COVID-19: NORTH LANARKSHIRE COUNCIL INFORMATION ON KEY WORKERS , SCHOOL MEALS AND STUDENTS IN S4 – S6

KEY WORKERS

All North Lanarkshire schools will be open on Monday for the children of the following categories of key workers

It is essential, to stop the spread of transmission of coronavirus, that people who can work from home do work from home. This is not business as usual and it is vital that this support being offered is only accessed by those who absolutely require it to enable NHS and other critical services to function.

If you’re a key worker who requires support, please take your child to your normal school on Monday. We will review these arrangements over the coming week and it is likely we will fully close some schools but we will inform you of this and the alternative provision we will put in place.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should any child who has symptoms of coronavirus, or who lives in a household where someone has symptoms, present at school. The whole family must follow the self-isolation advice.

Key worker categories:

Category 1

Includes:

  • Health and care workers directly supporting COVID-19 response and associated staff
  • Workers supporting life-threatening emergency work as well as critical primary and community care provision
  • Staff of energy suppliers
  • Staff, including teachers and early years workers, providing childcare and learning for other key workers and staff who support school buildings

Category 2

Please note that the first presumption is that staff who can work from home will work from home

  • All other health and care workers including home support staff and care home staff
  • Emergency services staff, including police, fire and rescue, prison officers
  • Military personnel
  • Social workers

Those supporting critical national infrastructure including:

  • Staff keeping air, water, road and rail passenger transport operating
  • Oil, gas, electricity and water and sewerage workers
  • Logistics staff including drivers and transport workers
  • Food and other necessary goods staff including food production, processing, distribution, sale, delivery as well as those essential to the provision of hygienic and veterinary medicines
  • Staff in essential financial service provision including: banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure; IT and data infrastructure; postal services; civil nuclear, chemicals and telecommunications; payment providers; waste disposal.
  • Journalists and broadcasters

Category 3

Other council and associated staff in the following categories. Please note that the first presumption is that staff who can work from home will work from home

  • Strategic-level management and support staff
  • Waste services staff
  • Fleet services staff
  • Cemeteries staff
  • Property repairs and maintenance staff including frontline workers of Mears and Saltire
  • Roads and lighting maintenance staff including staff of Amey
  • Facility support services including cleaning, catering, school crossing patrollers and janitorial staff
  • Human resources staff including payroll and employee service centre
  • IT staff
  • Communications staff
  • Finance staff including welfare, revenue and benefits staff and municipal bank staff
  • Registration staff
  • Essential legal services
  • Psychological services staff

SCHOOL MEALS

All children who are entitled to free school meals will be able to access these meals. If you need to access this support please take your child to their usual school at the school’s normal lunchtime, but only at their normal lunchtime.

Breakfast clubs will be open in those schools that normally offer them, will be open.

S4, S5 and S6 STUDENTS

A normal timetable will not be operating. Only the following students should attend school:

  • Children of key workers as detailed above.
  • Pupils who have already been instructed by their schools to attend at a specific time for coursework purposes.

Other S4, S5 and S6 pupils will be contacted by schools shortly to arrange completion of coursework. Schools have already informed pupils about arrangements for online learning.

Important Information about Covid-19 from North Lanarkshire’s Education and Families Service

Parents and carers are advised that North Lanarkshire Council Communications team are preparing to release information as soon as possible through its normal communication channels regarding the closure of schools to pupils from today.  This will include

  • Arrangements for children of key workers (including clarification of who Key Workers are)
  • Clarification of arrangements for S4-S6 pupils for SQA accreditation purposes
  • Arrangements for those children requiring free school meals from Monday onwards
  • Arrangements for children with additional support needs from Monday

Further information will be available through the school’s normal communication channels from Monday onwards.

Today, the Education and Families Service issued information in the form of a letter from the Executive Director of Education and Families, Derek Brown.

From:  Derek Brown, Executive Director

Dear Parents /Carers

Following advice from the Scottish Government to close educational establishment today, we fully recognise that from today children and young people may be at home for a long period of time and we have produced a suite of materials to support their learning – further information about materials will be sent to you in due course.

Understandably, this is an unsettling time for children, young people and their carers and many people will be feeling anxious about the current situation and the impact that it may have on the health and wellbeing of family, friends and colleagues.

For this reason we have also included information to help you reassure your child.  Many of these resources have been developed in collaboration with South Lanarkshire Council.  The document linked below provides some advice and guidance.

We will continue to up-date this resource and ensure that it is widely available online.  You will be notified of these updates next week.

Thank you for your on-going support during these challenging times.

Regards

Derek Brown, Executive Director

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/nl/public/taylor/uploads/sites/25431/2020/03/20181348/EF_00204-Supporting-Children-Interactive-1.pdf

Taylor High Sixth Year House Captains

Taylor High School House Captains underwent a change in the New Year when we bade farewell to Ben Johnston who left school.  We wish Ben well in his journey through college.

Ben was replaced by Alana Hillcoat as the St. Andrews House (S3) captain for the remainder of the year.

Alana now joins the rest of the team;

St. Ninian House (S1) – Jemma Steele

St. Kentigern House (S2) – Aidan Donnelly

St. Margaret House (S4) – Maariya Amjad

St. John Ogilvie House (S5) – Sophie Ho

St. Columba House (S6) – Carly Nimmo

 

Foundations of Success – Workshop for S3 – S6 Parents/Carers, Wednesday 19th February 2020, 7 – 8pm

We are delighted to welcome author, speaker and therapist Brian Costello to the school for a workshop for Parents and Carers to explain how we can help our students to successfully navigate the next few months of study and examinations. Some students may experience a degree of stress and anxiety in the run up to SQA exams.

Brian will discuss how these metal health issues are created, why sometimes our best efforts as parents and teachers aren’t enough and most importantly will give us some tips, advice and strategies we can use to ensure our pupils do their absolute best when the exams begin on 27th April this year.

Brian has spoken at schools across Glasgow and beyond and the evening promises to be informative, interesting and entertaining.

The presentation will take place in the school theatre from 7.00 – 8.00 pm. All parents and carers of students in Third to Sixth Year are welcome.

2020 Rockfest: Battle of the Bands!

Join us on the evening of  Tuesday 18th February at 7pm to support Taylor’s very own Rock band performing in Motherwell Civic Centre.

Aidan McKenna (S5), John Woods (S4), Emma Jane Doak (S5) and Kyle Lawson (S3)  worked extremely hard to qualify for the final of this years Rockfest! On Tuesday the band have a chance to win the big prize. They will undoubtedly be up against some great bands from other schools but the Taylor quartet is also a top quality outfit with a great chance on the night!

Tickets are £5 – available from the school. Hurry – time is now short!

We wish them the best of luck and cannot wait to see them rock out on stage!

Breakfast at Taylor’s

One of the school’s initiatives to support closing the attainment gap began on Wednesday 15th January when our new Breakfast Club began. This club is open to all pupils from First Year to Sixth Year everyday from 8:15am to 8:45am. Pupils will be provided with toast, cereal, fruit juice and hot drinks, all free of charge. This club takes place in the newly designated Hub adjacent to the Modern Languages area of our Languages Faculty. Many thanks to Mr Kevin Savage, teacher of Physics, for organising this club and to all members of staff who have volunteered to help out each morning.

Health and Wellbeing Workshop for Parents and Carers – School Theatre, Thursday 16th January 2020, 4-.15 – 5.15pm

A Health and Wellbeing Workshop for Parents and Carers of all pupils will be held on Thursday 16th January 2020 at 4.15pm in the school theatre.

This workshop should last approximately 1 hour and will provide information on how to support all young people at all stages with a range of approaches to good mental health. A further key context will be to provide ideas as to how parents and carers can support their children’s learning in the months ahead.

A letter is being issued today to all parents and carers about this event. All those who can attend are urged to complete the tear-off slip and return it to the school office as soon as possible and no later than Wednesday 15th January. The meeting has alos been promoted via Twitter. The school Twitter account is @TaylorHS1982.