Our school community benefits greatly from having a full-time Home School Community Liaison co-ordinator.
Orla Walsh works constantly to reinforce and build further partnership between pupils, teachers, parents and local community organisations to improve the educational welfare of children in Claddagh N.S.
Here are just some of the activities the families in Claddagh National School have been involved in:
Free weekly English language classes in the school for parents who have newly arrived in Ireland.
A “Súgradh le Chéile” (Playing Together) workshop in the school, which facilitated active play between parents and children.
A weekly 5 K run on a Wednesday mornings at the Westside Running track. This run was set up by the HSCL and has since been taken over by the parents themselves. Gary Thornton, one of our teachers and a well-known athlete, prepared a running programme for them to get them to a 5K level of fitness , and with that, they completed their first 5K charity run on the Salthill Prom at Christmas. They went on to participate in the “Darkness into Light” run.
A large number of parents participated in a seven-week “Keep Fit” programme on Tuesday eveninsg in the school before Christmas. The parents involved have since continued to attend classes that the instructor is facilitating in her own gym.
A ten-week Mindfulness programme for Parents was organised and took place in the Westside Library during the Autumn term.
A sports nutritionist facilitated a session with the parents in February. It included information on diet, what your body needs when training, the importance of hydration, and pre-and post-workout work out meals.