A huge big Hello & Welcome to all my new Jolly Junior Infants & my Super Senior Infants!!!
We are almost back to school!!! Please click here for my Hello video & short classroom tour 
Wednesday is a very special day for our new Junior Infants & their parents. Thursday will be an important day for Senior Infants & their parents to get back into the swing of a school routine. I have no doubt there will be tears & tantrums, smiles & secretly hearts breaking, mobile phone cameras & videos recording those all important moments....those milestone steps at the beginning of a new & exciting chapter. This September is hugely different from last, for so many reasons unfortunately, but start again we must & follow a new path, one none of us is familiar with. There are new rules & regulations to follow for everyone's safety. It will be a learning curve for everyone.
From our principal Ms.McCarthy's virtual school tour video, you are now familiar with the big yellow sign at the side of the basketball court. I will meet you all there every morning this week but especially Wednesday morning for our new Infants first day at 10am. Weather permitting, we (children & teachers & S.N.A's) will walk into the classroom together (at a distance). On Thursday morning, children will follow the bright yellow footsteps around the perimeter of the basketball court & into the top yard with the green gated area to their class star print.
Junior Infant children will be in school from 10am until 12pm on Wednesday. I will walk them back out at 12 & we will meet all the parents on the basketball court at the big sign. Your child will need a drink of water & a small snack (a piece of fruit they can manage on their own or some rice cakes or a small sandwich). Please no yogurts. On Thursday & Friday of this week & for the next fortnight, JI will finish at 12.30pm. Senior Infants will finish every day at 2pm. Please bring a raincoat only if necessary.
Hand washing & sanitising will become a very important part of our school day. Please click here to see a short video to share with your child on the correct procedure for handwashing. I will be going through this in school in detail also. Every time your child enters the school (i.e in the morning, after 11am break, after 1pm lunchbreak) they will wash their hands in the sink with warm water & soap. Every time they exit the school building (for 11am break, for 1pm lunchbreak & at home time) they will sanitise. They will also need to wash hands after using the toilet, if hands get dirty or of they sneeze into their hands. Children will also notice that all teachers & S.N.A's & other school staff will be wearing a face covering, as per government guidelines.
Our class is called The Bright Bubbles & I have no doubt we will shine very brightly this year!!! We have so many new & exciting things to learn about! Within our class, there will be 6 pods. The 9 Senior Infants will form their own pod & the JIs will be divided up into 5 other pods. As children from JI to 2nd are not expected to social distance, there will be some free movement within the class. Our pod tables will be colour coded. Each morning, the 1st job will be to deposit the lunch box/bag into the correct coloured pod box. Next job will be handwashing before a coat or chair is removed. It will take some time to establish this routine but I'm sure with guidance it will soon run like clockwork.
This year, in our class , we will also be joined by our wonderful S.N.A, Geraldine Cassidy. Welcome to our class Miss Geraldine!!
My teacher email address is ballymittydfraney@gmail.com . This email is for you to contact me(within the hours of 9am-6pm Monday - Friday) if & when you have any questions or queries, if your child is unwell, if they need to be collected early, if they have an appointment to attend or for any reason. I will get back to you as promptly as possible. ****please note in my video clip I said my email had an .ie address, that is incorrect!!****
You have been asked to please fill in the Return to School Questionnaire for your child. One must be completed per child. Please click here for the Return to School Questionnaire. It must be returned to my above email address as soon as possible before your child starts school either on Wednesday Aug 26th or Thursday Aug 27th 2020. Thank you all.
I really look forward to working with your child/children, getting to know them & you over the coming school year 2020/2021. On our website, each class has their own class blog. I will be updating this regularly & as soon as I have some material of our classroom adventures I will be uploading. Please keep an eye on it!
See you all on Wednesday or Thursday morning, with bright smiles & excited faces, fingers crossed!!!
See you all very soon,
Ms. Franey
P.S Apologies, I am a day late with sending you all the video clip, I had internet issues yesterday. Thank you.