End of Week 2!

Dear Parents,

We are working away in our pods and bubbles within the school. The children, without exception, have been most cooperative with maintaining the guidelines around Covid-19.

You prepared your children very well for the return to school. Thank you to the many parents who took time to send complimentary emails and cards to the school. It tells us how much you value your children's education.

We have been working on our communication and telephone system in order to ensure that only a particular adult pod accesses each phone.We have invested in a new system which should also reduce our overall costs. We have however, been made aware that when we ring you, the school number does not always display. We are working to address this technical issue.

It is important that you are available to take a call. If a child displays Covid-19 symptoms, parents will be asked to take their child home immediately.If your child displays these symptoms in the home they should not come to school. The next step is to take advice from your GP by telephone. We are mindful that this puts a strain on the normal working life and on family situations. Please put in place contingency arrangements with family or with another trusted adult who will collect your child if he or she needs to be taken home from school. (You can use Aladdin Connect to add Emergency contact for your child(ren) at any stage)

One of the many Covid prevention systems that we are using is ventilation. Classrooms are well ventilated and are regularly evacuated throughout the day. As temperatures begin to fall, you may need to consider investing in extra layers of clothing if children are cold. Additionally as children will need to go outside it is important that they bring weatherproof clothing to protect them from the elements.

Our ability to suppress this virus is proven by the low incidence and infection rate in the West. We are also very proud of the way contagion is controlled when a positive test has been noted. This is down to adhering to social isolation and reducing the number of close contacts. We will continue to keep to the guidelines in order to protect our community while keeping schools and businesses open.

Stay safe and stay well

Bríd Chambers