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!

The CPC Parents Association are hoping to help us all with our end of summer wardrobe clear out by having a clothes collection on Saturday 23rd of September. Orgnanised in conjunction with Bag2School this clothes colection will also help raised much needed funds for a charity close to our hearts, Laura Lynn House. So put the date into your calendar and start filling those black sacks! 

The student council will host a Civvies non uniform day tomorrow, Friday 27th October. The cost is €2 per student in civvies and they are encouraging fancy dress for Halloween. They tell me that spot prizes will be given for best fancy dress. All money raised will go towards the Build a Well charity and sports equipment in the school.

Thank you for your support.

Please see the link below to learn more about the Food Village service in Cross and Passion College. You must download the app, register and remember to order in advance.

https://foodvillage.ie/cpckk/