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Mr Berne’s Friday message
We hope that everyone is safe and well. Happy Friday!
Today marks the end of our fourth week of remote learning. We are very proud of our families as they continue to adapt to the challenges that home learning brings. You should be very proud of yourselves too! Our pupils have shown great resilience and the work being submitted is phenomenal. Well done to everyone!
As we approach the end of a very challenging month, we are delighted to celebrate our pupils achievements. I cannot underestimate the importance of reading and our Year 8 pupils have excelled, reading over 12 million words as part of the Accelerated Reader scheme. “Reading gives us some place to go when we have to stay where we are” and we would encourage all our pupils to spend time reading each week. Pupils can use https://www.getepic.com/ to get access to a wide range of reading books. It is great to see our pupils enjoying and seeing the value of reading independently.
Thank you to our parents also for supporting this programme and getting our pupils into the habit of reading regularly. Your efforts are helping to enrich your child’s life with every book they read.
This week for Wellbeing Wednesday, our Home Economics teacher Miss Hegarty showed us all how to bake some delicious raspberry and white chocolate scones as part of our theme of ‘giving’. I hope that you were able to take time as a family to develop this skill and enjoy your creations.
Next week is Children’s Mental Health Week. We have lots planned throughout the week for all our pupils. On Wellbeing Wednesday next week, we will be having a ‘Digital Detox’ day. Pupils will not be set any work on this day. This will be a great opportunity for our pupils to step away from the computer screens and do something that they enjoy; for example, go for a walk, listen to music, play board games, bake, read a book, exercise or just ‘chill out’ and enjoy the free time.
I have always stressed the importance of balance and it is more important than ever that we look after our pupils mental health at this time. I hope the one day ‘Digital Detox’ will be well received by all our families. You have all worked so hard, so please take this opportunity to take time for yourselves.
Yesterday, it was announced by the Education Minister that remote learning would continue beyond half-term for two further weeks until March 8th 2021. As part of Catholic Schools Week this week, we are reminded of the importance of faith and resilience, two key qualities that can help us in such difficult times. We will continue to support all our families and provide those quality learning experiences in the knowledge that this will not last forever and we will see you all again very soon.
Well done this week. See you all again on Monday morning. Enjoy your weekend!
Take care and God Bless,
Mr Berne
