Dear Parents,

Remote learning finishes for all children P4-P7 on Friday. Whilst teachers will provide guidance for the completion of work on Friday as usual they will not be available online so please do not upload any of the children's work to be marked. Due to the short notice given by the Minister for the reopening of the school the teachers will need the time on Friday to set up their classrooms in readiness for Monday. We are looking forward to welcoming all of our children back to school.

Best Wishes,

Mrs McCullagh

NON-UNIFORM DAY TOMORROW Wear something green to celebrate St. Patrick in school or if remote learning!

why not send us your photos, we'd love to see them (to our page or to your teacher via Seesaw)

#CelebrateStPatrick

🚨ATTENTION PRIMARY 7 PARENTS🚨

POST PRIMARY APPLICATION

There are just TWO days left to make your post-primary application. The process will close at 4pm on Tuesday 16 March. Please visit https://www.eani.org.uk/parents/admissions to start your application.

To get our St. Patrick's Day off to a great start, the canteen are serving hot dogs and bacon baps for breakfast on Wednesday 17th March.

Cost £1.25 with complimentary fruit juice. Please book online from THE SHOP on SchoolMoney.

If you have any problems accessing SchoolMoney please contact the office, 02870833010.

WOW!! So many bags for our Cash for Clobber collection this week they didn't all fit in the silver shed! THANK YOU to everyone who donated bags of unwanted textiles... raising... drum roll please!!🥁🥁... £212!! Fantastic!👏👏 We really appreciate your support for this scheme - recycling and fund-raising for our school! 🚛♻️

Please continue to save your unwanted textiles for us. Our next collection will be on Wednesday 14th April. ♻️👚 👔 👗 👖👢👜🧥🧦👞🎒👡🧣

FREE SCHOOL MEAL UPDATE

Following the decision by the Northern Ireland Executive nursery and P1-P3 pupils will remain in school for week beginning March 22. For those pupils entitled to Free School Meals (FSM) arrangements are as follows:

Nursery and Primary 1 to Primary 3

For these pupils entitled to free school meals there will be no free school meal payment for week beginning March 22 as pupils will be in school and receiving a free school meal.

Special Schools and EOTAS

Special schools and EOTAS continue to remain open and pupils entitled to receive free school meal will receive a meal in school. For pupils of special schools and EOTAS who cannot attend school for medical reasons, parents/ guardians should contact the EA helpdesk, 02838 368186, to order their food parcels.

All other pupils learning remotely

For P4-P7 pupils and all pupils in mainstream post primary who are entitled to free school meals a payment will be made for the two week period from Monday 8 March to Friday 19 March. This payment will be in your nominated bank account on 18 March. If we do not have a nominated bank account, we will issue a cheque by post.

A further update will be provided in relation to payments in lieu of FSM from 22 March 2021 onwards.

The post-primary application process closes at 4pm next Tuesday, March 16. It is important that you apply before this time. If you have not started your application we would encourage that you do so now. You can continue to upload documentation and supporting evidence to show how your child meets the criteria for the schools you are selecting as preferences up to the closing date. https://www.eani.org.uk/parents/admissions

Lunch menu for next week, from Monday 15th March 2021. 

Please book online through our new SchoolMoney system. School lunches should be booked by 11pm the previous evening. 

Follow the link for our Parents Guide to SchoolMoney...https://primarysite-prod-sorted.s3.amazonaws.com/st-colums-primary-school/UploadedDocument/5b9a7461fe0c47a89d5c1cfd4f09acc5/school-money-parent-guide.pdf   If you have any problems accessing SchoolMoney, please contact the office ☎ 02870833010

Direct payments in place of free school meals will not be made to pupils who are required to attend school(P1-P3). Free school meals will not be provided to children of key workers and vulnerable children entitled to free school meals when they are at school for supervised learning as their parents will receive a direct payment.

Any pupil at school who wishes, including vulnerable children and children of key workers, may purchase a meal. Otherwise they should bring a packed lunch.
 

The online admissions process for post-primary schools on Education Authority website closes at 4pm on Tuesday 16th March.  https://www.eani.org.uk/

It is important to note that places are NOT allocated on a first come first served basis. Schools will not begin to process applications until after March 16th.

You can also check how your admissions choices might affect eligibility for transport assistance by using our transport eligibility checker - www.eani.org.uk/checktransport

During busy periods our admissions process will operate a queueing system, so you may find that you have to wait to access the system.

The busiest periods tend to be in the initial days after the admissions process opens.

For help and advice parents/ guardians can contact EA via email on: postprimaryadmissions@eani.org.uk

A telephone help desk will also from 1 March to 16 March, 8am to 8pm Monday to Thursday and 8am to 5pm Friday.