5th – 8th May 2020

Dear Parents/Guardians,

We hope you are all remaining healthy and safe in these strange times. It is hard to believe it is 7 weeks since we had to close the school – within this time we have missed out on 25 school days, our sacrament celebrations of Reconciliation, Confirmation and First Holy Communion and many more events we had scheduled for our last term.

We miss each and every student and staff member every day, it is amazing how this situation has made us reflect on the fact that school is so much more than a place of learning.  It is a vibrant, social, caring and fun place with so much human interaction each day. We miss it and we miss every person that makes our school what it is!

At this stage, we really want to reassure parents that you are doing enough for your child – please don’t worry about your child in the academic sense. Our teachers will re-engage with the students once we re-open, which is now unfortunately looking like September, and we will work from where your child is at – don’t feel under pressure to have them at a certain level, we know our job, we are professionals and we will work with the children at the stage they are at when they return to school.

Every student, every school is in the same position with all of this – the main thing is that we are healthy and safe, no child will learn if they are anxious or overwhelmed and they too are living through a lot of uncertainty at the moment so we need to reassure them and ensure they are feeling happy and safe.

For any parent of a student in 6th class – you are in our thoughts, this is not the way we envisaged this stage of primary school coming to an end for our students. We know they are feeling a lot of loss at this time with regard to their JEP Programme, school tour, 6th class trip and the many sporting fixtures that 6th class get to partake in each year. It is hard for them to accept, as these are events the classes look forward to up along the school, the best part of being in 6th and we feel for each of them.  We will closely watch the guidelines from the government and we really hope that if we are allowed to do so, before they commence secondary school, we will organise something for 6th class. It is hard to know when we will be in a position to do this,  but please know that we are thinking of our 6th class and we would love to do something for them.

The secondary schools have reached out and are liaising with our staff to ensure the transition work between the primary and the secondary school will still happen in whatever way possible. They too are at pains to point out that they will be taking into account the closures when they take in their cohort of 1st years. We will be in contact in the next few weeks with regard to paperwork required by the secondary schools.

Even though we are not physically in the building, both the schoolwork for students and the administration work of the school is still taking place. The staff  have had virtual meetings/collaborations and the Board of Management have had a virtual meeting also. We have posted our new draft Admissions Policy on our News page also – we appreciate any feedback on this.

In the roadmap issued by the government, we were delighted to see that they will allow access to the school building on May 18th for ‘… teachers for organisation and distribution of remote learning.’ We are awaiting more guidance from our own Department regarding this, but we are hopeful that we can put a plan in place for parents to collect the remainder of the school books for the children. We will need some time to collate books and organise a drive thru pick up service, which will adhere to all HSE social distancing guidelines, but this is something we are hopeful to do on the week of May 18th.

As the Department of Education and Skills have requested, continuity of learning continues to take place – please find an outline of work below for the classes from Tuesday 5th May – Friday 8th May 2020.

Please see this as a menu of options that you can work on as suits your family situation at present. If your child is overwhelmed, pick and choose from the work and find what works best for your child – link in with the class teachers and they will guide you with this.

Most importantly, stay safe and well.

We look forward to seeing you all again.

Warm regards,

Staff of Kilcoona N.S.

 

Please click on the class link below for the scheme of work…

Junior Infants – scheme of work has been sent through Class Dojo.

 

Senior Infants

 

1st Class

 

2nd Class

Template required:

Draw and Measure Lines

An Maith Leat

Cad atá ar an teilifís?

Clár Ama Teilifís

Cláir Theilifíse

 

3rd Class

Template required:

I Wonder Poem

 

 

4th Class

5th Class Ms. Waldron

Templates required for 4th/5th:

Mental Maths 4th Class

Mental Maths 5th Class 

The Digestive System in Humans Powerpoint

 

5th Mr. Kerin

6th Mr. Kerin

 

 

Junior & Senior Rainbow Room – work sent by class teacher.

Please email the Special Education Teachers if your child avails of their teaching and if you need any support in any way…

Mrs Naughton – clare@kilcoonans.ie

Ms. McDonnell – saoirse@kilcoonans.ie

Mrs. Langan – tracey@kilcoonans.ie

Ms. Walsh – aisling@kilcoonans.ie

 

Please see the link below for extra resources recommended by Kilcoona – these are just some of the many ideas out there…

Click here for our suggestions…

Also, please note RTE are starting a ‘school on TV’ broadcast from Monday https://www.rte.ie/learn/

TG4 are also broadcasting Cúla4 ar Scoil

If you wish to contact the school with regard to any general queries please do so via email:

principal@kilcoonans.ie

or

info@kilcoonans.ie

Thank you.