Week 2 Report – Return to School
Dear Parents
Well done to you all for helping us to have such a great two weeks. The boys and girls are really enjoying being back at school and we love seeing those smiling faces coming in every morning.
Today’s date is a memorable one – 12th March – last year on this day, the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar went on TV at 11.30 in the morning to tell us that schools would close for the next 2 weeks !! Little did we know what was to follow. However, we’re still here and, more importantly, we are back in school again. Your children, when they get older, will tell their children about a time when they were in primary school and the schools were closed due to a virus and how they came through it in spite of all the challenges of isolation, social distancing, cocooning, face masks, hand-sanitiser, home-schooling and online learning !!
On Monday next, all of our classes will return and we will have a ‘full-house’ once again. We will be delighted to see all the older boys and girls back in school and I’m sure they are really looking forward to meeting up with their friends and classmates again. I will send a newsletter to the parents of 3rd-6th classes similar to the one you received on your child’s first day back two weeks ago. I will emphasise the same things as before – the importance of keeping sick children at home and the importance of staying with the guidelines for a few weeks more until we can get the vaccine number up much higher than they are right now.
I am hoping that the parents of 3rd – 6th classes will copy your efforts since your child returned especially in relation to drop-off and pick-up times. We have had a fantastic response to our request for parents to wear masks at the school gate – it’s not a huge ask for the few minutes parents are at the gate but I have to say we are greatly impressed with the high numbers of parents wearing masks over the last few days – we greatly appreciate what you are doing.
Green Day Tuesday 16th March– St Patrick’s Day Celebrations
This time last year we were planning to have a ‘Green Day’on Friday 13th March but we never had a chance to do so. This year we will more than make up for it !! On Tuesday next, the children are asked to wear their colours anything green / white / orange will do. We will not be able to have a parade in Tralee this year but we will make up for this on Tuesday. We will put up lots of photos / video on TEAMS on Tuesday to let you know what activities take place,
MICROSOFT TEAMS
Over the next few weeks and during the final term, the staff and children will continue to develop their computer skills via TEAMS. During the last period of home-schooling, we had a great response from parents and children via TEAMS. I was delighted to meet up with the children online each week and this platform served us all very well.
We will continue to develop our communications with parents through TEAMS between now and the end of the year and hopefully it will help staff to stay in touch with parents and parents with staff. It will also mean an end to the newsletter going out in paper form and hopefully, it will also reduce in a major way, the very costly text messages that are so regularly sent out.
Remember, download the APP, use your child’s email and password to log in, save these login details, and turn on ‘notifications’. A majority of parents have greatly benefitted from the App during our school closure – for those who have problems with this, please let us know and we will help you to get the most form it.
Now that our school is open again, lets all keep doing our best to keep it open
Thank you again for all your support
Denis Coleman
Principal
