Dear Parents/Guardians,

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

• Unfortunately we still have positive Covid cases in our school community. From next Monday 29^th November parents/guardians are required to inform the school if your child tests positive for Covid 19 and they would remain at home for the time directed by the HSE. We will be informing the parents of the pupils in the child’s pod of a positive case in the pod but not identifying the child concerned. Parents of pupils in the affected pod will be able to access antigen tests to check their child. If two pupils test positive in different pods antigen tests will be made available to all the pupils in the class. At present the Department of Education or the HSE have NOT informed schools how these tests will be made available to families. As soon as this information is made available to us we will let you know. At present the information we have received on this scheme has come through media channels only with no detail given.
• Once again we are extremely grateful to the families who have informed us to date if their child tests positive. This has allowed us to communicate with the parents of all the pupils in the class so that they can be alert to any signs or symptoms of Covid. We are also very grateful to the families who have kept their child at home if they have any symptoms and in many cases got a PCR test to check and it turned out to be negative. I am also thankful to the staff members who have remained at home if they have any signs and symptoms and who have got PCR tests. We all have to be extremely vigilant and work together on this. All classes are reinforcing the message on the importance of washing and sanitising hands regularly throughout the day, keeping our distance and staying in our pods during the day, ventilating classrooms regularly throughout the day by opening windows and doors at breaktimes and during the day and staying in our class bubbles at breaktimes. Let’s hope the level of virus circulating at present will drop in the weeks ahead.
• As we are going outside as much as possible for breaks and lunch please ensure your child has a warm coat and hat and gloves if necessary. The temperature has dropped this week and coats are necessary particularly for the early break.
• Christmas/Winter Annuals – This year we are going with educate.ie for our Christmas Annuals & orders can be done online by parents via the link below. If you wish to order an annual for your child click on the link and this takes you to the order system & select class level and annual you want to order. Cost is 2euro per annual and all orders will be delivered to the school in the first week of December and distributed to any pupil who has ordered one. Orders need to be placed by tomorrow Friday 26^th November @ 5pm or alternatively your child can bring in 2euro tomorrow to class teacher and one will be ordered for them.  Link to order via online system is https://annualorders.educate.ie/19552U/tracey
• Our 4^th class pupils have started up a penpal correspondence with a school in Adamstown in Dublin. Our pupils wrote the first letter and there was great excitement this week when they got their first replies. They are learning all about the pupils in another school and are finding out that there are many similarities with things they like. Our 4^th class are now beginning to draft their replies. Well done 4^th class!
• Due to Covid restrictions we will not be in a position to invite parents/guardians into the school at the end of term for our annual Christmas concert. Each class will prepare a short poem/song and send it home via Seesaw . We will hold our annual Carol service on zoom again this year and we will invite all parents/guardians to attend virtually. This will take place on 22^nd Dec and more information will follow closer to the time.

Kind regards, Mary Dunlea Fitzgerald, Principal