It was a busy week in St Mary’s as we celebrated Maths Week Ireland 2021. Everyone from Nursery to P7 enjoyed participating in an array of Maths Week activities. Congratulations to everyone who participated, all of our prize winners, P3a for guessing the correct amount of pumpkins in the jar, P6 for correctly guessing the weight of the pumpkin, and a special shoutout to Master McCoy’s P7 class for winning one of the St. Paul’s Maths Week Challenges. Thank you to everyone who helped to make Maths Week such a great success. Have a lovely Halloween break!
For the attention of Parents/Guardians of P1 + P2 Pupils,
We have received a request from Dr. Paddy O’ Connor, Lecturer in Education, at the School of Psychology, Queen’s University, Belfast to share the following…
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Dear Sir/Madam,
I am getting in touch to ask whether your school might be able to assist me with a research project which concerns validating a questionnaire to identify young children who may need some assistance with mathematics.
The purpose of the study is to ask parents (who have children in Primary 1 and/or Primary 2) to complete a short questionnaire, which asks them to rate the extent to which their child is able to carry out tasks which involve some kind of ordering skills, as well as asking parents to give some demographic information about themselves and their child. Previous research has found that these skills may be important to young children’s Maths learning. We are trying to validate this questionnaire with a large number of parents, so that in the future, this questionnaire could be used to identify young children who may need some help with learning maths during the foundation years.
I am writing to you to ask if you could display a link to the questionnaire on your online bulletin board, for the attention of Parents of children in Primary 1 and Primary 2 only. When the parents open the link, they will be asked to complete a consent form. We do not need any personal information about pupils, apart from their date of birth in order to calculate their exact age, and their gender. No identifying information about pupils would be accessible in any data files associated with the study or any reports that are written up about our findings.
I appreciate that there are many demands on schools, but hope that you will consider this project worthwhile. I hope that your school can assist us with this research.
I am delighted to inform you that we have funding for an additional teaching post. This additional teacher will mean we can reduce class sizes in our Foundation and KS1 classes, (that is P1 to P4 classes). As a result I am in the process of revising class lists for pupils’ return to school on September 1st.
We have just received confirmation of a positive Covid test result in Mrs Nolan’s P2 Class “Bubble”. All children and staff in Mrs Nolan’s P2 Class Bubble are close contacts and must now self isolate. Letters of official notification will be issued in due course.
We have been alerted to the possibility that Mrs Nolan’s P2 Class “Bubble” may have been compromised. Whilst at this stage we don’t have a positive confirmation, we would advise that all Parents consider their own personal situations carefully.
This year, our traditional Sports Day event is going to be a little different. Each year group will be designated a specific day over the course of a “Sports Week” for their own Sports Day. The timetable for all year groups has been copied above. If you have difficulty viewing the timetable, please try clicking the link below it which will open a PDF version of this message. A hard copy will also be sent home with the eldest child in each family tomorrow (Thursday).
On their Sports Day, pupils should wear their tracksuit / shorts and bring a hat, sun cream and a bottle of water. Unfortunately, we cannot welcome any parents / guardians into the school this year for Sports Day, again due to the ongoing restrictions. Fingers crossed the weather remains in our favour as we move into next week.
St Mary’s pupils and staff would like to thank Business in the Community Northern Ireland for their kind donation of 10 devices through the Digital Access Drive.
The devices were used by our families during our recent learning from home.
I look forward to welcoming back pupils in the following Year Groups: Nursery, P1, P2 and P3, from this Monday, 8th March, for two weeks. To help keep everyone safe I ask that you read through the following procedures.
P Mc Donnell
Returning to school Procedures Mon 8th March
All of the previous routines that were in place before Christmas relating to: sanitising and washing hands, class bubbles, toileting, play activities and movement within the school and grounds will remain in place. In addition please note:
School buses to drop off and pick up as normal to begin with, but collection times may be revised when the demands of the secondary school have been established.
Children to enter school at the same points as before lock down. Key-workers’ children to enter by the front door if they don’t have a sibling entering at another point.
Children to exit from the same points as they entered school from.
Breaks and Dinners will be at the normal times. School meals are available to all children who wish to avail of the service either though free school meals entitlement or by paying. This provision is also available for the supervised children of Key Workers.
Pupils may use regular lunch bags, for packed lunches.
We will continue to accommodate Key Workers’ children up to 3.30 pm. Younger siblings of these supervised children (and other pupils who need), can join with them after 2 pm when their classes end. Please arrange this in advance through the Office.
Bus users may wait in school with the supervised children until the 3 pm pick-up. Please notify the Office if your child is to wait for a 3 pm bus.
Supervised children who have been attending St Mary’s have been following the online activities/lessons posted by their respective teachers and this will continue to be the case. The use of personal devices, if available, would help to reduce the demand on school owned machines.
If you haven’t already been using the supervision facility in St Mary’s and need a supervised place for your P4-7 child please contact us in advance on 028 -30888351 or email pmcdonnell667@c2kni.net
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