!