COVID-19: Updated Working and Leave Arrangements from January 2022
- Published: 27 January 2022
With effect from January 2022, updated leave and working arrangements for teachers and SNAs due to Covid-19 was issued by the Department of Education in Information Note 0001/2022. Accompanying FAQs are also included in the information note (Appendix C).
Key Changes include:
- Application requirements for special leave with pay (Covid-19: Self Isolation & Diagnosis) and restricted movement
- Approval of Parental Leave in blocks of less than one week (Temporary change to the Parental Leave scheme will remain in place up to and including 23 February 2022)
Relaxation of Restrictions – What does it mean for your school?
- Published: 27 January 2022
A plan for the relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions was announced by the government last Friday, 21 January. Schools are exempt from the easing of Covid-19 Guidelines that are currently in place. There is no change to existing practices in schools regarding parent/teacher meetings, swimming etc. It is advisable that a school considering any extracurricular activities carry out a risk assessment. The Department of Education has advised that the current measures in place in schools will be reviewed on Monday, 28 February 2022.
Immerse Research Project on Refugee and Migrant children seeks schools in Cork, Dublin and Limerick
- Published: 19 January 2022
IMMERSE– Integration Mapping of Refugee and Migrant Children – is a Horizon 2020 project funded by the European Commission involving research teams in 6 countries – Ireland, Spain, Italy, Greece, Germany and Belgium. A research team in University College Cork led by Dr Shirley Martin is conducting the research in Ireland and is in the process of conducting a national survey on integration in Irish primary and secondary schools.
Your school’s participation
Schools in Cork, Dublin and Limerick are invited to become part of the Irish sample for data collection in Spring 2022. The study involves a one-time online or pen and paper survey with all 2nd, 4th and 6th class students in your school. Each student will fill out the survey by themselves, with facilitation from the UCC research team. It will take approximately 20-30 minutes. Given changing Covid restrictions, the team is completely flexible and it can be done onsite in school or virtually. There is also a short online survey and consent for the child’s parent or legal guardian, which will take approximately 10-15 minutes to fill out. In addition, there is a Principal and Class Teacher survey for the school staff.
If interested in having your school participate in this important and timely research, please contact s.martin@ucc.ie.
Questions? Ask us!
If you have any questions or would like more information on the survey or the larger research project, please do not hesitate to address any concerns you may have via email, or arrange a phone or video call. You can visit the project’s website: https://www.immerse-h2020.eu/ Here also is a short explanatory video that is used for children: UCC immerse .m4v.mp4
Resources for schools
The IMMERSE HUB has a bank of educational resources in seven languages. These resources consist of workshop ideas, classroom activities, lesson plans and academic articles covering different aspects of migration with the aim of promoting integration in schools and are available here: https://www.immerse-h2020.eu/ For further information email: immerse@ucc.ie
Book of Condolences for Ashling Murphy
- Published: 19 January 2022
There has been a palpable sense of solidarity and community demonstrated by the messages of sympathy shared on networking@ippn.ie in recent days. No one can truly understand the unimaginable heartbreak and loss suffered by Ashling Murphy’s family and her school community. We can only hope that the messages of condolence are of some comfort to them in the difficult days and weeks ahead.
All of the messages so generously sent will be collated into a book of condolences which will be shared in due course with her family as well as James and the staff in Durrow N.S. With that in mind and in order to ensure networking protocols are observed, your consent for IPPN to include your message of sympathy, unless you advise otherwise, will be presumed. If you would like to add a message and have not yet had an opportunity to do so, please reply to the thread on networking and IPPN will ensure its inclusion.
