Dear Parent/Carer,

As you know the First Minister announced that there would be an opportunity for all secondary pupils to get some in-school experience from 15th March up to the Easter holidays (school finishes on Thursday 1st April). Provisional arrangements currently are for a full return of all pupils after Easter on 19th April, but like everything at the moment, this is subject to change depending on data.

The 2m social distancing has to be in place this side of Easter and therefore this restricts the number of pupils we can have in at any one time (approx. one third of the school). There are clear instructions from the Scottish Government that priority should be given to Senior Phase due to qualifications this year.

Timetable

A timetable has been devised to allow for 2 days per week for S4/5/6 pupils and 1 day per week for S1/2/3 pupils. Unfortunately the last week is only a 4 day week and so a small group of pupils may be affected by this. Pupils will be in school as follows:

Monday
All of S4
S1 – Andrew House and Columba House ONLY

Tuesday
All of S4
S1 – Margaret House and Sinclair House ONLY

Wednesday
All of S3

Thursday
All of S5/6
S2 – Andrew House and Sinclair House ONLY

Friday
All of S5/6
S2 – Columba House and Margaret House ONLY

• Please note that the Houses relate to the pupils’ Pupil Support Teachers:
  • • Andrew House – Mrs Connor
    • Columba House – Mr McVeagh
    • Margaret House – Mrs Darroch
    • Sinclair House – Mr Martin
• When not in school, pupils will continue with remote learning.
• It will not be the usual timetable that pupils will follow as this does not work in these circumstances. The timetable with subjects that pupils will follow will be sent out later in the week.
• Due to social distancing classes are having to be split since there will be a maximum of about 10-12 pupils on average in each room. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the class teacher will be taking the class, but it will be a subject specialist (unless staff absence does not allow).
• These arrangements will supersede the timetable that had been in place for practical subjects. which will continue until the end of this week.
• All pupils should wear school uniform.

Transport

School buses will be running as normal. The information form the Scottish Government concluded that some relaxation in the 2m restriction on school transport could be supported as long as the importance of ventilation on buses was emphasised, alongside the need for regular effective cleaning.

Face coverings should be worn on school transport (as on public transport) and an approach whereby pupils sit on staggered seating (i.e. not next to each other, but alternating window-aisle-window etc. row by row) would be sufficient mitigation.

Car sharing should continue to be discouraged.

Arrival at School 

Pupils should wait outside on their arrival at school in their designated areas, as was the case before Christmas. They will then be directed to class.

2m Social Distancing

Pupils should adhere to 2m social distancing in and around the school. This means that in classes, corridors and in social areas, such as the canteen, pupils maintain this social distancing.

Face Masks

The Scottish Government advice is that all secondary pupils from S1 -S6 should now wear masks in the school building including classes (S4/5/6 have been doing this for a number of months now). We are aware of those pupils who are exempt on medical grounds.

LFD Testing

Lateral flow device (LFD) testing has been introduced in schools for staff and senior pupils (S4/5/6). Information on this has been sent out previously and if you have not already completed the consent form and received these, I would encourage you to do so as this can have an impact of stopping the spread of the virus where staff or pupils are asymptomatic. Pupils should see Mr McHugh or Mrs Moore for their test packs. If pupils were in school for the full week, there would be an expectation that a test was done twice that week (eg. Sun/Wed night). Given that senior pupils are only in two days until Easter, it would be sufficient for them to only do the test once a week, the night before they come into school for their first day that week (or in the morning if they are out their bed early enough!). The announcement has just been made this week by the Depute First Minister that these tests would be available to all secondary pupils after Easter. We will let you know when we receive more information about this.

Since the lockdown in January we have been accommodating a small number of pupils for various reason, eg. key worker children. We will continue to accommodate these pupils as usual during those final three weeks before the Easter holidays.
Trying to pull something together that would work, in the time we were given, has been a massive task and I would like to thank Mrs Moore and Mr McHugh in particular for the huge amount of time and effort they have put in to creating a timetable taking into account the restrictions we have in place. A task like this would normally take a number of weeks, which makes it all the more laudable.

As stated previously, a timetable will be sent later in the week so that pupils will know their subjects for the day they are in school.

Thank you once again for your patience and understanding in these ever-changing times.

Kind Regards

Dan Cardle