Parents Newsletter 26th November 2021

by Brendan Smith / Friday, 26 November 2021 / Published in Newsletters, Uncategorized

Dear Parents

Let me begin by saying Thank You to all of our parents and staff who have continued to work together to help get us through these challenging times. In particular, we are so grateful to those parents who have kept sick children at home, to parents who have contacted the school when they were not sure what to do and to parents who came to school, without delay, when sick children needed to go home from school. All of your efforts have helped us to keep our school open and to keep everyone safe.

We have received new Government guidelines which will be shared with you on our website, via Facebook and via Teams. I have summarised them below for you all but, above all else, we ask you to please remember the following simple rule:

The most important way to protect against any onward spread of infection is that if your child has any symptoms of COVID-19, including a new cough, shortness of breath, high temperature, sore throat, they should self-isolate at home and you should book a COVID-19 PCR test for them.
Children who have symptoms should not use antigen tests, they should stay at home and organise a PCR test for Covid-19. If a parent/guardian has any concerns about their child they should contact their GP, as per normal.

Covid-19 – AntigenTests for Primary School ChildrenHow the programme will work:

When a parent receives a ‘detected’/positive PCR COVID-19 test result on their child, they should notify the school principal immediately.
The school principal will inform the parents of the children in the case’s pod that they are close contacts of a confirmed COVID-19 case, offering the opportunity to order antigen tests from the distribution company.
The antigen tests will be posted to the parents of the children in the pod.
Parents carry out the antigen test on the day that they receive it and every second day until three tests have been done.
The children in the pod can continue to attend school as long as they remain asymptomatic and their antigen test results remain not detected.

If a child’s antigen test indicates a positive result:If an antigen test is positive, the child isolates at home and the child’s parent/guardian logs onto the HSE to request a PCR test.If a child develops symptoms of COVID-19:If at any stage a child becomes symptomatic they should isolate at home and organise a COVID-19 PCR test if indicated. A ‘not–detected’ antigen test holds no value in this situation of a symptomatic child.*********************Please Remember:If your child goes home sick or is already at home sick, please make sure they are symptom-free for 48hrs before they return to school.

Denis Coleman

Principal