NEWSLETTER 29.06.2020

NEWSLETTER:

Thank-you for your support over the last term. We hope you have a nice break – here are some wrap up items:

BOOKLISTS are on the website on our Policies Booklists Page

MATERIALS MONEY is requested annually as you all know. We kindly request this, and always appreciate that it is paid by families. This money goes to support the finances for your child’s learning. As with every school, the capitation grants received for the children fall short, and we need support on items such as Arts and Crafts, photocopying, assessment, classroom materials, english resources, ICT & ET membership.

24/7 INSURANCE FOR YOR CHILD – We purchase this from your materials money also, and details of the cover on our policies page. Please remember this policy should your child have an accident or anything occurs where you feel you could have expenses covered on this policy. It is 24/7 cover for your child – we often end up in A&E and pick up bills, and this policy can cover it.

BUILDING We will keep you updated on the building project over the summer. In anticipation of the yard being made smaller, we are entering an agreement with the Secondary School to hire the yard at the back of our school for our two breaks during the day. This will dramatically increase the area for the children to play, and we are currently working on making the access safe and secure for our children.

CLASS ALLOCATION will be announced at the end of the month. We thank you for your patience on this.

CALENDAR is on our website home page and you can view it there, or download it.

ALADDIN CONNECT: Thank you to all the families who have registered for Aladdin Connect.

Ideally all parents/guardians from each household who are on our database should register – this will help to greatly reduce our spending on texts (which is currently over €30 per single text) From September onwards we will be using Connect as our primary method of communication via the noticeboard. We will also be using it to schedule parents teacher meetings, send reports, submit absence reasons and we may activate other features as the year goes on. It is very important for all families to engage to ensure efficient school communication.

If you have any difficulties getting set up, issues usually relate to our information not matching yours correctly and can be easily rectified by sending an email to [email protected]

GARDEN MURAL As part of the Creative schools initiative we would like to put a mural on the wall of our garden celebrating the past pupils of Canal Way. Each year as part of graduation the sixth class children would add to it and leave something behind to remember them by. It could be a tree where leaves get added for example. If children could draw or write about their idea and send it to their teachers on google classroom we would really appreciate it

 

CONGRATULATIONS to our graduates of 6th class 2020. We enjoyed a Remote graduation which was very touching and full of memories and best wishes for the future. The graduation is on the website, and we wish out students all the best in their second level education.

 

SCHOOL REOPENING: We await guidelines from the Dept of Ed on how to open our school safely. We note the appointment of Norma Foley, our new Minister for Education and we really hope she will lead us strongly into the future, while

We will know the details when you know them, as they will be in the media. There have been guidelines issued already, which were not definitive, and which left more questions unanswered than before they issued them.  (document here)

 

The crux of it was

  • Schools would re-open fully unless they cannot. Main obstacle will be social distancing.
  • 1 metre social distancing = 2.5 days per week
  • 2 metre distancing = 1 day per week.
  • The Dept of Ed will be sourcing safety equipment (sanitizers etc) and we will procure them from providers.

 

Like everything around this challenging time, we expect the above will change also – just as the road map to reopening the country has changed significantly of late.

 

ENJOY YOUR SUMMER – Have a well-earned break and trust we will be working to reopen the school safely and we look forward to that day on September,

Thanks to the children, parents, staff & management for your support over the year,

All the best,

Dermot.