Re-Opening of the School Building

I hope you and your families are keeping well. As you are aware, our school building was closed on 12th March due to the COVID-19 situation. We are now hoping to re-open our school safely, in line with current guidance and recommendations, on Monday, 31st August for all pupils.

Re-opening the school safely will require the cooperation of all members of our learning community – the Board of Management, school leadership, staff, parents and pupils. We will all be called on to play our part in ensuring that re-opening of the school is done in a safe manner which prevents the spread of the virus and allows the vital work of teaching and learning to proceed with as little disruption as possible.

We are working on our plan for the safe reopening of the school. This plan is being developed in consultation with staff members, the Board and parents. Our BoM will keep you informed as to the progress of our re-opening plans and provide you with the information required by you to play your part in safely re-opening the school.

We would like to invite you to participate in a question and answer session on our plan that will take place next week on Monday evening, 17th August at 19.30. There will be a short presentation on our plan as well as time for questions and comments. This will be done using Google Meets. The method for accessing the meeting will be explained next week.

We are really looking forward to welcoming the children back to school and will be doing all that we can to ensure that the return to school is a safe and enjoyable experience for the children. We will be in touch with you again before school re-opens.

These websites provide more information on COVID19 and government advice and recommendations regarding the re-opening of schools:

  • https://www.education.ie/en/covid-19/
  • https://www2.hse.ie/coronavirus/
  • https://www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/a128d-back-toschool/?referrer=http://www.gov.ie/backtoschool/

A Special Welcome to Our New Families

A big welcome to all of the new families who will be joining our school community this autumn. A particular welcome to our new Junior Infant families. We look forward to meeting you at the end of August. Specific details will follow.

Classroom Teachers

We welcome two new teachers, Lisa Kennedy and Padraic Hickey. Lisa previously worked at Kilcogan Educate Together NS and Galway Educate Together NS. Padraic previously taught at St Joseph’s Special School as well as abroad in the UAE and Japan.

The following teachers will be assigned to each class level this year.

Junior Infants – Vivienne Kelly

Senior Infants – Sarah-Jane Gilmore

1 st Class – Ronan Dunne

2 nd Class – Eileen Duffy

3 rd Class – Áine Ní Chuinneagáin

4 th Class – Lisa Kennedy

5 th Class – Margaret Wright

Support Teachers – Ciara Jordan and Padraic Hickey

Building Works

In addition to preparations for re-opening the school, new exterior doors are being installed, the heating system is being repaired and new blinds will arrive soon. We also will be working hard to install hand-sanitiser dispensers, new paper towel dispensers and other preparations for the reopening of the school.