Galway teacher welcomes the return of students
By Erika Sassone
A Galway school teacher has welcomed the return of students to their classes and said the next months will be crucial for their socialising skills development.
Louise Judge, Deputy Principal of Galway Educate Together Secondary School, is very happy to have the students back in class after two months of online classes.
“It’s difficult to learn at home, because there are different distractions depending on the different homes and what’s going on and who else is working and there can be WIFI difficulties and all sorts so, we’re really happy to be reopened and have the students back in,” she said.
Ms Judge also pointed out that these last seven weeks of school will be particularly important for students and their personal development.
“It is a bit more trickier to learn while wearing masks, to speak while wearing a mask, but it is still better than being online I think, because the students are getting social interactions. You know they are 12 and 13 and that’s a real critical part of their development, socially is how to interact and make friends, falling out with friends and having disagreement, all of that is also learning, so it’s not just the curriculum side that we’re glad to have them back for, it’s also for their own personal development as well,” she said.
All schools have to respect restrictions, placing sanitizing stations and wearing masks all day. Louise Judge said that “students are now used to it and after two months of online learning they all want to finish the year in class.”
“We try really hard to keep covid out of our school, so we encourage parents that if they child has any symptom at all to keep them at home, we encourage staff to do the same if they have any symptom at all they should stay at home, we try really hard to keep covid out of our school so that we can stay opened, because that’s ultimately what we really want,” she said.
The decision of reopening secondary schools has been part of the government plan to let students gradually go back to school.
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