Author: Mrs Hurley

Dear Parents,

This week we will begin providing some structured work for pupils to help to keep them on track. We can’t replace the school day and have no wish to make your life more difficult by asking you to home school your child. We will however provide a brief weekly outline of work that may be followed.

To do so, the children will need some of their schoolbooks. They can be collected from the school playground on Wednesday 25th March at any time between 10 – 2 o’clock. We remind you of course to use social distancing at collection time.

If this is difficult for you, it might be possible to ask a friend to help. Otherwise you may ring the school during those times and we can arrange to leave the books for your collection. More details to follow.

We are keeping you all in our thoughts and prayers.

We are all concerned about helping your child to learn at a time when they can’t be in school. We’re working on a coordinated approach to provide some learning for all of our children.

We want to get something a little more structured than just putting up more links to stuff online. It needs to be practical, help to keep the children on track, be able to be continued for weeks to come and not make parents’ lives any more difficult than they already are.

We aim to get this up and running early next week. In the meantime, we hope all our families are keeping well and if there’s a mammy in the family, be extra nice to her on Mother’s Day!

Below are some suggestions. Please remember to let the children get as much exercise and activity out of doors as possible. Also remember that reading books is always recommended. It is best to schedule screen time and stick to it. A planned routine is best.

Websites (Junior Infants – 2nd Class)
1. Twinkl (use code IRLTWINKLHELPS to avail of free trial subscription)
2. Teach Your Monster to Read (also available as an app)
3. Oxford Owl Reading – Free eBooks
4. Go Noodle – Movement and Mindfulness Activities
5. PBS Kids – Educational Games and Videos
6. Roy the Zebra – Reading games and stories
7. Topmarks – Literacy/Numeracy games and activities
8. Epic – Free Digital Library of Books  (also available as an app)

Apps (Junior Infants – 2nd Class)
1.  Cosmic Kids Yoga (yoga activities –also available free on YouTube)
2. Parrot Fish  (sight words games and activities)
Available on Apple Store (for iOS) and Google Play (for Android)
3. Epic – Free Digital Library of books
Available on Apple Store (for iOS) and Google Play (for Android)

Websites (3rd – 6th Class)
1. Twinkl (use code IRLTWINKLHELPS to avail of free trial subscription)
2. Oxford Owl Reading – Free eBooks
3. Go Noodle – Movement and Mindfulness Activities
4. Topmarks – Literacy/Numeracy games and activities
5. Epic – Free Digital Library of Books  (also available as an app)
6. Seterra – online geography map quizzes
7. IXL – Maths and English games
8. Ask about Ireland – History resources
9. Prodigy – Maths activities
10. Mangahigh – Maths activities

The school is not responsible for the content of the above suggestions. You should supervise your child’s use of the internet.
Some resources may involve paid content.

Schools have been instructed to close from 6 p.m. tonight (Thursday, 12th March). Confirmation has been postponed until further notice.

We will post some useful links to educational websites and resources for the children in the coming days.

This is the place to check for up-to-date, accurate and official information from the school.

We wish all our families and their loved ones well during these difficult times.

Advice on talking to your child about the virus.