Portlaoise ETNS Board of Management 
Agreed Report
29th January 2024
This was the first meeting of the new board of the new term 2023 – 2027
Patron Nominee – Jane Heffernan (Chairperson) & Liang Feng
Principal – Sinéad Harte
Teacher Nominee – David McCabe
Parent Nominees – Sinéad Murray & Shane Coleman
Community Nominees – Siobhan Ryan & TBC
| Offers have gone out to Junior Infants for 24/25 | ||
| SNA review – The school has applied for Additional SNA support and the SENO will complete a review in February | ||
| Staff utilised HRA hours for the following: CPD – Trauma Informed Practice CPD –Niamh MC Guirk- Belief System, ethos and conceptual enquiry approach. Staff Meeting | ||
| Erasmus | Job Shadow Project to a school in Slovenia. Involving Rozz, Sinead H, Mairead and Sarah Thanks to Hazel and Rozz for coordinating Erasmus | |
| Towards Inclusion Joint Project | Sinead K’s 5th class will work with a teacher and group from St. Francis on this project. | |
| School Self Evaluation School Ethos – Equality | SSE Team members responding to feedback from surveys are organising – Against Racism Day & Cuisine Day for the pupils with the support of parents/guardians. Thank you to all involved! | |
| Persona Dolls Training | We will be one of the first schools in Ireland to train in using Persona Dolls – will be used to initiate conversations / issues such as inclusion, diversity etcA number of staff have begun training. | |
| BLAST Artist in Schools | Shannen’s class will work with an Architect for a number of weeks 6th class will showcase their project work on February 1st. | |
| GAA | Training for 1st & 2nd classes took place in January | |
| Say Yes to Languages | We applied for this and were delighted to be included! Elena (PETNS Teacher) will work with 3rd and 4th classes on an 8 week sampler of Spanish Lessons starting later this month.Grant will be given for teaching resources. | |
| School Meal Funding | The school applied for Hot Meal funding and were successful.When this starts (date tbc) all children in the school will be eligible to receive a hot lunch every school day – with no cost to parents! Parents have the option of availing of the hot lunch and can change their minds at any time if they prefer to send in a packed lunch.Parents will be able to order lunches from an App.More information to follow. | |
| Expansion | Due to the school places shortage in Portlaoise the Department of Education were very eager for us to take on at least one additional class in September ‘23 which we agreed to do.Initially the DE informed us that we would receive modular Accommodation during the October Midterm break. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. The DE have now appointed a Project Manager, Rogerson Reddan & Team who visited on January 16th. They now confirm that the 4 Classroom Modular building and services should be completed ahead of the new school year. The Department assure us that they are working on a long term plan and will revert to us on that when they can. | |
| HSA Inspector | Eamonn O’Sullivan – Inspector with HSA called out to do a workplace inspection.Feedback was good. | |
| Policy Review | 2 policies were reviewed for the Board meeting – Whistleblowing (Protected Disclosures in the Workplace) PolicyCCTV Policy | |