Dear Parents/Guardians,

We hope you are well this week. Our news this week is as follows

• We will be accepting enrolments for Junior Infants for next year Sept 2021 from next week. Applications for enrolment may be downloaded from the school website  at www.tolasns.com or email the office at office@tolasns.com and we can send the form out to you. Applications will be accepted up until the end of January 2021.
• Thank you to all parents/guardians for your continued support with our Covid guidelines. As a staff we are currently planning in case of a full or partial closure at some time in the future. Please note we are NOT closing at present. We are anxious to ensure that every pupil can access online learning IF a class or school has to close for a period of time. We have school laptops that we can lend to families if required. Please email the office if you would like to have the use of a school laptop in the event of a class or school closure in the future.
• As next Friday 23^rd October is our last day before our Halloween break we usually allow pupils to dress up in costumes. We will continue to do this again this year. I even think some of our teachers might be dressing up too!!! Please make sure that your child is warm and can go out into the yard in their costume. If they do not wish to dress up that is fine also and pupils can just wear their uniform or tracksuit.
• 3rd and 4th Classes had an online workshop on Monday with author of “The Secret Dragon” and “Class Act”, Debbie Thomas. The event was organised as part of Shannon Library’s Book month and the children really enjoyed listening to Debbie and asking her lots of interesting questions. She did a wonderful writing workshop with the children and many of the pupils are inspired by her and hope to follow in her footsteps. Also Shannon library have kindly sourced almost 40 of Debbie’s novels from various libraries around the country for the children to read, which they are thoroughly enjoying!
• We are very excited that our Junior Infants will be joining us this week for our Zoom Cruinniu (assembly) tomorrow. We are looking forward to seeing them this week.
• The school will be closed from Monday 26^th October for the week for our mid-term break. St Tolas will reopen on Monday 2^nd Nov as usual.  We thank all our staff for their tremendous efforts in keeping our school safe for all our pupils. As we move into further restrictions we are sure you as parents are also sacrificing many visits, trips, parties, sleep overs and family occasions in order to keep our school Covid 19 free. We thank you for being so considerate of the safety of all our students and staff.  

Kind regards,

Mary Dunlea Fitzgerald, Principal