LOOKING back over the past Covid-ravaged 12 months, Mount Lourdes’ Principal, Sinead Cullen, believes that despite the many setbacks that have been experienced, the school community has to be commended on how it dealt with it all.

Looking back, she said: “I clearly remember that day – it was mid-March, 2020 when I walked out of Mount Lourdes late in the evening.

“We’d had a conversation with the Chairperson of our Board of Governors, Monsignor Peter O’Reilly, and the decision was taken to close the school.

“We were thinking, you know, possibly [we’d close] only to Easter; there would be a break, and we would get Covid-19 under control, and then we’d be back in school in mid-April.

“We would never have – or I would never have – foreseen the direction things would go in, that we would have months of school closure.”

On March 22, 2021, Years 12-14 returned to the school for the first time since Christmas.

Looking back at the first lockdown, which came into effect on March 23, 2020, the Mount Lourdes Principal described there being so many unknowns, but the lessons learnt from the first lockdown helped the school in the months to come.

“There was the whole establishment of remote learning practices, the cancellation of examinations, the cancellation of GL transfer assessment centre, and the centre-assessed grades process.

Students returned to the school in September, and while there were a few positive Covid cases within the school community, Mrs. Cullen felt that the school was doing well in keeping everybody as safe as possible – the number-one priority.

Alongside that has been the wellbeing of the students, which was a challenge: “Young people have lost so much, particularly that social interaction, and all the events that they should have attended.”

Mrs. Cullen believes the way teachers have adapted to new ways of learning, and the way students have also embraced such challenges, has been a real positive in the past year.

“Our own staff here have really embraced remote learning so positively. Our teachers are delivering live lessons to their classes, two to three times per week. They have Microsoft Teams as their main forum for communication with their students; even our classroom assistants are supporting their individual students, digitally.

“When I reflect on the teachers’ experiences, I have to be very mindful of their own personal experiences. Many of them have young families; they’re supporting home learning in their own homes, but they’re also delivering live lessons to their students, and I think that the teaching staff really have to be commended for their dedication.”

Mrs. Cullen also looks at the innovative ways the school has kept spirits up in its community through virtual masses, assemblies, sports days, staff meetings and other events.

“There has been such a good spirit within the school. I really feel the resilience of the staff and students to dig deep and to work through the challenges together.”