Good Afternoon,

I’m taking the opportunity to get in touch with all schools in our operating area to ask for your assistance in getting the message across to all pupils, of the importance for pupils to comply with the Scottish Government’s requirement for passengers travelling on public transport to wear a face covering.

We’ve had our street teams out across the network conducting spot checks in support of engaging with, explaining and encouraging passengers to wear a face covering while travelling on our buses that operate as part of the First Glasgow network.

Sadly, it’s been brought to my attention by the teams that a significant number of school pupils across the network are not complying with Scottish Government guidance. For example, during one such exercise, our teams have approached a number of pupils and asked where their face covering is and the pupil has then pulled it out of their bag and then complied with the request from our team to put it on. However, the moment the team switched decks, the pupils immediately removed their coverings again and the team had to re-engage and advise strongly that they must keep their coverings on.

The key problem here is not that pupils don’t know the rules about the wearing of face coverings on public transport – the fact that they have the coverings in their bags is proof of that itself. It’s the more concerning behaviour that they simply choose to flout the rules in this regard.

I cannot stress enough the health risk that this behaviour poses to our drivers, other passengers on board (including schoolchildren), and indeed, the wider population in terms of potential transmission of coronavirus. We now at the stage that if further breaches of the wearing of face coverings are identified, we will be reporting them to Police Scotland.

I’d therefore be extremely grateful if you could engage our messaging in the strongest possible terms with your pupils to help us keep everyone safe when travelling on our bus network. The key messaging is:

• Wear a face covering when boarding, travelling throughout, and alighting from the bus on every journey. Exemptions only apply to those that have a medical condition that makes the wearing of a covering difficult.

• Please only use seats that are not marked with our yellow seat sashes. If the seat has a sash, don’t use it. This helps to enforce physical distancing and keeps everyone at a safe space from each other.

• Try to wash your hands before and after you make any journey.

I hope that this information is helpful, and I look forward to your assistance in highlighting the importance of these requirements when travelling on our services. If there’s anything else we can assist you with, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Your sincerely

Duncan Cameron
Operations Director

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The school are delighted to announce that S6 pupils Amy-Lee McLachlan and Kori Turnbull have been selected as school captains for session 2020-21. Both Amy-Lee and Kori won a pupil vote and following an interview with Mr Gardiner, Depute for S5-6 and Head Teacher Mrs Rooney, where they discussed what the role of school captain involves, the skills and qualities they possessed in order to undertake the role, and finally how they could progress the role and school in their capacity as captains were successful. Amy-Lee and Kori are now looking forward to representing the school, being a role model to pupils, and working closely with the school’s senior management team and pupils to help solve issues that are important to the school community. Congratulations to both pupils.

The entire school community are working very hard to ensure the utmost safety of our pupils and staff now that school has resumed. During this unprecedented time all at Braidhurst are following the guidance for schools from North Lanarkshire Council and the Scottish Government regarding the safe resumption of teaching and learning. This includes: following a timetable of double periods to minimise pupil movement throughout the day, staggering interval and lunch times to prevent crowds and our outdoor areas now have zones which separate year groups during break and at lunch.

The school also has an enhanced cleaning process in place, including: wall-mounted sanitising dispensers placed at strategic points around the school for pupils and staff to easily access, a sanitising station in the school foyer which includes gels and sprays for everyone to use as soon as they enter the school building, furthermore staff and pupils are sanitising their desks and computers after each use.

We are grateful to staff for helping with these procedures and to our pupils who are willingly getting their hands sanitised at every opportunity – ‘skoosh hands, stay safe’ is our new catch phrase! All of these measures are in place to ensure that Braidhurst is a place of safety for our young people and staff and that risk is kept to a minimum. We appreciate the great support and co-operation of our entire school community in this new normal.