Dear Parents/Carers,
We hope you are all keeping well and enjoying the summer break. We are working hard to get ready for our re-opening on Tuesday, 1 September 2020 for all children. Our thanks again for all of your support in the months we were closed. The children did a fantastic job learning from home with your help, and we are very proud of how well our school community kept going in very challenging circumstances.
This week, the Government have released new guidelines for schools to help us plan for all of the children and staff to return safely. A letter from Minister for Education, Norma Foley, to all parents/carers is below.
Our staff team will be working very hard to create new procedures and to ensure all the guidelines we have been given are followed. The children’s safety, and that of our staff, is of paramount importance and will always be at the forefront of our decision making.
We will carefully plan teaching and learning to give children time and space to re-adjust to being at school. We will find out where they are with their learning and give them all the support they need to find their next steps and move forward quickly.
We will continue to support all children with regular hand-washing and promote good hand hygiene and sneezing/coughing into the elbow.
For children who missed their Confirmation and Communion, we will be re-scheduling these very special days in September and October. We will be in touch with families about this in the coming weeks.
For new Junior Infant children, we have special welcome packs ready to send to you in the next few weeks. Junior Infant children will initially come to school just for an hour or two for the first few days to help them settle into a new environment. We will write separately to new parents/carers about these arrangements soon.
Some of the practical things we are doing to get ready for re-opening include:
- Securing additional cleaning services for during the school day
- Purchasing additional cleaning equipment and materials, including hand sanitisers for every room and each entry/exit point
- Ensuring cleaning and hygiene procedures are robust and well-communicated
- Ensuring that there is adequate space in classrooms, especially in 3rd – 6th Class so that children can maintain physical distancing
- Arranging class groupings into bubbles and creating small-group ‘pods’ within each class to support physical distancing
- Creating procedures for children to enter and exit the building safely, including staggering start and finish times so that each class can enter the building through a separate gate, door and staircase, where possible.
- Creating procedures for breaks and lunches so that children have enough space in the playground to keep their distance from children who are not in their class
- Creating procedures for children or adults who may become unwell during the school day
- Changing our existing teaching practices to ensure resources and toys are not shared between pods of children and increasing our cleaning regimes for these items.
We will be asking all parents/carers to remain outside of the school building when we return and to maintain a 2m distance from one another and staff at drop-off and collection times. We will work hard to keep communications clear and regular.
We will ask all families to ensure they follow HSE guidelines, particularly about quarantining if you have been away over the summer. Think carefully about your journey to school and how to do that safely. Walking or cycling are great options, if you can.
We will ask all children and staff to remain at home if they are unwell or show any symptoms of Covid-19. We need to work together to ensure we all stay safe and that schools can open and stay open for children this year.
Watch our video below and follow the links for more information from the Government. We will be in touch with each family closer to opening time in September with more detailed information.
In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns, you can contact Ms. Kelly directly by email – principal@stmarysprimaryschool.ie.
We look forward to seeing you in September!
