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St. Joseph's Primary School, Galbally, Dungannon Co Tyrone
 

Learning Pack Collection and Online Learning Arrangements

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19th Mar 2020

Dear Parents,

Let me take this opportunity to thank you for your cooperation and understanding during what has been a difficult and challenging time.

The Minister for Education has confirmed school will be closed for all pupils with effect from tomorrow evening, Friday 20th March. As a result, St. Joseph's will be closed for all pupils for the foreseeable future. The staff of the school have been preparing for this eventuality, and I'd like to share with you the arrangements we have put in place to take effect from Monday 23rd March 2020:

  1. LEARNING PACKS - All teachers have prepared learning packs for children to complete at home. These are focused primarily on Literacy and Numeracy, with some additional learning activities as appropriate for each class. There are materials in these packs for 4 weeks as per the guidance from the Department. These packs can be collected tomorrow, Friday 20th March in the school hall. Please take note of the times for the collection of packs:

    Learning Pack Collection Times, Friday 20th March 2020: 
    1. 9.00am - 11.00am: Primary 1 & Primary 2
    2. 11.00am - 1.00pm: Primary 3 & Primary 4
    3. 1.00pm - 3.00pm:   Primary 5, 6 & 7 

  2.  ONLINE LEARNING - The school has a number of online learning platforms, including Mathletics (P3 - P7), Accelerated Reader (P4 - P7), and NESSY (P2 and P3 for those who have subscribed). This is available for children anytime of day. You can access the login portals here. Usernames and passwords are available for collection in the hall tomorrow along with the learning pack.
     
  3. MICROSOFT TEAMS - We are keen to support all our learners in whatever way we can throughout the duration of this closure, and want to provide a means of communication between pupil, parents and teachers that will work in a realistic way. To this end, we will be using Microsoft Teams, an online virtual learning environment, for this purpose. Over the course of the next week, we will be rolling out Teams for use by all pupils. We plan to use it initially in the following two ways:
    1. Primary 1 to Primary 5: To facilitate communication between parents/learners and teacher;
    2. Primary 6 and Primary 7: To complete assigned online learning tasks, quizzes and activities, alongside their physical learning packs.

To help us prepare for this, can I ask that you follow the PARENT GUIDE for setting up online learning at home as soon as possible, and preferably before 5.00pm tomorrow. There is a bit of work involved in this, so please follow the instructions carefully. If you have any difficulty, I will be available to assist parents collecting learning packs tomorrow in school. 

Thank you in advance for your cooperation and assistance. Whilst we find ourselves in challenging times, let us work together to make the most of opportunities available to us for the benefit of all the children of St. Joseph's, Galbally. 

Hugh Meenagh
Principal