Newsletter 22nd June

School Reports
By post this week you will receive your child’s school report and their booklist for the next school year. The Department of Education & Skills directed that standardised testing was not to take place for any school. Considering the exceptional circumstances this year, we did not comment on attendance and punctuality though of course these remain important.

Booklists
Booklists (included with the reports) will also be available on this website if you need handy access during the summer. Please note that a small hand sanitiser will be required for pupils for the foreseeable future. Important: to minimise the handling of cash and to facilitate payment, the school is moving to an electronic payments system and will encourage you to pay in this way from now on. Details will follow in due course.

Home-School Communication
To reduce the handling of paper between school and home, newsletters will be published electronically from now on. To facilitate this, there are two things to note:
1. We will need a working email address for you. (This can also be used for the issuing of receipts by electronic payment.) We have a good number of these now through tracksuit orders, sent photos etc. If you have not been in contact through email in the past couple of months, please email the school at ballylinan1@yahoo.ie so that we will have an address for you. Thank you.
2. We will also be moving to a system called ‘Aladdin Connect’ which will facilitate greater communication between home and school. To make best use of this you will need to download an app. It’s available for Apple and Android (Google) devices. Details to follow.

Next School Year
While we have not yet received guidelines from the Department, we are working on the assumption that school will resume for all pupils after the summer (on Thursday, 27th August). We may have to make some changes to the way we operate but as yet have been given no idea as to what these might be. We will update you as soon as we know more.

Book Drop and Collect
Thanks to the vast majority of you who returned the school’s books and collected your child’s property last week. It was great to see so many of you again and how we all wish that things return to normal as quickly as possible. For those who couldn’t make it, please email the school to arrange collection and delivery. Thank you.
email: ballylinan1@yahoo.ie