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Holy Family National School,

                                                                        Rathmore

                                                                                 Co. Kerry.

                                             Tel. No:  (064) 7758492   /   Mobile: (086) 1806018

                                                                         e-mail: hfnsrathmorekerry@gmail.com

                                                                   School Blog:  hfnsrathmorekerry blog

25th Feb. 2021

Dear Parent(s),

We are really looking forward to welcoming the children of Junior Infants to Second classes back to school on the 1st March and Third to Sixth classes on Mon. 15th March.  All information that we have in relation to re-opening our schools safely is on the Department of Education website. We have a link to this in the parent’s section of our school blog.  All guidelines are coming from the Department’s updated Covid 19 Response plan and below are some of Holy Family National School’s updated arrangements. Information videos and posters on public health information and safe re-opening of schools will be posted by the teachers on Seesaw.  Please familiarise yourself with these.

Return to Education form:

Each parent must complete a Return to Education Facility Parental Declaration Form for each child.  You can do this by doing one of the following

(i)                Download and print form from school blog and return it with your child to the class teacher.

(ii)              Complete the online form available on the blog

Drop off and Collection Routines:

·        Children are to be dropped off in the set down area in the morning where staff will be available to direct them to the correct entrance.

·        We ask that children are dropped off between 8.55 a.m. and 9.10 a.m. Children should not be dropped to the school before these times.

·        Parents who wish to accompany their children to their assigned door should park in the lower car park.

·        Parents are to treat the roundabout as a drop off area only and should not obstruct traffic by leaving their vehicles.  Please keep the teacher car park entrance free.

·         Staff will direct children to the correct entrance.

·        Parents are asked to maintain a distance of 2m from other people at all times in the school grounds.  We ask that parents wear face coverings at all times on the school grounds. Please adhere to public health guidelines and do not congregate.

Hygiene and Hand Sanitising

·        Children will be asked to use hand sanitiser on entering the school in the morning. There are hand sanitiser dispensers at all entrance doors. Children will also use hand sanitiser when entering the school after breaks. Hand washing and hand sanitising before and after eating will also be a part of our daily routine.

Communication with staff:

·        We advise parents that communication with the school should be by phone or online only.

Parent Contact:

·        In order to ensure that the school remains open in these difficult circumstances, it is imperative that parents do not send children to school if they are showing symptoms of any illness whatsoever. Any child who is sick will have to be sent home immediately as outlined in Covid 19 Guidelines. In addition, children should also not attend school if they have been identified by the HSE as a contact for a person with COVID-19 and to follow the HSE advice on restriction of movement.

·        It is vital that parents/guardians are contactable at all times throughout the school day in case of children becoming ill.

All our procedures are under constant review so there may be updates or changes to any of the above and we would appreciate your patience as we navigate this process. We will text you to notify you of any updates which will be available on the school blog. Thank you for your continued co-operation.

 

Paul Horan,

Principal.

 Each parent must complete a 

'Return to Educational Facility Parental Declaration Form'. 

You can do this by completing the form below:



Children in Juniors to Second Class complete the form HERE

Please see below advice for the safe return of children from Juniors to Second Class on Monday 1st March. 




 Please see below results to our Distance Learning Survey. Thank you for taking the time to answer the questions. We will use the the feedback to inform us on how best to proceed in February. 

Kind Regards

Paul Horan








  

Holy Family National School,

                                                     Rathmore

                                                                     Co. Kerry.

                                      Tel. No:  (064) 7758492   /   Mobile: (086) 1806018

                                                                e-mail: hfnsrathmorekerry@gmail.com

                                                                                hfnsrathmorekerry blog

                                                                                                          3rd Feb. 2021                                                                                                

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Spring has arrived and we have much to look forward to with more positive news being reported daily in the media. There are wonderful contributions being submitted daily by the pupils and much credit is due to the children, parents and staff for their efforts.

Thank you to all those who submitted feedback through our Distance Learning survey. We received a very high volume of family responses. We were delighted to learn that the system in place is meeting the needs of the vast majority of the pupils and we will adapt our approach to introduce some slight changes where necessary. Over 97% of respondents indicated their child is engaging well or very well with Distance Learning. Additionally, 92% of the respondents indicated that the teachers were setting an appropriate amount of work. However, I would like to remind all parents/guardians that every house is different and it is perfectly acceptable if you are unable to get all tasks completed with your child(ren). When we return to school we will revise topics covered and assist children where necessary.  If you have specific requests regarding remote learning for your child(ren), please contact the class teachers. The teachers will also continue to assign optional extra activities and there are many activities available on the school blog.

Please download the Family Link app for the benefit of enhanced communication with the teacher.  85.3 % of our responses indicated that it makes it easy to contact the class teacher when necessary. We wish to send our zoom invites going forward through the Family Link app so we would really appreciate your co-operation with this. Zoom calls will continue as long as the rules are adhered to.

Rules for zoom calls

·          All invites will be sent to parent/guardian’s email through the Seesaw family link app. You are asked not to share this email with anyone else.

·          All invites will be password protected.

·          The ‘Waiting room’ option will be enabled so that the teachers will control who is admitted to the meeting. This also ensures they are present from the beginning to the end of the meeting. Teachers will decide on a cut off time, after which no further attendees will be admitted.

·          All attendees must be appropriately dressed for the meeting – no pyjamas etc

·          All attendees will be muted on entry and the teacher will un-mute them as appropriate.

·          All attendees should be in a public room (no bedrooms) so that they can remain under the supervision of their parent/guardian.

·          Parents/Guardians/Pupils are not permitted to take photos or video footage of the call.

·          Individual teachers may give further direction as to the format of their meeting.

Many of the senior pupils are working independently on Seesaw which is wonderful. The teachers of 3rd- 6th  Class will give you a very brief outline of the level of work returned for the next 2 weeks just to ensure you are fully aware of the level of participation of your child. This message will be sent to parents through the Seesaw family link on February 12th and again on February 26th.

Our Parent Teacher Meetings will take place in March when classes have returned but if you wish to contact a teacher before then, please do so through the Seesaw Family app. If you have any difficulty with using the app, you can also contact the school mobile and a phone call will be arranged.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can help in any way.

Kind Regards

Paul Horan

Principal