A Word of Thanks!

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Dear Parents,

A brief message again expressing our thanks to you for working so well with your children and us over the last three weeks. At a very difficult time for you all, your support and positivity has been a source of great encouragement for us.

Over Easter we will not be putting daily work up on our website and we would encourage you and your children to take a well-earned rest from school activities.

However we will have many ideas, suggestions and resources on our website if children still want to spend some of their day in that way.

Hopefully we will be back to normal school on April 20th, but if not, we will continue after Easter as we have been doing up to now.

Keep reminding your children to wash their hands and to practice physical distancing from those outside your household.

Have as Happy an Easter as you can in these circumstances.

Yours Sincerely,

Mícheál Hyland and all the staff.

School Closure Extended

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The Taoiseach has announced that schools will remain closed until April 19th.  See a statement from the Department of Education here.

Learning activities continue to be available from the Classes section of our website. This work is there to help you and your children keep an element of routine and structure everyday.  It doesn’t have to be done, you can dip in and out of it if you wish but above all it is not to cause any extra stress or anxiety in your family .

All our teachers can be contacted either by email or through Class Dojo.  Details are on their respective class pages.

Our support teachers are also happy to be contacted.  Their details are below.

Ms. Mc Grath’s pupils can contact her on trishmcgrath2016@gmail.com.

Pupils of Mrs. Bell can get in touch on mrsdbell20@gmail.com.

Ms. Walsh’s pupils can get in contact on fwalshsen@hotmail.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Learning Activities During School Closure

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Dear Parents,

Well done to all of you for doing such great work with your children last week.  Thanks also for keeping in touch with us by email or Class Dojo.

It has been really good to see all that you have been doing.  You can take a look at some examples of the work in the gallery below.

We will continue having work available for next week in the Classes section of the website.

Again, please understand that this work is there to help you keep some sense of structure in your child’s daily life.  It does not have to be completed in full or at all and you, as parents, should decide how much to do each day.

Please feel free to contact the teachers, as you have been doing, for feedback and I wish you all the best for the coming week.

Yours Sincerely,

Mícheál Hyland

 

Useful Websites

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You may find some of these online resources useful while the schools are closed.

This site is particularly useful for children who are or have been attending Speech and Language or Occupational Therapy.

Another good site is www.oxfordowl.co.uk. Here you can access free audiobooks for children from the Oxford Reading Tree.

From Monday 23rd of March PE FOR CHILDREN will be live each morning from 9am.

 

Learning Activities During School Closure

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Dear Parents,

As outlined in my letter on Thursday March 12th learning activities will be available on our website so that children can begin to do some school work from Wednesday 18th March.

This work can be found in the Classes section of this site.

Please note that these learning activities are not intended to cause extra stress or worry so please just encourage your children to do their best.  You, as parents, should decide when they have enough done.

Please feel free to get in touch with any of the teachers via Class Dojo, where it is being used, or by email to geashillnsoffice@gmail.com.

Wishing you all the very best at this challenging time.

 

Yours Sincerely,

Mícheál Hyland

 

 

Covid-19/Coronavirus Information

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12 March 2020 – Statement from the Department of Education and Skills

An announcement was made this morning by the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar TD of the closure from Friday 13 March, of schools, pre-schools and further and higher education settings, for a period until 29 March 2020, to support efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19. This will take effect from 6pm this evening, Thursday 12 March. This is in line with the advice of the National Public Health Emergency Team.

All pupils and students, from pre-school to third level are urged to practice social distancing, and to minimise physical contact with each other, to help avoid the spread of Covid-19. This should include minimising social contact, avoiding meeting up and keeping physical space between them. Parents and guardians are urged to support their children to maintain this approach.

In order to minimise the impact on teaching and learning all schools will be asked to continue to plan lessons and, where possible, provide online resources for students or online lessons where schools are equipped to do so. Schools are asked to be conscious of students that may not have access to online facilities and to consider this actively in their response.

Schools are asked to prioritise supporting exam classes to continue to prepare for State examinations.

Physical classes in universities and higher education facilities will not be held during the closure. Institutions can make other arrangements for teaching and learning and other activities in line with their business continuity plans and contingency planning.

Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh TD said:

“I am deeply conscious of the impact that school and education setting closures have on students, on families and on the wider community. This is a necessary and proportionate measure that we are taking as a pro-active measure to help contain the threat of Covid-19.

“This is the right decision at the right time. It is taken in the best interests of our children, our young people, our school and college communities and our wider society.

“At this point in time the closure is planned for two weeks, from tomorrow until 29 March. The Government, in conjunction with the public health authorities, will keep the situation under ongoing review. Any change to that date will be communicated widely.

“Pupils should take their books and learning materials home with them this evening.

“This is a very challenging time for our pupils, our teachers, our students and our colleagues in further and higher education.

“Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine – we all live in one another’s shadow. If there was ever a time for us to appreciate how closely we are connected, how much what we do maters to others, how much we rely on each other, this is it. This is a time where we all need to work together for the best possible outcome for our students. The support of everyone across the sector is vital, as we all strive to ensure that this threat is dealt with as effectively as possible.”

The Department of Education and Skills will remain open and will continue to provide supports to the education sector at this time.

The Department of Education and Skills has been liaising closely on a continual basis with the Department of Health in relation to Coronavirus/Covid-19 since early January. This will continue.

ENDS

Updated advice on how to talk about Covid-19 to children and young people can be found here.

We would also like to direct your attention to a child-friendly interview that Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn did with RTÉ’s news2day programme last week, that may also be a useful resource when talking about Covid-19 with children and students.  You can watch this here.

See the latest Coronavirus advice from the HSE website here.

See the latest advice from the Dept. of Education here.

See below some more good advice from the HSE.

Do

Wash your hands properly and often.

Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve when you cough and sneeze.

Put used tissues into a bin and wash your hands.

Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.

Avoid close contact with people who are not well.

Follow the travel advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Stay at home if you are sick to help stop the spread of whatever infection you may have.

Don’t

Do not touch your eyes, nose or mouth if your hands are not clean.

Do not share objects that touch your mouth – for example, bottles, cups.

 

A letter of advice to parents from the Chief Medical Officer dated March 2nd can be read here.

The posters below have important information on hand-washing and hygiene in general.

 

 

Active School Update: March

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We have been very busy the past few months with football, tag rugby and swimming lessons.

This month we have started hurling sessions with Conor Langton.

 

Our “Run Around Ireland Challenge” is taking place for the month of March. Each class has chosen a destination in Ireland and recorded its distance from Geashill. Every day we will run 1km a day in an attempt to virtually run to our destination by the end of the month. If 18 children in a class run 1km each per day, we will count that 18km as the total distance for the class on the day.

**All children are asked to wear appropriate running footwear and tracksuits for the month.**

Run, skip, jump, play- let’s be active every day!

Playground Leaders from 5th and 6th class have been working hard to organise structured, fun games at lunchtime for pupils from Junior Infants up to 4th class. All children are enjoying the games and we could not be more proud of our thirteen playground leaders as they continue to model excellent team leadership qualities for the younger children.