All severe weather information messages will be recorded on the Highland Councils Schools Telephone Information Service: 0800 564 2272 (Keiss School parents’ PIN number 042290)

Moray Firth Radio www.mfr.co.uk Morning bulletins will be at 7.10, 7.40, 8.10 & 8.40am and will also include local information on weather, roads and conditions affecting schools.

In severe conditions normal programmes will be interrupted more frequently to carry emergency bulletins.

Highland Council Winter weather site: www.schoolclosures.highlandschools.org.uk.

We will try in all cases to provide you with information as early as possible.  Radio stations request that, since telephone lines are always busier at such times, parents should not phone in for advice but listen to appropriate broadcasts.

Full details of the Adverse Weather Guidelines are included in the enrolment pack. Parents should advise schools of an alternative address, as close as possible to the school, which may be used by their children in emergencies.

In most cases we aim to give you advance warning of closures, however in some circumstances this is impossible, e.g. power failure, extreme weather. All parents or emergency contacts would be informed. Our first priority is always the safety of the children and no child is knowingly sent home to an empty house.

The Education Authority accepts that in severe weather conditions the safety of pupils is paramount. It is a parents’ decision as to whether a pupil should or should not travel to school in bad weather. For pupils using school transport, weather conditions and availability or otherwise of shelter at the ‘pick-up’ point, will dictate just how long a child should wait, no pupil is expected to wait longer than twenty minutes past the normal ‘pick-up’ time.

During extreme weather, the drivers of the school bus will not drop off children where there is any doubt that they may not reach home safely.

Parents should arrange to have children met at the ‘drop-off’ point in such circumstances.