Bluebells Preschool and Afterschool is a part-time Early Years’ service located within Loreto National School.

The service opened its doors for the first time in September 2021. Bluebells offers the free preschool scheme and an option of additional hours from 9.00am – 1.50pm. The preschool is a play-based preschool which follows a child led emergent programme of care.

It also offers an afterschool service within the school for primary school age children attending Loreto School. Currently the afterschool service runs from 1.50pm – 2.50pm with plans to eventually extend these hours until 5pm in the coming months.

The owners of this service are Rosemary Falvey and Alison Maher and both work in the service. Rosemary and Alison both have 16 years of experience working in the Early Years sector and most recently were managing a very well known creche in Killarney before branching out with their own preschool in Loreto National School.

Both Rosemary and Alison are local to Killarney and parents themselves with children both in attendance in Loreto National School and Bluebells Preschool.

Rosemary attended Loreto National School as a child and her daughter, Lily, is carrying on the family tradition, being the fourth generation from their family to attend Loreto National School.

Within Bluebells, Rosemary and Alison have created a home away from home environment for the children where they can make friends and have quality, fun learning experiences in a safe and secure environment.

“Our main goal in Bluebells is to provide a quality early learning experience through an environment that encourages and respects individuality and to maximize the development of children through the provision of professional care and developmentally appropriate educational activities,” said Rosemary.