Covid-related building work to start at Moate school

Internal construction work is to take place at a school in Moate over the Halloween break in order to resolve social distancing issues for a class of 31 children and two staff.

The Department of Education agreed to fund the work at St Oliver Plunkett NS after concerns about the size of the classroom for fourth and fifth class pupils were highlighted by principal Sinéad White.

Ms White had pointed out that their 46-square metre classroom was too small to allow social distancing among the class of 31 children, a teacher, and a special needs assistant.

Following a visit to the all-boys' school in early September, Department officials agreed to reconfigure a separate classroom to accommodate the fourth and fifth class group.

An internal wall between two rooms will be taken out, which will make one of the rooms bigger and will make a resource room smaller.

The bigger room would then be used to accommodate the class of 31 with proper social distancing.

Speaking to the Westmeath Independent on Monday afternoon, the school's principal said the work was due to begin this Friday and was expected to be completed by the time the children return after their Halloween break.

"The builders are ready to go in on Friday, to start taking down the wall and reconfiguring the two rooms, and they're optimistic that it can be done within the week," she said.

The school was allocated an additional temporary teacher last month, in order to facilitate teaching in smaller groups until the construction work was carried out, and that position is scheduled to end on Friday.

Ms White said this term has been "very challenging" but the school was fortunate not to have had any cases of Covid-19 to date.

She said that she and other principals were concerned that certain aspects of the public health guidelines for schools didn't appear to make sense.

For example, she said that if a child was deemed to be a close contact of a confirmed case, that child was advised to self-isolate but his or her siblings were not.

"We are lucky that we've had no cases, but we've been very vigilant at the door and I've been in close communication with the parents on a weekly basis about the requirements," said Ms White.

"Our parents have been supportive and have communicated positively with us, but it's very challenging. You're constantly battling the unknown."

She added that, for teaching principals such as herself, the reopening of schools during the pandemic had resulted in a massive amount of additional Covid-related work on top of the regular day-to-day duties.

Despite the current challenges, Ms White said she was glad that the schools had reopened and she was hoping they would continue to remain open during the weeks ahead.