Letter from the Principal Regarding the Opening of School for the 2020-2021 School Year

Dear Parents/Guardians,

I hope you and your families continue to enjoy the summer holiday. All of the teachers, staff and I have been thinking of our pupils during the summer and we are looking forward to meeting up with them all again in the coming weeks.

The summer has been a very busy one in school with the preparation for the re-opening. The Department of Education has been busy sending us up-dates to their plans, and this has involved much planning and organisation of an appropriate response plan at school level. There have been many challenges to overcome, but we are doing our best to overcome these and with your goodwill and cooperation we will open successfully for the 2020-2021 school year.

 We are upgrading our procedures and routines within the school to ensure that there is as much physical distancing as is possible in our school building. We aim to apply physical distancing in as sensible and practical a way as possible.

Physical Distancing will be achieved in two main ways:

Increasing Separation.  This will be achieved by ensuring that the classroom desks and furniture will be rearranged, in as much as this is possible, to maximise physical distancing. The DES is referring to each classroom as a ‘bubble’. We we will do our best to ensure that there is as little contact as possible between children in different bubbles in school.  Within the bubbles, children may be organised into pods(groups).  A pod is a group of children (normally up to 6) who will sit together and who will stay in their pod while in the bubble (classroom).

Decreasing Interaction. This will be achieved by decreasing the potential for children from different bubbles to interact.  There will be particular routes for various bubbles to enter and exit the school and to access their classrooms. Bubbles will have an assigned area in the playground. We will do our best to make these routines enjoyable activities for the children, while emphasising safety at all times.

In order to achieve this it will be necessary to introduce measures such as staggering arrival and dismissal of pupils to lessen the number of people inside and outside the school at particularly busy times. We envisage that all in the school will cooperate in these measures. The health and safety of our pupils, staff members, the school community and indeed the wider community is to the fore in all of our planning. We want to make this work so that our school can stay open for our children.

Of course while all our pupils will be welcome back to school, we would remind parents that children who are displaying any symptoms of Covid 19 should not be sent to school. Children who display such symptoms in school will be isolated and parents asked to collect them from the school. If a child comes into school with Covid symptoms s/he will endanger the health and safety of all members of the community and our ability to keep the school open. We need to think of everyone!

The BOM and staff aims to re-open the school in a safe and orderly manner, while reassuring the children and making them feel comfortable, safe and relaxed with their friends in this ‘different’ environment.  This can be achieved by all of us working towards this goal, which I am sure is common to all in the community.

The BOM will keep you informed as our planning progresses and will issue a further letter next week with the details of dates and times.

Le gach dea-ghui,

Eleanor Ni Dhuibhir

Priomh Oide