Dear parents,
I hope that you and you families are keeping well and that you had an enjoyable and safe Summer!
We have been very busy in recent weeks preparing to re-open school. We look forward to welcoming our children back to school next Wednesday, the 1st September, and we are especially looking forward to meeting our new children who will be joining us in 3rd class from the Junior School.
The government have recently published updated guidelines for the safe re-opening of schools. I have a dedicated section on our school website with this, and other Covid-19 related information for parents and staff alike. The link to our website is here:
Summary of Advice in relation to the re-opening of school
The general advice from NPHET and from the government is that schools should continue with the same mitigation procedures and Covid-19 prevention measures that they had in place last year. Therefore, we will be continuing with the same practices in the new school year that we had in place last year.
This has been incorporated into a comprehensive plan for the re-opening of Mary, Mother of Hope Senior National School and is available at the following link:
A brief summary of the procedures is as follows::
For children- this means pods, bubbles, handwashing, hand sanitisers, teachers wearing masks, social distancing and going home, if they have symptoms of COVID19.
For parents – this means communicating with the school by telephone or email, not congregating outside the school, keeping symptomatic children at home and collecting children who develop symptoms of COVID-19.
Parents of children in the Senior School are asked NOT to come on the campus with heir children- the only exception is parents of children in 3rd class, who escort their children to school for the first few weeks in September.
All visitors to the school will be asked to continue to wear face coverings.
For staff- this means staggered staffroom breaks, handwashing and sanitising routines, wearing masks, vigilance in relation to children exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 and maintaining pods and bubbles in each classroom.
We are confident that, by adopting these measures, we will together ensure that our school is a safe place and that our children will continue to thrive in the new school year.
Enda McGorman
