We are lucky to live near some fantastic Horse Chestnut trees in the Curragh of Kildare, so it made perfect sense to make use of the plentiful supply of chestnuts at this time of the year and have a conkers championship!!
In a hard fought competition, Shane Nevin proved to be the Conker's King, pipping Aaron Shelley in a great final :) The boys really enjoyed this age old game and they are itching to go again, and have a crack at the champion himself, Shane Nevin :)

Dear Parents,
                  It with great pleasure that I am inviting you to a very important Open Evening in the school on Monday 22nd next at 6pm. The aims of this evening are:

• To give parents and guardians the opportunity to become familiar with the new Code of Behaviour in the school. It is of vital importance to us, as a school, that our parents and guardians are in touch with how our code works, and I will be giving a short little talk and answering any questions you may have about the code :)
• Also, to give parents of each class a chance to talk as a group to their sons' classroom teachers. This evening will hopefully allow the class teacher the opportunity to answer any questions you may have about homework, attendance, copies, stationary etc.

Your attendance at this evening is really important to us and we really appreciate your efforts to make it. The whole evening should take less than an hour. Looking forward to seeing you on Monday.
                                                                                                 Mr Healy                                                     

Dear Parents & Guardians,
                      I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome back all our boys from their summer holidays. As I write this newsletter I can certainly say that they have come back to school with a fantastic attitude and have already created a lovely atmosphere around the school through their hard work and positivity.

There are a couple of very important announcements that I would like to draw your attention to. Firstly, we are happy to announce that we have drawn up a new Code of Behaviour for Scoil Naomh Pádraig. We hope that through this new code, we can ensure that the fantastic behaviour of our students is recognised, acknowledged and rewarded. The document can be found at the end of this post and we will be holding an Class Open Evening for parents during September where we look forward to sharing the new code with you in more detail. This date will be announced in the coming days...

The month of September is a busy and demanding month for the parents of our pupils and that is why we are very appreciative of all the payments received to date. These contributions are vital to the school in our attempt to provide your sons with the best resourced education that we possibly can. We are hoping to buy new resources for the school this year and every cent that we receive will enhance your son's education I promise you that. Just to remind you of the amounts we are seeking this year; Arts, Crafts & Journal costs €25 per child & €40 per family, and 3rd - 6th Class also have the Book Rental fee of €30 per child & €50 per family. As I discussed last June, we have also had to introduce a very reasonable €10 per term nominal charge for our healthy and nutritious Bradbury's school lunches, and with the lunch orders going out this week I would hope that they could be returned with the €10 :) 

Finally, if any parent or guardian wishes to speak to either myself or any of the other teaching staff then I would ask if they could arrange a meeting through Pam in the office or through their child's journal. We will be happy meet you at a time closest to your convenience.  

regards,
        Jonathan Healy, Principal

26th June,2014
Dear Parents & Guardians, 
                    It is with great pride that I write my first newsletter as the new Principal of Scoil Naomh Pádraig here in the Curragh Camp. I have come down from St Thomas SNS in Jobstown, Tallaght having taught there for 11 wonderful years. 
                    It is an honour to succeed Ms Doyle here in the Curragh and I would like to express my thanks to Ms Doyle & Ms Rowley and the rest of the staff for their work here over the course of the last year. It is clear that there has been an enormous amount of work done and the positive Whole School Evaluation (WSE) report, to which you can find a link on the school website, is testament to this.
                    I am a Newbridge native and have had close links to the Curragh my whole life. My mother and grandmother were both born on the Curragh and my father was a member of the Band of the Curragh Command for his entire career. Whilst I may have not taught in the local area I am very aware of its proud history and tradition. I look forward to meeting you all and in particular to teaching the boys in next year’s 5th/6th class.
                    Before we break for the holidays there are a few matters that I would like to bring to your attention. I would like to congratulate the students and staff on what was by all accounts a successful Active Schools Week. With activities ranging from boxing to cycling to aerobics the week proved a huge success and takes us one step closer to our goal of achieving an Active Schools Flag and special thanks goes to Ms Bailey for all her hard work on the Active Schools project. On that note, we would like to wish Ms Bailey a fond farewell and best of luck in her new school for next year. She has given the school 11 years of quality service and we wish her all the best in her new post.
                    I would also like to say a special thanks to Jack Carroll in 6th class who rose over €100 for the school through his sponsored cycle. Well done Jack, we are very grateful and proud of your achievement.
                    Also, a special thank you to all the parents who bought books at our recent book fair, as you know the school received a sum of money from each book purchased and I am delighted to say that as a result of your purchases we were able to buy a large amount of new books for each class’ personal library.
                    One of the recommendations from the recent WSE was that the school should introduce a new reading scheme. This involves quite a high initial spend for the school on sets of readers for each class. This, in addition to the current situation where we are spending a large amount for school lunches, has left the school in a tight spot. We are conscious that there is already considerable pressure on parents’ finances so we have decided to focus on our school lunches rather than the reading books. In September we will be introducing a small fee of €10 per term for the lunches provided by Bradbury’s. These healthy lunches are a
testament to the high standards of Bradbury’s and we feel that this small contribution provides excellent value for money. Of course this money can be paid in installments, feel free to contact me for more
details.
                     Finally, I would like to wish all of our students and their families a safe and enjoyable summer and I look forward to my first full year as principal beginning next September.
                                                            Yours Sincerely,
                                                                            Mr Healy, Principal