Below the Herald talks to the principals of two of the county’s biggest schools on how they, their staff, and their pupils have been coping with the return. 

BRIAN Treacy, principal of Holy Trinity PS, the largest primary school in the county, said things have been going very well since their return. 

“It’s been going very smoothly and that is down to the staff and the children as well,” he said. “The children have been absolutely brilliant. To me, they’ve been the stars of the show.”

Mr Treacy said, with the school open all summer for key workers’ children, his staff had been working hard throughout the lockdown and through the holidays, getting the school ready for the big return. 

“There is a perception by some in the media that teachers were off for five or six months, but that hasn’t been the case,” he said. 

Regarding funding, Mr Treacy said more support was certainly needed, and not just to help pay for the obvious safety extras needed for sanitising and social distancing. 

“We do need extra resources,” he said. “Never mind all the PPE and alterations to the buildings and so on that are needed, but also for the extra [staff] hours that are needed for drop off, pick ups, supervision, and so on.”