Dear Parents/Carers
Following the latest communication from the Minister of Education, I can confirm that all primary schools are ‘required to provide remote learning at home to their pupils rather than face to face teaching in school, until the half-term break in February’. As a result, St Joseph’s Primary School will reopen for all pupils on Monday 22 February.
The Minister has also stated that during this period,vulnerable children and the children of key workers may attend school for ‘supervised learning’ - the DE definitions of a vulnerable child and a key worker child have been provided to you in previous communication..
It is clear from the most recent scientific advice that the safest place for children to stay, to limit the spread of infection, is at home.As such, please be advised that this service is only available to children who have no other option available to them, and if you are contacting the school about this, please ensure that the appropriate supporting evidence is provided.
Teachers have been busy preparing for Home Learning all week and we are confident that we will, once again, be able to adapt and provide the best possible learning experience for all the pupils, given the current circumstances. As part of our ongoing evaluation,we will continue to review our provision and improve on this accordingly. Inevitably there will be teething problems, but hopefully these will be rectified as soon as possible.
The latest information that I have on the post-primary transfer test is that: a single Association for Quality Education (AQE) test is scheduled to be held on Saturday 27 February; and the Post Primary Transfer Consortium’s test (PPTC) has been cancelled, with schools using contingency criteria as part of their selection procedure.
I wish to acknowledge the fantastic attitude and hard work of our P7 pupils throughout all of this uncertainty. They have done everything asked of them in extremely difficult circumstances and I have nothing but admiration for them. We are all looking forward to normal school life resuming after mid-term, when hopefully our P7 pupils will have the opportunity to experience and enjoy their final year in St Joseph’s.
As always, if you need to contact me directly about any of the above, please email me using either stjoesps@gmail.com or the contacts link on the school website.
Kind regards
Mr Donaldson