Grow in Love

Dear parents/ guardians,

Today is a new day. ☀️ Thank you to the parent who sent us the lovely prayer for a child called ‘Today is a new day’. We will share that prayer with you all tomorrow. 

We hope that you are all looking after each other, staying safe and are well. 

What fun we had yesterday with the children! They certainly did a great job making all the staff smile and laugh out loud!

The children are making a great effort and they did yesterday what comes very naturally to them, they laughed! Our children are among the happiest children in the world with the heartiest laughs. If at any time you see your child becoming upset, tired or frustrated when engaging in any home learning, stop and do something else with your child. Home learning takes second place to their happiness and wellbeing.

We have been amazed at how creative, innovative and enthusiastic the children have been from we began home learning. They have been authors and poets and written story books and poems, storytellers and are reading such a variety of books, graphic designers and designed cards for people they love and people they want to thank, musicians and composed and played music and songs, cooks and have made some delicious treats, gardeners and have started to add such colour to our locality, athletes and set new records, dancers and have created first class moves, explorers and have found some of the most beautiful things in their world outside, bedroom tidiers and have helped all around the house, actors and have performed their own stage performances in their living rooms, mathematicians who have solved many problems and challenges and artists who have created works of art. Some of these works of art the children have put up on their windows. We are so so PROUD of all that you and your children are doing at home.🌟🌟🌟🌟

Tomorrow is National Find a Rainbow Day. 🌈 Children from all over the world have drawn rainbows in support of our doctors and nurses. Perhaps your child would like to do this. You can even send a picture of your rainbow display/picture to BBC Newsround, bbc.co.uk/newsround.

The Education Authority are in the process of contacting parents whose children are in receipt of free school meals. They have compiled a list of questions and answers which may help you with any concerns that you may have regarding free school meals. Please visit the EA website, click on: https://www.eani.org.uk/covid-19-questions-and-answers?fbclid=lwAR1qeQyGfPNgDFN-N5ebaFxBBQDrAQ1suz4oisz1SPRjfGtTFDiee71gy0 

Every day in school your child prays often:

• with their class and teacher many times during the day
• quietly at the sacred space in their classroom, the school sacred space beside the library, Our Lady’s grotto in the garden, beside the thought for the week notice boards or another quiet spot somewhere in school
• weekly class Mass in the Oratory and whole school masses at special times during the year
• weekly school assembly on Friday
• each class has a RE lesson each day. We follow the Grow in Love programme. We have just heard this week that this beautiful programme is now available for you and the children to use at home. This is also a free resource. We all have been bombarded with home learning resources over the past few days. We have ensured that we have recommended those resources which we think will benefit your children. There is no doubt that this is one of the best resource to have been offered to the children so far. The children are very familiar with this programme and love it. To access Grow in Love login on the website: www.growinlove.ie and use the following details: email: trial@growinlove.ie password: growinlove The children will enjoy singing the songs that they have been taught in school and talking about stories that they have heard. Holy Week begins on Sunday. Take some time over the weekend to browse this programme and we ask you to make some time each day for Grow in Love.

We hope the news items are helpful. We ask that you read all the news items that have been posted from the week beginning 16th March as often as you can. You may find some answers to your questions and be reassured in all that you are doing at home. If you need to contact us please leave a private message on the school’s website or Facebook page. Someone will get back to you as soon as they can and help.

Please keep a close eye on your children when they are online.

Continue to look after yourselves and each other, especially the elderly and the vulnerable.

Keep safe and keep up the prayers.

Mrs Donnelly and all the staff ☺️