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Primary schools must take account of their new schoolbook grant scheme before deciding whether to ask parents for any contribution this year, according to parents’ spokesperson Áine Lynch. ....
It wasn’t the first day of the school year, but it felt like it as pupils’ reconnected with their friends and teachers, who stood in front of a class for the first time in more than two months. At the 430-pupil Mary Mother of Hope Junior National School in Castaheany, west Dublin, the rich diversity of its pupil population was evident in children bearing bunches of flowers, honouring the Eastern European custom of presenting a bouquet to teacher on the first day of the school year. If floral traditions relatively new to Irish education brought smiles, the familiar habit of parents lingering for a chat at the school gate was taboo – and it doesn’t appear to have been a problem. The message from everyone from Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn to school principals was for parents to ‘drop and dash’ or to ‘pick up and push on’. ....