Letter to Pupils - 5th May

Hello everyone,

I hope you’ve all had a lovely Bank Holiday weekend and enjoyed this beautiful weather we’ve been having. I spent most of it gardening. We now have the barbeque pulled out, as well as the garden furniture, so we like to eat outside when we can. It breaks the monotony of having to be housebound. Of course today, things are going to be relaxed a little bit. We can now exercise within 5km of our homes. I’m looking forward to the 18^th May when I can visit a garden centre or hardware shop to stock up for all of the little garden and home projects I’ve been planning. It will be a novelty also to be able to meet in groups of 4…outdoors!

I suppose the biggest development for us is the announcement that school will not be opening back up this year. It’s good to have clarity and to know where we stand, but I can’t help feeling some regret for the children who’ve not been able to have their First Holy Communion, or for you all, on what should have been your Confirmation day today. It’s a sobering thought to know we won’t have all those moments we look forward to in last term…heading to the field for lunch breaks, finishing our books, the school tours, the sports day, the rite of passage of the last week for 6^th class as they leave primary school for secondary school. However, we need to focus on the positive. Our class has not said goodbye to Shandrum N.S. for the last time. We will regroup again in September please God, and have all of those moments next year. More importantly, we can all be very thankful that we all have our health. I am so grateful that nobody I know has to date been impacted by the dreaded covid-19…and that’s how we want things to stay.

By the time many of you read this letter, I will probably already have seen many of your faces again on Zoom. I’m looking forward to that. Of course 4^th class, that only refers to the 5^th class Confirmation children…we’ll have to wait a bit longer to touch base outside of Google classroom. When I think that it will have been 5-6 months before we can all be in our classrooms again, I can’t help but think that you’ll all be so much more grown up and possibly a foot taller by then!

Speaking of google classroom, we’ll work away on it trying to keep busy and keep learning and revising. This week, due to the Bank Holiday and the fact that today would have been confirmation day, I’m only going to post a few tasks, we’ll treat it like a 3-day week which it would have been had we been at school. Fourth class, I know you won’t mind!

I’ll sign off for now. Keep the bright side out and continue to do your bit at home to keep everything flowing smoothly in these very extraordinary times. I know you will.

Best wishes to you all, and to your families.

Mrs. Quinn.