3^rd  March 2023

Dear Parents and Guardians, I am writing to update you about the access and exit arrangements for our school day.

The last two years have seen these arrangements complicated by Covid and by the works taking place in the development next to our school.

My first priority is to ensure that your children are safe when they are coming to school, when they are in school and as they leave school each day.

School officially starts each day at 850am for our pupils but we allow them to enter their classes at 845am.

I supervise children each morning as they arrive at school to greet them and to ensure they are safe. However, some children are arriving at school too early and are not supervised: I want to remind parents that it is your responsibility to ensure your children’s safety until they enter the school building.

New Arrangements for Access:

1. I propose to allow children to enter the school playground at 840am where they will be supervised by a teacher until 850am until they are collected by their class teacher.
2. Anyone wishing to send their child to school before 840am will need to book them into Breakfast Club. We cannot accept any responsibility for children before 840am who are not booked into Breakfast Club.
3. Only Parents or Guardians of P1-P3 children or children who are vulnerable may be escorted by Parents or Guardians to the playground.
4. Parents or Guardians of any child should no longer enter the school building in the morning unless they have an appointment to do so.
5. Cars should not be driven into school grounds unless there is a valid medical reason to do this. Running late is not a valid reason for driving on to school premises in the morning. Please park in the designated car park and allow children to walk up the lane. I will still be in the laneway greeting children.

New Arrangements for Exit:

All children leave at the same time on a Friday which makes this process very difficult to manage.

Many schools stop at 2pm on a Friday which makes the process more challenging and the Shore Road very busy.

I therefore propose that we stagger the leaving time on a Friday to allow P1-P3 to leave 15 minutes earlier than the rest of the school.

This will clear the bottle neck and lessen pupil volume.

Pupils are still doing the requisite amount of time in school even with this adjustment.

I would like to start this new arrangement on Friday 10^th March.

P1-P3 finish at 145pm

P4-P7 finish at 2pm.

These EXIT arrangements are for Fridays only

I appeal to you to use the Metropolitan designated car park and to refrain from parking in the development adjacent to our school as this is causing significant challenge for staff and creates a nuisance for residents.

Thank you for your continued support

Gerard Barrett

Principal.