Birthdays - Cakes, treats, invitations, etc.

A small number of families like to send in treats for their child's class when it's their birthday. While we appreciate this is done with the best of intentions, we would ask you to ring the school beforehand as we have to be mindful of children with allergies or dietary requirements who may be left out if they cannot share in the treats. We're not trying to be spoil-sports but please be mindful that some children from some faiths cannot eat certain types of jelly sweets due to pork-based gelatine. Some children may have allergies to gluten or dairy and so on and may not be able to east buns or cakes. Some families also, for other reasons, do not allow or try to limit certain foods. As you can see, as a school, there are quite a few things to juggle! By ringing ahead, we can let you know what you#ll need to do to make sure no child is left out. Speaking of which, when it comes to birthday invitations, please avoid asking staff to hand them out if everyone in the class isn't being invited. If you are only asking a small number of children and you need to get contact details, we can help you out.

COVID19 update

As you probably already know, the government have decided to cease contact tracing of close contacts in all primary schools, with the exception of special classes. This means that children who would have been considered close contacts no longer have to isolate from school if they are showing no symptoms. However, you might wonder how you will know if your child is a close contact. Unfortunately, the simple answer is that you might not know as schools will no longer be informed by public health if there is a positive case in a classroom. This is obviously worrying for many people, especially those with underlying conditions. The only thing we can do as a school is the following:

1. If your child contracts COVID-19, we would appreciate it if you let us know.

2. We will ask you if it is ok to share this information with your child's class.

3. If you agree, we will send a text message to your child's class stating that there has been a confirmed case in the classroom. Your child will not be identified and we will not be contacting pods separately. A message will also be shared with our staff to let them know as we have some immunocompromised staff who may work in the classroom.

4. If you don't agree, we will be unable to send a message out.

We would highly recommend that you do not send your child into school if he/she has any COVID19 symptoms. One symptom that is causing confusion for families is a runny nose. The advice we have received from the HSE is that if a child has a runny nose, has no other symptoms, and generally is feeling bright and happy, there should be no reason to remain off school. However, we reserve the right to send any child home that we believe is not well enough to be in school. While we are not allowed to use antigen tests or accept them as evidence, they might be a useful indicator, if you are concerned yourself about your child.

GDPR update:

We have updated our data protection guidelines thanks to the great help of one of our parents. We now have a new page on our website to allow families to opt out of certain aspects of the school.

Traffic in the Mornings

Just a reminder in the mornings to drive around the basketball courts when dropping off your children. As you will probably have noticed, when the basketball courts aren't being used, it can cause tailbacks on the Athy Road. Also, if your child needs help getting out or unstrapping their seatbelts, it might be a good idea to drop off once the buses have left a couple of minutes after 8:40am. There is a small amount of space to give you the time to unstrap belts, strap on schoolbags and let the children walk around on the footpath into school. Our main aim with traffic in the school is to keep the Athy Road clear and to keep traffic flowing as much as possible.

Traffic in the Afternoons and Ideas for Short Walks/Cycles

Just a small thank you to families for helping us out by not arriving before 2:30pm on the grounds. While it might seem a little bit like a military operation, to keep everyone safe, we have to keep traffic off the Athy Road. Your children won't be ready to be collected before 2:30pm so there is no advantage to coming early to the school.

If you find yourself coming before 2:25pm any day, we'd really recommend stopping off at the Strawhall Business Park or the Gateway Business Park and having a walk from thee to meet your children. The Gateway Business Park is less than a 10 minute walk to the school. Strawhall Business Park is about 12 minutes walk. If you fancy a longer walk, the Town Hall Car Park is 2.2km from our gate and it's a beautiful walk/cycle along the River Barrow.