March / April

Hi there,

Welcome back and I hope you enjoyed the break, despite all the limitations. As I'm sure you heard in the media, today is the day that all students returned to their school buildings. If you have a second level student in your family, I hope the return to school is a success. You have probably also heard that there is a national shortage of teachers at the moment and due to COVID19, any staff member who is considered very high risk and/or pregnant must work from home for the time being.

Many of our usual subs are now doing teaching practice in this term, which narrows our pool of teacher support even further. Added to this the lack of vaccinations means that teachers may be told to self-isolate if they are deemed close contacts by the HSE.

The priority for the school has to be to cover the mainstream classes so the classes can remain open. Once the substitute panels have been exhausted, the next port of call is our SET team. This means that children requiring additional supports will not receive these supports on these days. It may also mean that your child's class teacher will change from time to time depending on substitute availability.

While this obviously is not an ideal situation, I feel it is important to keep you informed. In the meantime, I want to thank you in advance for your support. Hopefully, as we come closer to the end of this pandemic, school life will return to normal. In the meantime, if you know of any family or friends that have a Teaching Council number or would be available for SNA subbing, please ask them to send their details to the school as there will be plenty of work available here and in all other schools in Carlow.

In the meantime, please have a look at some of the photos of what's been happening in our school since we came back to the school building in February/March.

Is mise le meas,

Simon