Dear parents/Guardians,

We hope you are well this week as we start into the month of March. Our news this week is as follows

• Our 20k Drop Fundraiser took place last Friday night in the Oakwood Hotel. I would like to thank all parents/guardians who supported this event either through sponsorship, advertisers, buying tickets, supporting the raffle or who attended on the night.  I am especially grateful to our main exhibitors who were so generous in their support. These included Calcul Watches, MC Auto Repairs, Sean Hillery ( Pharmacists ) Ltd, Shannon College of Hotel Management, SES, Backballer, Boru Sports and Shannon Springs Hotel. We also had a large number of advertisers on the night. These are mainly local small businesses. We will be setting up a directory on the school website and we would ask that you check this for local services and show your support to them in these difficult trading times.

• I would also like to extend a huge thank you to our hard working committee who have given up a huge amount of time over the past few months to organise this event. The committee consisted of Mike O’ Brien, Ger Bowen, Nicole Hennehopf (all parents)  P.J. Burke (Chairperson of the Board of Management), Noreen Vaughan, Karen Riordan, David Quinn, Tracey Moran, Maria Hehir, Amanda Corry and Lorraine Connolly (all staff members). Thank you also to all staff members who have worked for and supported this event. Thanks also to Sara & Maia Marren O’Callaghan and Cathy Colgan (Board of Management) who helped sell tickets for us.
• Thank you to Wolfe Tones GAA who presented all pupils in 1^st class with a hurley and a football here in the school on Monday last. Hayley from Wolfe Tones GAA has restarted coaching on Wednesdays here in the school. At present Junior Infants, Senior infants 5^th and 6^th classes are timetabled for this coaching.
• St. Tolas, St. Senans and Gaelscoil Donncha Rua were jointly awarded an Imagination Playground set from the Clare County Childcare Committee recently. We took delivery of this equipment last week. It consists of large blue foam pieces and supports imaginative play and construction while supporting communication, collaboration and interage play. Already, Juniors, Seniors and 1^st class have had an opportunity to use this equipment and have really enjoyed it.
• 5^th and 6^th classes will attend a workshop with David Coleman , Clinical Psychologist in the Oakwood hotel tomorrow. The workshop will consist of fun and games where the abilities of both boys and girls will be put to the test and the aim is to prove that all students are equal. Thank you to SES for organising this event and for inviting us to attend.
• St. Tolas is monitoring the Covid-19 situation closely. We urge all pupils to follow good hand hygiene practises, washing their hands regularly. We also ask parents to ensure that if your child has a cold that they use a clean tissue and bin it after one use. If there are any updates from the HSE we will inform parents via text message.

Kind regards,

Mary Dunlea Fitzgerald, Principal