Easter Newsletter 2021. 
Dear Parents,
From See Saw Home schooling to the Great Move
They say a week is a long time in Politics, however, a term has seen some dramatic changes to the day to day life here in St. Conleth’s Infant School. From the disappointment in early January when we were told that all schools were not re-opening due to the high Covid infection rates, the school community re-grouped and put into practice the much rehearsed teaching platform See-Saw.
As a school team, we were absolutely delighted with the engagement, co-operation, interaction and feed-back from pupils and parents alike throughout this time. Teachers worked collaboratively and creatively in recording, uploading and interacting with their students in a professional and creative way through this on-line platform.
We were delighted to welcome back our Special Classes in February, followed by the full re-opening of our Infant School in March. While See-Saw was a tremendous success, I believe it cannot replace face to face teaching in class with friends. Having all the children back to school along with their older brothers and sisters in a safe way is something we are proud of and delighted with.
Pupils, parents and staff have shown their resilience, adaptability and co-operation with the numerous changes to entry/exit routed, covid compliance, mask wearing , new arrangements for drop off and pick up in the midst of a pandemic!!
While coping admirably with new covid procedures, teaching apps and ever changing arrangements, major building works have been ongoing. Our first classes moved to their new temporary classrooms last week and the Senior School moved to their new temporary classrooms this week. We are delighted with the quality of our new temporary accommodation and hope to complete landscaping the area over Easter. With the move, we have adopted a new Fire plan and play time organisation in class bubbles in a covid safe way.
The new permanent build will begin this week with the demolition of old pre-fab classrooms. The areas of the new school building will be marked out and work will commence on gas connections, foundations and initial works for the new lift that will be in the new building. The school will be cordoned off from all these works and school life will proceed as normal.
I would like again to sincerely thank all our parents and pupils for their wonderful commitment to education over the past months. I would like to again thank our great staff for all they have done over the past term and of course Bernard and Gerry who have worked from early morning to late evening assisting in moving two schools to their new temporary accommodation.
As we all look forward to the Easter Break, can I again ask our families to please adhere to Covid regulations, limit mixing so we can re-open safely in April to a full term in school while making every effort to keep all safe.
Easter Greetings to you all,
Margaret Harnett
Junior Infants
Well done to all of the Junior Infants for settling back so well into school life! The classrooms are filled with smiling faces and friends are reunited again. The children have been very busy revising all of their sounds and even blending them too. Now that Spring is here, they have been noticing the signs of spring and have learnt about the life cycle of the chick and the frog. Lots of lovely art has gone home these past few weeks for St Patrick’s Day and Mother’s Day. Expect to see some fabulous Easter creations coming home soon! Happy Easter from the Junior Infant Team
Senior Infants
Well done to all the children in Senior Infants who have settled back into school so well and are very happy to be back with all their friends, teachers and SNA’s again. The children loved sharing their stories from remote learning through See Saw and zoom calls however, they are delighted to be back in their classroom’s.
The children have been working so hard, revising and learning lots of new material and have had lots of fun playing and learning together again, They have been enjoying the lovely sunshine and going on Spring walks to the school garden and local park. They looked for the signs of spring and changes in the environment and had a great time exploring the outdoors.
The children are exploring the topic of construction and safety everyday as they watch our new school building being built. The children also engaged in actives for Seachtain na Gaeilge such as Lá Glás and they enjoyed some Irish dancing outside for our Irish dance fest. Well done to all the children on working so hard. Have a lovely Easter break! Happy Easter from the Senior Infant Team
First Class
It has been a very busy few weeks for the first classes since our return to school on the 1st of March. The children have coped amazingly well with the transition back to school and are really enjoying being back. They have displayed great resilience to all the changes which they have experienced. Room 13 & 14 were temporarily stationed in St Conleth’s and Mary’s, before all classes decanted to the new prefabs at the front of the school. They have adapted brilliantly to their new yard space, and are working very hard in their new surroundings.
The children really enjoyed participating in child author David Walliams’ virtual assembly which we tuned into on World Book Day. The children learned new poems for Mother’s Day and Easter while also creating some lovely Mothers Day art. The children learned an Irish dance for St Patrick’s Day, and held a socially distanced mini Céilí outside for ‘Lá Glas.’ We also did some lovely St Patrick’s Day artwork. Last September the children planted bulbs in our school garden and the children enjoyed seeing the bulbs flower over the last few weeks when out on our Spring walk. Our first classes have led by example since our return to school and it is very much evident that they are happy to be back with their friends, teachers and SNA’s in school. Well done boys and girls and Happy Easter from all the First Class team!
Seachtain na Gaeilge.
On Tuesday March 16th we celebrated Lá Fhéile Pádraig by having a Lá glás in school. The children donned their éadaí glás and throughly enjoyed themselves as they danced to ‘An Dreoilín’ and took part in the ‘Shamrock challenge’ dance. It was great to see happy smiles all round
School closes for Easter Holidays on Friday 26th March and re-opens on Monday April 12th
Happy Easter to all.
