Tag Archives: Peter Walsh

CLARE schools resume today at a time when Covid-19 transmission is at its highest point since the pandemic began. With a huge amount of people either having tested positive or having been close contacts of positive cases, there will inevitably be many teachers and pupils absent in the coming days. On Wednesday, Peter Walsh, principal of St Conaire’s in Shannon was preparing for the resumption, aware that a large cohort of teachers won’t be available for the first day back. “At the moment I’m looking at six and possibly seven (who won’t be there). That’s just over a quarter of my teaching staff.” He said that he had spoken to colleagues on Tuesday and Wednesday who were also expecting similar levels of teacher absence. Mr Walsh said that it is very difficult to prepare when Covid-19 is so prevalent. “It’s very, very challenging. It’s probably even more challenging than it was back in September, now that Covid-19 is everywhere with …

THE Delta variant is out there, but with schools having reopened from lockdowns already and having had to learn how to protect students and staff from the Covid threat, they aren’t facing an unknown enemy this time. Principal of St Conaire’s in Shannon is Peter Walsh and he said that the guidelines are well established now. “The Department have issued the information and we’re following all that, we have the template from last year, we’re following that and getting on with it. We’re doing all the sanitising, everyone is used to that now, we’ll do the best we can. The staff are very good and they’re well used to it, we’ll see how it goes.” While there is some familiarity around Covid now, he doesn’t feel that schools will be as relaxed when they reopen as they would have been pre March 2020. “No, I don’t think the stress is gone out of it. You’re depending on the community monitoring …