Dear Parent/Carer
As always, I’m hoping things are OK with you.
And as if the wider “lockdown” situation isn’t bad enough, we’ve now had a taste of an Arctic winter! You will be aware that we’ve had to close the school to the small number of pupils for whom we have been open recently. Of course, for the vast majority of learners, the closure of the building has no material impact, with home learning continuing as usual. However, next week is a shorter week with Inset Training for staff on Wednesday 15 February and the mid-term break on Thursday and Friday.
Then, from 22 February, we will begin to have small groups of seniors in at identified times, usually whole days. Only those Senior Phase (S4-6) students who are undertaking practical SQA courses and need to be in school to access specialist equipment, workshops etc will be in school. Those affected will be contacted by their teachers in advance via Teams and we will send out a calendar once it is confirmed. We are still waiting for final decisions from Education Scotland about which subjects and activities will be included. We’ll also have a Parent Council Meeting with that as the main agenda item, probably week beginning 22 February. Gillian McIntyre (Chair) will send you an invitation shortly. On any given day we would expect to have no more than an extra 50 or so young people in the building, working with a handful of staff. There will be 2m distancing applied and a strict hygiene regime. The provision for keyworkers’ children and those deemed to be vulnerable will continue.
Also, you are maybe aware that all school staff and Senior Phase pupils who come into schools are strongly encouraged to take a self-administered asymptomatic Covid test at home twice weekly. I mentioned this last week. The test involves a swab and Lateral Flow Device (LFD), and comes in a box of 3 tests for pupils. The tests do not have to be sent off to a lab and results are available in 30 minutes. Testing is not compulsory, but most of us will probably appreciate the public health benefits of this. The results are all recorded online by the test user and it’s another way of tracking and restricting the spread of the virus.
The school needs to record the explicit consent of those taking part (including parents/carers of those under 16, although this is still to be confirmed) and track the issue of kits. We intend to set up an online form to do this, more details shortly. I’ll also provide a link to testing instructions, FAQs etc. I do hope that all S4-6 accessing the building will be part of the programme and it’s likely that we’ll invite young people to collect and take a test when they first come into the school. As I say, this is not a compulsory process, but I strongly recommend that you encourage your son/daughter to take part as they begin to be reintegrated to “in-person” learning.
There are a couple of thank you messages. Thanks to all who joined us for our online parent/carer events this week. On Monday, we had the last of our P7 Transition Evenings and are continuing to take “placing requests” over the next couple of weeks. We are anticipating that the new S1 roll for 2021 will be about 280 and the total school roll somewhere up around 1450. This means that it will be wise for anyone considering a placing request to submit this soon. Please spread the word.
On Wednesday, we had another online “training” event for parents/carers with a focus on the use of Microsoft Teams. I’m grateful to all the staff who supported this, especially Miss Samfat, our Principal Teacher of Digital Learning. The parents/carers who joined in raised all sorts of interesting issues and thought it would be helpful to reissue our “Digital Learning Guide”. Here’s a link to this:
I should say that our website, which is currently hosted by Fife Council on “Fife Direct” is due to be closed down at the end of March as Fife moves to a different system. That will explain why some of the content has been reduced lately. We are now constructing a new website on “GLOW”, which will have full public access and some additional functions not currently available. Our new domain name will be “kirkcaldyhighschool.com” and we are going live from the start of March. I’m very grateful to Dr Paul Murray of the Chemistry Department, who has kindly agreed to be our “webmaster” and has got our test site up and running. We are likely to have subject based “microsites” linked in, and these should be really useful for home learning, study support and revision in the future. More details in due course.
You’ll see that there is an attachment to this email. Many thanks to Mr Paterson (our “Young Workforce” Coordinator) who has compiled our latest Employability Bulletin. As you know, we see it as an important part of our work to help all of our leavers to access a “positive destination” after school eg college, university, employment or training.
I mentioned next week’s staff training. This has the focus on this year’s SQA qualifications and teachers will be working together across Fife to agree the method for arriving at the grades which will be awarded for the Nationals, Highers and Advanced Highers. These are to be evidence based and the SQA has extended the deadlines for submission of these until June. This should allow us time to use internal assessments to support teacher judgement once all young people in S4-6 have access to the building again. In the meantime, I would urge all those learners to continue to try their very best at home. Of course, this is good advice for all our pupils.
We do know that’s not easy and we remain here for you, to support you in helping your kids to keep engaged and “on track”. Please do be in contact if you need that help.
Finally, next Tuesday is “Pancake Tuesday” and we are encouraging families to get involved in a fun way if possible. Ms Collins, Head of Home Economics, is sharing some recipe ideas on “Teams” and we are looking for photos, feedback etc. Please don’t feel you have to be involved or need to shop for special ingredients. In fact, if you would need us to arrange a delivery of flour etc we should be able to do that, please be in touch.
All the very best to you. Please take care.
Derek Allan
RECTOR
12 February 2021
