The new  Board of Management met for a Saturday session to: become familiar with how the board is administered, how the finances work; and develop a vision for its work over the next four years.

• Confidentiality of discussions and agreed reports are recognized. Protection of the identity of persons and their views at board discussions will be adhered to.
• The question of Board as employer will be placed on an agenda.
• The question of patronage and the ethos will be will be discussed in the context of the school admissions bill
• The need to adopt specific strategies for relaying the information at the end of each meeting.
• Data Protection and pupil information will get priority consideration.
• Designation for the Chairperson to act in loco patron will be sought in writing in regard to the Autism Centre.
• A strategy for getting staff and BOM members to sign off on policies
• We will examine the The Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 and consider the implications of it and the various different arrangements that are expected examining family law.
• The wish list for expenditure will be considered.
• A strategy for further engagement of parents; staff and pupils in BOM work.
• Website contact number;
• Weather contingency – Shelters and cover for wet mornings.
• Development the yard facilities so that they are up to new school standard.

The Department of Education and Skills is developing an electronic database of primary school pupils called the Primary Online Database (POD) which will involve schools maintaining and returning data on pupils to the Department at individual pupil level on a live system. The database will allow the Department to evaluate progress and outcomes of pupils at primary level, to validate school enrolment returns for grant payment and teacher allocation purposes, to follow up on pupils who do not make the transfer from primary to post primary level and for statistical reporting.

The database will hold data on all primary school pupils including their PPSN, First Name, Surname, Name as per Birth Certificate, Mother’s Maiden Name, Address, Date of Birth, Gender, Nationality, whether one of the pupil’s mother tongues is English or Irish, whether the pupil is in receipt of an Exemption from Irish and if so the reason for same, whether the pupil is in receipt of Learning Support and if so the type of learning support, whether the pupil is in a Mainstream or Special Class. The database will record the class grouping and standard the pupil is enrolled in. The database will also contain, on an optional basis, information on the pupil’s religion and on their ethnic or cultural background.

Parents in Scoil Mhuire have submitted the following data when they applied to the school. We have it on the school database already

Teacher/Class Name                                                                          Current Standard  Junior Infants   Senior Infants    First Class    Second Class    

Pupil Forename:                                             Pupil Surname:                                            

PPSN of Pupil      ____________________     

Pupil’s Date of Birth _________________     Pupil’s Gender:    Male                     Female           

Birth Cert Forename (if different from name above)    Birth Cert Surname (if different from name above) __________________________________________                                                                                        

Pupil Address                                               

                                                            ______ 

                                           _____ _____                                                   

County                                                                       

Nationality                                                                 (In the case of dual citizenship where Irish is one, please choose Irish)

This is information now required by the DES. We propose to upload it to the DES website by June 5th unless we hear from parents who do not want their information uploaded.