Please note that as per advice from the Department of Education and Skills, Scoil Thomáis will be closed until the 19th of April. Our re-opening date is yet to be confirmed by the Department of Education and Skills but we will inform you of that date as soon as we get it!

The most important thing to remember in these most difficult times is look after yourself and each other. Hopefully we will all be back together in school soon, once we have been told it is safe to do so. Take care and stay safe.

In the meantime, don't forget that RTÉ Home School Hub launches on Monday 30th of March. It's a daily, scheduled classroom for primary school pupils from 1st to 6th Class. Watch it weekdays on RTÉ2 from 11am, anytime on the RTÉ Player and all of the resources are on www.rte.ie/learn

As you are all aware, our fantastic athletes will not unfortunately get to compete in the Cross Country Finals due to be held in Santry, on Tuesday next, 31^st March. Likewise our ‘Santry Squad’ of sprinters are not getting to train as planned for their races in May.

Nevertheless, we’re sure that you’re all doing your best to keep fit and healthy in whatever way you can! And so we’d like to encourage all of our pupils, and not just our athletes, to keep a little record of the ways in which they’re managing to keep up their fitness in challenging circumstances!

Whether you’re walking, running, skipping, playing games in the back garden, or even exercising to an online video (on Go Noodle or other website) you might like to keep a record of your achievements to share with your class and teachers when school re-opens. If you are doing some school work on school days, you could even record what you do on your ‘break-times’ at home.

Below is a simple record keeper you can use, or if you prefer, make and keep your own exercise journal. Start next Monday (30^th March) if you can, or on any day that suits you! Keep your records in a safe place, as your teacher will be collecting them when we all meet up again.

Scoil Thomáis Fitness Challenge Record

We hope that everyone in our school community is keeping well as best they can in these strange circumstances. Over the next few weeks, we will all learn new skills and use our creativity more than we ever have before.

Technology can be brilliant and we'd like to share some ideas with you that you might find helpful. Please remember to keep an eye on our @ScoilThomais Twitter and @scoilthomais Instagram pages, as we're posting ideas there regularly. We'd also like to share another resource from our friends in Cloughfin National School in Co. Donegal. They have made Padlets for each of the year groups. A Padlet is an online noticboard where links to relevant websites can be easily shared. You'll find them below.

 There are also some lovely ideas available from the Irish National Teacher's Organisation. You can see them here.

Listening to the experts, we know that it's important to try and keep a regular routine - while it might feel like we're on holidays, we're not. It's important to set the alarm, get up, make the bed and start the day like normal. Setting good habits now will help make the next few days and weeks a lot easier.

As Ms McGarry says, when this crisis is over, we will all get back to school and catch up on our school work. Meanwhile take care, keep safe and we hope that all of our pupils are being kind and helpful at home!