Dear parent,

After the madness of last night with the announcement of school closures, I wanted to keep in regular contact with you and to keep you updated with arrangements for the closure. As yet, there remain so many unanswered questions, so the best we can do is deal with the things that we do know. Please take time to read through the following points carefully.

WORK PROVISION FOR TERM 3.

Staff have been working hard over the last week to put in place plans for term 3 education provision. After much deliberation and preparation, we have decided on the following pattern:

P1-P4 – the majority of work for P1-P4 will be sent home today (Thursday) as hard copy worksheets and booklets etc. Please note this work is to be used after the Easter break (from Monday 20th April). You should already have the work planned for the two weeks prior to Easter. Once again, if your child is absent from school today and tomorrow, please collect term 3 work on Monday 23rd March from 9.30am. Weekly timetables will be uploaded on to the school website to guide you through the weeks after Easter. These can be found in Home-Children-Class pages and will be uploaded in time for the start of each school week from Monday 20th April

P5 – P7 – Mr Halliday and Mr Wright have been absolutely flat out this week preparing staff and pupils to use the online platform, Google Classroom. All children in P5-P7 who have been in school this week have been given a crash course in how to use Google Classroom and the children who have received this will have also received log in details for this. For those children who have not been in school this week to receive this training, log in details will be sent via a text message. Alternatively, a list of these will be held in my office and you can collect it on Monday 23rd March. An instruction guide on using Google Classroom can be found on the school website – Home-Parents-Online Learning.

This is a lot to take in but if I’ve learnt anything this week, it is that seemingly insurmountable tasks can be overcome by taking small steps at a time, and this is what we have tried to do.

P6 TRANSFER

This is a worrying time for all P6 parents given the repercussions for the AQE in November and December and the time that would normally be spent in the summer term preparing children for this – as the parent of a child in P6, I understand your concerns about this. For the children who are present today, transfer test packs will be sent home. If your child is not present today, these can be collected from the boxes at the front entrance on Monday 23rd March. It is vital that you do your level best to work through these papers in the time that we are not in school. Answers to each of the tests will be posted on the P6 Google Classroom page in due course.

CHILDREN OF ‘KEY WORKERS’

You may have heard the Minister for Education’s pronouncement this morning indicating that the children of ‘key workers’ may well attend school on Monday. The most frustrating thing about this for me as principal, and for everyone else, is that these pronouncements rarely, if ever, come with any substance or detail. As I write, no clarification has been given as to who is considered a ‘key worker’. There are so many professions that could rightly consider themselves as such and we could have such large numbers of children wishing to attend school that closing the schools becomes a pointless exercise in the first place! I wish I could be clearer about the details but at present, they do not exist. Until such times as it is made clear, you should plan for your children to be off school along with everyone else.

A FEW REMINDERS

• School is open as normal tomorrow with the usual finishing times
• Children may come to school in non-uniform
• Scientific Sue has been cancelled so there is no need to send £1 with your child.

Thank you for everything. The messages of support and reassurance that I have personally received from many of you has been truly humbling. Thank you.

Kind regards

D Corbett

Principal.