Dear Parent / Guardian / Colleague / Board Member,

Welcome back.

School has been up and running these past four days and has been progressing well. Our Covid Response Plan has been revised, updated and passed at Board level. It sees a continuation of last year’s practices continued and amended in certain areas. Please ensure symptomatic children do not attend school and ensure that proper hand washing and cough etiquette is promoted at home also.

Covid Update.

We have been notified of a positive Covid 19 case in Mrs Coffey’s room today. HSE protocol has been followed. Close contacts have been identified and their families contacted. Furthermore those identified as not being close contacts have also been informed. As of now, school will continue on Monday morning for all pupils, except those who have received an email informing them that they are close contacts. The HSE will be in touch with those families in due course.

Electronic Self Declaration. (ESD)

We have moved to an electronic system for verifying that your child is safe to return to school. All things being equal we will use this again after Halloween. However families with pupils returning from illness will have to activate the following link and complete for each child prior to returning to school. https://forms.gle/nVFuRtkXUUoV56EX8 We will publish this on our website too under the Covid 19 Section.

BOM Update.

Our patron, Bishop Cullinan has informed us that Mrs. Eileen Condon has been appointed as our new Chairperson and has taken over from Fr. Desmond. Eileen brings with a wealth of educational experience to the role and we look forward to her tenure. In the same vain we thank Fr. Garrett for his Chairmanship since 2019 and for being a member of the Board since his arrival in 2008. We wish him well into the future.

New Junior Infants.

21 new pupils started with us on Tuesday last. They have been exceptional all week. Thanks to Mrs. Kelly and other staff members for their assistance with new families and their pupils. Reminder- juniors can be collected from 12:45pm again next week. A few photos of their first day in school can be viewed on our Facebook page for those interested.

Staffing.

Miss Denmead will be joining us again until October 1^st when Ms. Blain will take over as Rg 4 class teacher.

Sacraments.

All our sacramental ceremonies will take place during the month of September thankfully. We have four in total with the two confirmations being prioritised before the Holy Communions. Relevant classes will be kept abreast of developments prior to these ceremonies.

Website.

Our new website is up and running and contains information applicable to parents. Please familiarise yourself with its content. This includes the Academic Calendar for the year. This can also be found on school Homework Journals used by Rg 2-Rg6. These journals are €2 and are subsidized by the school.

Golden Jubilee.

We have now entered our 50^th year as a Central School and will be devising ways to celebrate this achievement in a year’s time. If people would like to offer suggestions or get involved, please feel free to contact me or the school as soon as possible.

Is mise,

Michael J. O’Ryan – Principal