We ask those who wish to participate in the Christmas Shoe box appeal to return the boxes to the school by Friday, 5th November.

October Newsletter
We’ve survived September and our pupils and staff are adapting well to the new norms. The pupils have settled quickly into school routine and even seem to be enjoying themselves reasonably well.

We appreciate your support and co-operation to date in these challenging Covid times. While the rules on close contacts etc have changed somewhat in the last week, we will endeavour to keep you up-to-date with any developments. We also appreciate that many of you are keeping your children off school if they have minor coughs, head colds and Covid symptoms and we are grateful to you for this. We hope that you appreciate that we are unable to meet with parents in face-to-face meetings as before but we remain available to chat to you if you have any concerns or queries. The best way to do this is to phone the School Office in advance and, to avoid disruption to teaching time, the class teacher or Principal Teacher will return a call at a later stage. We also request that the School Office is contacted if you are to collect your child early for an appointment and we will bring your child to the gate. We are unfortunately not accepting unplanned School Visitors at this stage.

We discontinued the practice of collecting an Annual School Contribution a number of years ago but we propose to hold a School Sponsored Walk this year before the Halloween Break.

Fr Dunne will host a further First Communion Day on Saturday, October 9^th at 12 noon for those pupils who were unable to attend at the recent communion. Each family is allowed up to six people in their allocated pew (this number includes the communicant). We wish all a lovely day.

We will, as part of our Friendship/ Anti-Bullying Code, be covering Online Safety and Cyber-Bullying in classes this month. If your child has an online presence, this is an opportune time to refresh online safety rules with your child.

We kindly request that any outstanding fees owed for the School Book Rental are paid as soon as possible. We provide all School Books for Junior and Senior Infants at a cost of €60 per child and we operate a School Book Rental system for Third to Sixth Classes at a cost of €35 per child (family maximum of €60). This fee includes art and photocopying expenses etc.We request that names are refreshed regularly on all school items such as lunchboxes, school jumpers, coats and stationery and, in fairness to
all, that pupils maintain Healthy Lunches. We request that you do not provide sweets, crisps, chocolate, fizzy drinks, glass bottles etc. Please let us know also if you have updated your mobile contact numbers.

We wish to remind you that the School Car-Park is for Staff and School Buses only. The car-park is somewhat busier as we now have a second school bus on the school grounds each day and we request your co-operation in this regard.

Please feel to contact me if you have any queries,

Yours sincerely,

John Devenney.

The senior classes recently held ballots to elect a new student council for the school academic year. The following students were elected by their peers onto the new council and we wish them well in their new positons. Their roles will involve undertaking initiatives which are of benefit to the school and the wider community.

Rang 6 (Lee & Sadie)

Rang 5 (Matthew & Tara)

Rang 4 (Cara & Riley)

Rang 3 (Aaron & Anna)

Dear Parent,

The new school year is upon us, and we’ve only one more sleep to go! We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of a few important issues. Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic is still rampant in the community, and this will continue to influence how we will operate for the foreseeable future. We will continue with pupil pods and bubbles, social distancing and enhanced hygiene practices, class group segregated play areas, separate entry and egress areas etc. Rest assured, the children adapt readily and these practices quickly become second nature to them. Staff will greet pupils at the school gates and familiarise all with the procedures over the coming days. Pupils from Junior to Second Class should enter via the Lower Gate, and Third to Sixth at the Upper Gate. We will advise from that point onwards.

It is important that you do not send your child to school if they are feeling unwell or are displaying symptoms, such as headaches, sore throats, coughs, runny or blocked noses, high temperature, vomiting, diarrhoea, loss of sense of taste or smell etc. Please seek medical advice if you have any concerns, and follow HSE guidelines at all times.

The gates open daily from 9am. We do not assume responsibility for pupils before that time, and not until they have been transferred by a parent into our care. Pupils can arrive until 9.20am and should be accompanied to and from the gates by a supervising adult. Please note that the carpark at the school is for Staff and Bus Parking only. Parents may use the car park opposite the school.

The children transfer from their class line in the yard to the school at 9.20 daily. For the first few days, Junior Infants – if they wish to avoid the hustle and bustle of a busy yard – may arrive until 9.30am, and a staff member will bring them to their class. Unfortunately, parents are not to enter the school grounds unless by prior agreement or appointment but this can be arranged via the School Office. We do hope to allow individual parents to visit the Junior Infant classroom to see their child’s environment over the coming weeks.

Class ends at 12 noon for Junior Infants until Monday, 6th September and at 2pm daily thereafter. Senior Infants also go home at 2pm while other classes remain at school until 3pm.

Please ensure that all items of clothing, lunchbox, stationery etc are labelled with your child’s name and that this is refreshed regularly throughout the year. In the interests of fairness to all, we request that the official school uniform is worn at all time, and particularly request that any tracksuit bottoms should be of the darker grey variety, and to be non- branded. We also operate a Healthy Lunch Policy and there should be no sweets, crisps, chocolates, fizzy drinks, glass bottles etc. In the interests of classroom tidiness, we do not allow popcorn either. Please visit our Healthy Lunch Policy for further information.

We operate a School Book Rental Scheme in most classes, and respectfully ask that the fees are paid by Friday, 4th September.

Finally, we are looking forward to seeing you all, and, with a good forecast, it will be nice to see the children at work and at play. Indeed, we’ve added a new large tarmacadamed area to our upper yard over the summer months and I am sure we will all get good use out of it.

Feel free to contact the School Office if you have any queries,

Kind regards,

John Devenney

Hearty congratulations to our School Debating team who won the All-Ireland Concern Debating Final competition in June 2021. Read the report, as posted in The Donegal News newspaper.

ALL-IRELAND DEBATING SUCCESS FOR KILMACRENNAN SCHOOL

All-Ireland debating success for Kilmacrennan school

Posted: 9:57 am June 24, 2021

A DONEGAL village is celebrating after a team of primary school children won a new national debating contest that had over one hundred teams participating from around the country.

Fifth and sixth class pupils from Scoil Cholmcille in Kilmacrennan won the final of the inaugural All Ireland Concern Primary Debates, which is run by the humanitarian organisation Concern Worldwide.

The champions successfully argued for the motion that “GM Crops are key to ending world hunger” in their word-clash with Scoil Bhride from Paulstown, Co. Kilkenny.

Concern Primary Debates was set up to encourage awareness of global issues through debates about serious world topics and to improve the level of debating skills amongst young people.

The Kilmacrennan debaters – Conn McGettigan, Sadie McGettigan, Orla Kearney and John Cannon (captain) – were praised by their school principal and debating mentor John Devenney, who said: “We are delighted with this victory for the school.

“There has been a strong record of participation in debating competitions here in recent years, which is thanks to our teachers who have been fostering this tradition.”

The hundreds of students who participated in the competition each get a medal for their efforts and the winning school is awarded with a large wooden wall map of the world while the runner up will receive an engraved plaque.

The debates took part online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Concern Worldwide congratulated and thanked all participating pupils, their parents, teachers and wider communities.

“We applaud all Concern Primary debaters and those who supported them,” said Concern’s Head of Active Citizenship, Michael Doorly.

“Debating teaches us how to put our points across in a respectful, dignified, yet convincing way.

Any school that wants to participate in the next Concern Primary Debates competition can email debates@concern.net