Monthly Archives: August 2020

Today, the S6 Pupil Leadership Team are visiting all classes to explain and demonstrate the new face covering rule which starts in Scottish schools on Monday 31st August.

Covid-19

Please find below a copy of e-mail communication from the Headteacher and letters from the Director of Education regarding Covid-19 and the impact on education.  Our risk assessments are also linked below.  Please note that the risk assessments are working documents and are frequently updated.

E-mail Communication:    

Scottish Government Letter – 29 April 2022

NHS Letter – 25 August

COVID-19 information letter for the new school term – 23 August                                                                         

School Update 3rd June

August Arrangements – 22 June

August Arrangements – 23 June

Pupil Return on 12th August

Pupil Absence – 19th August

FAQ

Face coverings – 28th August

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde letter

Coronavirus Jason Leith Letter on testing and common colds

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde – FAQ

Updated guidance – 4th September

Updated guidance – 2nd November

Digital learning including planners

Reporting a covid test result during the school holidays

December update

January update

Update – January 2021

Video conferencing

Parent letter – Covid-19 testing

Test Kit Collection schedule

Privacy notice

Pupil consent form 

FAQs for At Home Testing

Fact sheet for schools – At Home Testing

February – partial return for pupils

19th February 

Pupil return to school – 15th March 

S1-S3 Covid-19 Testing

S4-S6 Covid Testing

Plans for Monday 19th April – email 30th March

Letter for parents – June 2021

Letter for parents – 24 June 2021

 

Director of Education Letters:

3rd June

26th June

5th August

23rd December

5th March 

 

East Renfrewshire Council communication:

Provisional results for high school pupils

 

 

Risk Assessments:

Risk Assessment (Building)

Risk Assessment (Return to school)

East Renfrewshire Council: Impact of Covid – 19 on council services

From Scotland’s Young People

This is a consultation released by the Scottish Youth Parliament, intended to engage with as many young people (aged 12-25) across Scotland as possible.  The consultation will help to form the 2021-2026 Scottish Youth Parliament Manifesto which will directly shape our work. The findings will also influence political parties’ manifestos in the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections, to ensure that young people are being heard at a national level.

The link to the survey is below:

https://www.surveygizmo.eu/s3/90236199/From-Scotland-s-Young-People-SYP-s-Manifesto-2021-2026

Senior Awards Ceremony

Our annual Senior Awards Ceremony will this year, for the first time ever, be delivered as an online live stream.  We look forward to award winners and their families joining us to celebrate the successes of our young people. Parents and carers of award winners have been emailed a link.

Pupil Achievement

Congratulations to Michael (S5) who received an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons today.  This recognises Michael’s amazing achievements with volunteering to encourage biodiversit and sustainability.  Pictured with Kirsten Oswald MSP and Councillor Annette Ireland.

Pupil Achievement

Congratulations to Ellie (S6) who was successful in auditioning to become a member of the Scottish Opera Young Company for their 2020/2021 season. She is one of the youngest members of the Company and will train for a series of public performances in the summer of 2021.

Parent Council

Any parent/carer who would like join or find out more about the Parent Council should contact Simon Cunningham, Chair.
email: williamwoodpc@gmail.com

The Parent Council deal with different school matters and at the moment, are in discussion with First Bus regarding transport.  A copy of a letter can be viewed here.

Minutes – June 2022

Nut Policy

Nut Free Policy

A number of pupils and staff in school suffer from allergies. People who suffer from allergies can develop a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction. If someone has a nut allergy it is not just eating nuts that can cause a severe reaction; just being touched on the skin or smelling the breath of someone who has had nuts or a product containing nuts can trigger anaphylactic shock which can cause breathing and swallowing difficulties which can sometimes be fatal.  The letter has been issued to all parents/carers here.

Nuts are not allowed in school in any form.  We ask that you have no nut products in your lunch boxes or in staff bases, for example: 

•      Peanut butter sandwiches

•       Chocolate spreads

•       Cereal bars

•       Granola bars

•       Cakes that contain nuts

•       Biscuits / Cookies that contain nuts

•       Peanut butter cakes

•       Chocolates including Roses, Heroes, Celebrations, Quality Street

This list is not exhaustive, so please check the packaging of products closely.

All product packaging must be checked for warnings directed at allergy sufferers and if the following or similar are displayed, the product must not be brought:

·         Not suitable for nut allergy suffers

·         This product contains nuts

·         This product may contain traces of nuts

First Bus Update

Please find below communication from First Bus:

Dear School,

As will already be aware, the coronavirus pandemic has had a significant effect on everyone’s lives and has raised a number of challenges for all of us in terms of adapting to new ways of working and living, with the ultimate aim of keeping everyone safe on the journey towards a new kind of normal.

At First Glasgow, we’re proud to have been able to keep the city and surrounding areas moving through the delivery of essential journeys throughout lockdown and, as businesses and schools begin to reopen, we’re welcoming back more and more customers as they set out on their own journeys towards a new normal at work or school.

The vast majority of the services that we operate are now back running at their pre-covid levels in terms of how frequent each route runs. However, with physical distancing in place to keep everyone safe while they travel on public transport, each of our buses at the present time, and for the foreseeable future, has restricted capacity on board at a level of approximately 50%. To put this into a plain context, our single decker buses can each only hold a maximum of 17-20 passengers, while our double decker fleet can only take a maximum of roughly 34-38 passengers.

Given that we only have around half of the normal seating capacity available to use, and with our entire fleet already in use, there is a very real risk that large numbers of pupils will not be able to board their initial bus of choice, or indeed a subsequent trip that follows on our busiest routes, and they therefore risk being stranded at the bus stop. We expect this situation to be at its most prevalent during the morning and afternoon peaks at school entry/exit times.

With that in mind, we decided to contact schools along many of our bus routes to make them aware of this issue upfront and to advise that schools make plans for this information to be communicated internally to students and to further cascade this information out to the parents of attending pupils.

The capacity restrictions that we’re dealing with are one of the biggest challenges that we’ve ever faced, and we cannot stress enough how important it is that parents realise the strain that bus networks will come under when schools return. We’d therefore appreciate any assistance that schools may be able to give via their own communication channels to get the message out to parents not to just assume that their children will be able to hop on the first bus that comes along.

While this situation is far from ideal, I can assure you that we’re doing absolutely everything possible to mitigate the effects of instances of full buses, and our service network will therefore continue to be reviewed regularly in an attempt to adapt to ever changing demand.

In the meantime, we do have a number of new journey planning and real time data tools that can be accessed through our website and app to help passengers check exactly how busy a bus is as it operates along the route, as well as a space checker function to help plan ahead and travel at quieter times. These are:

First Bus App: Now shows on a live basis, exactly where buses are on a route, with each bus on the map also showing how many free seats there are on board – it even tells you whether or not the wheelchair space is available. When a bus reaches its maximum capacity, it will show as ‘full’ on the app map and the screen on the front of the bus of the affected trip will show ‘Bus Full due to Social Distancing’.

First Bus Space Checker: This function is a new feature only on our website for the moment, but it helps customers to plan their travel movements up to 7 days in advance and identify on the routes that they intend to use when buses are busy and quiet. This works by analysing the data from each service from the previous week and generating a ‘capacity heat map’ that shows when the routes are at their busiest, and when they tend to be quieter. The function is designed to help spread passenger demand across the route and encourage travel at quieter times, thereby helping to reduce instances of buses becoming full where possible, through advance customer planning.

I hope that the above information is helpful in outlining the challenges we as a bus operator are currently facing with physical distancing in force, as well as the advances in journey planning methods and frequent network reviews that we’ve introduced to try and mitigate instances of buses becoming full where possible. If you have any questions on our services, or if I can assist any further, please do get in touch.

Robert Burns

Stakeholder Engagement Officer (Scotland)