St. Mary's N.S.

August 11^th 2020

Dear Parent / Guardian,

RE: Re-opening of St.Mary’s NS

I hope you and your families are keeping well.

As you are aware, our school has now been closed since 12^th March due to the COVID-19 situation.  We are now hoping to re-open our school safely, in line with current guidance and recommendations.

Re-opening the school safely will require the co-operation of all members of our School Community – BoM, 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 have been working on our plan for the safe reopening of the school for some weeks now and our DES COVID-19 Response Plan for the safe and sustainable reopening of Primary and Special Schools is available on request to principal.stmarysnsbagenalstown@gmail.com. The Response Plan gives details of

• Physical preparation, hand sanitiser stations,
• Advice, procedures and training for the safe return to working in the school for all school staff and pupils
• General and specific advice on how all pupils, staff, parents and visitors will prevent the spread of the virus

We have also published our COVID-19 Policy Statement on the school website. 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 are really looking forward to welcoming our 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.

Yours sincerely,

Kathy McGeeney (Principal)

The following websites provide further information on COVID-19 and on 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-to-school/?referrer=http://www.gov.ie/backtoschool/

Happy Birthday to Theo and Scarlett. Andy remembered you Scarlett. We hope you both enjoy celebrating your birthdays! 🎂🌈🥳

Well done to all our students who are partaking in the Healthy Kidz events for our Virtual Sports Day. Many activities require little equipment.

Joshua here shows us all how it can be done with a fantastic egg & spoon race! A video clip of his long jump preparations was also shared but unfortunately technical issues prevented it being uploaded. Well done Joshua! Keep it up! Our leaderboards show many more of our students doing brilliantly with all the activities.

Please send in your photos of how you’re preparing for this Virtual Sports Day. We’d love to see how you’re all getting on!