Dear Parents & Guardians,            

As many of you will have heard, our schools are once again being closed, this time until the 1st of February. Since our return to school, we have worked on our contingency plan and have implemented some areas already- a Home-school copy was sent home in September in the event of classes having to distance learn or school closure and Seesaw was set up to aid communication during these strange and unprecedented times. If you have not signed up to use Seesaw you can email svdpinfs@gmail.com and Mrs Burke will email you the access code for your child’s class. Please write your child’s name (not your name) in the name box so the teacher can identify the child. 

As with during the previous school closure, schoolwork will be posted to the school website on a Sunday evening and will remain on the website under an archive section. The week’s work is a menu only, from which you can choose to do some, or all of the lessons/activities. It is there to help you and your family. Our hope is that the structure of the work we provide will make life easier for you, not more difficult. Do what works best for you and your family. 

Once again, we have decided to send home the schoolbooks and copies so that teachers can assign work from these during the closure.   Whilst adhering to the advised social distancing practices, teachers, wearing gloves, will put the set of books in a plastic bag with your child’s name and room number on it.  Parents will be invited to come to the school, at different times/days, without children, to collect their child’s books. This will be done in the school hall using a one-way system. Each class will be laid out in a line to facilitate easy collection. Collection times will be staggered and only a few parents will be let into the hall at a time and will exit through the smaller doors to the left of the hall in a one-way system. You must adhere to government guidelines- wear a mask and maintain at least 2m from our households.  

Please see below for the times for each class. If you have multiple children, you may wish to come during the designated slots on Tuesday to collect your child’s books. You may be able to arrange for some other parent in the group to collect them if the time doesn’t suit. If you cannot collect them, it would help us greatly if you would tell your child’s class teacher via Seesaw. In that case, we will be in touch with you to make alternative arrangements. 

It is important to keep the books together out of harm's way when not in use and to only allow workbook pages to be filled that have been assigned by the teachers. If you receive a book that is the property of the school, we expect it to be returned in good condition or replaced with a new one.  

We recommend that you bring along your own shopping bag for collection purposes, as the ones we have the books in may not be durable. 

Take care. 

Is mise le meas, 

Catherine Kennedy.