From:  Gerard McLaughlin, Head of Education (North)

Message to Parents/Carers

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)
·        Clarfication 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 fromMonday

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

Regards

Gerard

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 attached document 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

Link Supporting Children

Following the Scottish Government’s announcement, Woodlands Primary and Nursery will close on Friday 20th March 2020. It will remain closed until further notice.

Tomorrow all children will be provided with a home learning pack to take home. This is to support their learning going forward. Also included in this pack is a letter indicating learning arrangements and plans to help you support your child with home learning.

For children who are currently not in school home learning packs will be available and can be collected from 2pm onwards. If you are self-isolating and unable to come to school tomorrow please contact the office to make special arrangements.

Tomorrow children are encouraged to come to school dressed down and not in their school uniform. We hope to make this Friday a fun and enjoyable day.

Following the most recent advice from Scottish Government and North Lanarkshire Council we regret to inform you that Parents’ Night, The Daffodil Tea, World at Work Week and all afterschool clubs are now cancelled.

Understandably, we know that parents, carers and pupils have a lot of questions around coronavirus and how we are managing this within schools.

It’s important that we follow advice from the government and NHS and only make decisions that are guided by experts.

The advice is clear: anyone displaying the symptoms of the coronavirus should self-isolate at home for 14 days if living with people in a household. Symptoms include a new persistent cough or a high temperature.

This advice applies to everyone, including school pupils who display these symptoms.  In line with national health advice, we are not closing schools where there are reports of pupils with these symptoms. All schools are being cleaned on a daily basis with a particular focus on cleaning surface areas.

These are very challenging times and we thank you for your support and co-operation.

You can also follow @NHS24 on Twitter and Facebook.

Well done to this week’s Star Pupils.

The Cool Class Cup winners are Primary 3. Enjoy your treat!

Amazing accuracy from this week’s Sumdog champions.

As a bit of fun, The Parent Council are running a family competition to recycle any items you can find to build something ‘Woodlands’ related***. Build whatever comes to mind, but it has to be recycled items and it can be as big or as small as you wish. It’s a bit of fun for the whole family.

There will be 3 winners for the whole school, so if you have more than one child, get them all involved, adults included!^.

1st Place – ‘Family Day out’ Two £10 passes for Innoflate Cumbernauld, covers play and socks.

2nd Place – ‘Family Game Night’ Board Game and snacks! Who will be Champion?

3rd Place – ‘Family Movie Night’ A DVD and snacks for a fun night in!

*****All entries have to be in for the 18th March 2020. Enteries can be handed to the class teacher or Mr Green.

 The Parent Council can judge all entries. Winner will be announced on the day of the Parents Evening (Thursday 19th March 2020) and all will be displayed for everyone to see

Friday 13th is Sport Relief. Children are invited to come to school dressed in red, bring their PE kit (no football colours) and bring £1 donation (if they can).